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Imaging genetics provides an opportunity to discern associations between genetic variants and brain imaging phenotypes. Historically, the field has focused on adults and adolescents; very few imaging genetics studies have focused on brain development in infancy and early childhood (from birth to age 6 years). This is an important knowledge gap because developmental changes in the brain during the prenatal and early postnatal period are regulated by dynamic gene expression patterns that likely play an important role in establishing an individual's risk for later psychiatric illness and neurodevelopmental disabilities. In this review, we summarize findings from imaging genetics studies spanning from early infancy to early childhood, with a focus on studies examining genetic risk for neuropsychiatric disorders. We also introduce the Organization for Imaging Genomics in Infancy (ORIGINs), a working group of the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) consortium, which was established to facilitate large-scale imaging genetics studies in infancy and early childhood.

Purpose: This study examines online speech processing in typically developing and late-talking 2-year-old children, comparing both groups' word recognition, word prediction, and word learning. Method: English-acquiring U.S. children, from the "When to Worry" study of language and social--emotional development, were identified as typical talkers (n = 67, M[subscript age] = 27.0 months, SD = 1.4; Study 1) or late talkers (n = 30, M[subscript age] = 27.0 months, SD = 2.0; Study 2). Children completed an eye-tracking task assessing their ability to recognize both nouns and verbs, to use verbs to predict an upcoming noun's referent, and to use verbs to infer the meaning of novel nouns. Results: Both typical and late talkers recognized nouns and verbs and used familiar verbs to predict the referents of upcoming nouns, whether the noun was familiar ("You can eat the apple") or novel ("You can eat the dax"). Late talkers were slower in using familiar nouns to orient to the target and were both slower and less accurate in using familiar verbs to identify the upcoming noun's referent. Notably, however, both groups learned and retained novel word meanings with similar success. Conclusions: Late talkers demonstrated slower lexical processing, especially for verbs. Yet, their success in using familiar verbs to learn novel nouns suggests that, as a group, their slower processing did not impair word learning in this task. This sets the foundation for future work investigating whether these measures predict later language outcomes and can differentiate late talkers with transient delays from those with language disorders.

Purpose: Learning to read is a complex, multifaceted process that relies on several speech and language-related subskills. Individual differences in word reading outcomes are indicated among children with inaccurate speech sound productions, with some of these children developing later reading difficulties. There are inconsistent reports as to whether phonological deficits and/or weaknesses in oral language explain these subsequent reading difficulties. Thus, it remains unclear how variability in speech production accuracy in early childhood may impact reading development. Therefore, the present longitudinal study seeks to clarify the relation between speech sound production accuracy in kindergarten and subsequent reading outcomes with a focus on additional potential mediating factors. Method: Speech accuracy, core preliteracy skills (phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter-name knowledge), and additional potential mediators (phonological memory and oral language abilities) were characterized at the start of formal reading instruction. Word reading, decoding, reading fluency, and comprehension were assessed at the end of second grade. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine factors that mediate the relation between speech accuracy in kindergarten and subsequent reading outcomes. Results: Initial associations between early speech sound production accuracy and subsequent reading outcomes were indicated; however, mediation effects of preliteracy skills (phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge) were identified for word reading, decoding, and reading fluency outcomes. For reading comprehension, mediation effects of preliteracy and vocabulary skills were observed. Conclusions: The relation between speech sound production accuracy and subsequent word reading, decoding, reading fluency, and comprehension was observed to be mediated by preliteracy skills, specifically phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge. For reading comprehension only, vocabulary knowledge were of additional importance.

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been shown to be a strong correlate of reading abilities. RAN also predicts future reading across different ages, ability levels, and languages, and is often used in literacy screening. Thus, understanding the specific relations between early RAN and later reading difficulties is important, particularly for screening. This systematic review and meta-analysis (with N = 60 samples; k = 373 effect sizes; n = 10,513 participants), was the first to test the extent to which measures of RAN assessed before grade school predict future reading performance in English-speaking children. We also tested whether characteristics of the RAN tasks, reading measures, or sample demographics moderate this relationship. We found that overall, kindergarten/preschool RAN is correlated with grade-school reading at r = -0.38, similar in magnitude to previous concurrent meta-analyses that included various ages and languages. We found that alphanumeric RAN tasks were more strongly related to future reading than were non-alphanumeric tasks, as well as that RAN significantly predicts all types of reading measures tested, but more strongly predicts real word than nonword reading. To assess the role of RAN's unique predictive power, we also meta-analyzed the semipartial correlations of early RAN with later reading when controlling for phonological awareness (PA); the result of r[subscript sp] = -0.25 demonstrates RAN's significant, unique contribution beyond PA. These results support shared cognitive resource models in which the similarity between RAN and reading tasks accounts for their correlation. We provide practical guidelines for based on these data for early screening for reading difficulties and dyslexia.

Although language samples are child-friendly and well-suited for obtaining global measures of language production, structured protocols have the potential to elicit many different exemplars of language structures in a shorter amount of time. We created a structured elicitation protocol, the Sentence Diversity Priming Task (SDPT), to efficiently assess sentence diversity in toddlers via video chat platforms. Sentence diversity is operationalized as the number of different subject--verb combinations in active declarative sentences. The task is presented as an animated picture book, with parents serving as the child's primary partner during administration. In this article, we provide the rationale for assessing sentence diversity, describe the task, and present preliminary analyses of compliance and developmental associations for 32 typically developing toddlers, 30-35 months old, with average language abilities. The preliminary findings suggest that the SDPT is an engaging task that holds toddlers' attention, reveals robust individual differences in their ability to produce sentences, is positively correlated with parent-reported language measures, and has the potential for assessing children's language growth over time. Finally, recommendations and tips for developing and remotely administering the protocol are provided, with an emphasis on encouraging parent involvement and increasing toddler compliance.

The power and precision with which humans link language to cognition is unique to our species. By 3-4 months of age, infants have already established this link: simply listening to human language facilitates infants' success in fundamental cognitive processes. Initially, this link to cognition is also engaged by a broader set of acoustic stimuli, including non-human primate vocalizations (but not other sounds, like backwards speech). But by 6 months, non-human primate vocalizations no longer confer this cognitive advantage that persists for speech. What remains unknown is the mechanism by which these sounds influence infant cognition, and how this initially broader set of privileged sounds narrows to only human speech between 4 and 6 months. Here, we recorded 4- and 6-month-olds' EEG responses to acoustic stimuli whose behavioral effects on infant object categorization have been previously established: infant-directed speech, backwards speech, and non-human primate vocalizations. We document that by 6 months, infants' 4-9 Hz neural activity is modulated in response to infant-directed speech and non-human primate vocalizations (the two stimuli that initially support categorization), but that 4--9 Hz neural activity is not modulated at either age by backward speech (an acoustic stimulus that doesn't support categorization at either age). These results advance the prior behavioral evidence to suggest that by 6 months, speech and non-human primate vocalizations elicit distinct changes in infants' cognitive state, influencing performance on foundational cognitive tasks such as object categorization.

Purpose: There has been increased interest in using telepractice for involving more diverse children in research and clinical services, as well as when in-person assessment is challenging, such as during COVID-19. Little is known, however, about the feasibility, reliability, and validity of language samples when conducted via telepractice. Method: Child language samples from parent-child play were recorded either in person in the laboratory or via video chat at home, using parents' preferred commercially available software on their own device. Samples were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Analyses compared measures between-subjects for 46 dyads who completed video chat language samples versus 16 who completed in-person samples; within-subjects analyses were conducted for a subset of 13 dyads who completed both types. Groups did not differ significantly on child age, sex, or socioeconomic status. Results: The number of usable samples and percent of utterances with intelligible audio signal did not differ significantly for in-person versus video chat language samples. Child speech and language characteristics (including mean length of utterance, type-token ratio, number of different words, grammatical errors/omissions, and child speech intelligibility) did not differ significantly between in-person and video chat methods. This was the case for between-group analyses and within-child comparisons. Furthermore, transcription reliability (conducted on a subset of samples) was high and did not differ between in-person and video chat methods. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that child language samples collected via video chat are largely comparable to in-person samples in terms of key speech and language measures. Best practices for maximizing data quality for using video chat language samples are provided.

Background: Event-related potentials (ERPs), which are electrophysiological neural responses time-locked to a stimulus, have become an increasingly common tool in language and communication disorders research. They can provide complementary evidence to behavioural measures as well as unique perspectives on communication disorders. ERPs have the distinct advantage of providing precise information about the timing of neural processes and can be used in cases where it is difficult to obtain responses from participants, such as infants or individuals who are minimally verbal. However, clinicians and clinician-scientists rarely receive training in how to interpret ERP research. Aims: To provide information that allows readers to better understand, interpret and evaluate research using ERPs. We focus on research related to communication sciences and disorders and the information that is most relevant to interpreting research articles. Method: We explain what ERPs are and how ERP data are collected, referencing key texts and primary research articles. Potential threats to validity, guidelines for interpreting data, and the pros and cons using of ERPs are discussed. Research in the area of paediatric language disorders is used as a model; common paradigms such as the semantic incongruity N400 and auditory mismatch negativity are used as tangible examples. With this foundation of understanding ERPs, the state of the field in terms of how ERPs are used and the ways they may inform the field are discussed. Main Contribution: To date, no review has focused on ERPs as they relate to clinical or communication research. The main contribution of this review is that it provides practical information geared toward understanding ERP research. Conclusions: ERPs offer insights into neural processes supporting communication and can both complement behaviour and provide information that behavioural measures cannot. We encourage readers to evaluate articles using ERPs critically, effectively pushing the field forward through increased understanding and rigor.

Purpose: There has been increased interest in using telepractice for involving more diverse children in research and clinical services, as well as when in-person assessment is challenging, such as during COVID-19. Little is known, however, about the feasibility, reliability, and validity of language samples when conducted via telepractice. Method: Child language samples from parent-child play were recorded either in person in the laboratory or via video chat at home, using parents' preferred commercially available software on their own device. Samples were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Analyses compared measures between-subjects for 46 dyads who completed video chat language samples versus 16 who completed in-person samples; within-subjects analyses were conducted for a subset of 13 dyads who completed both types. Groups did not differ significantly on child age, sex, or socioeconomic status. Results: The number of usable samples and percent of utterances with intelligible audio signal did not differ significantly for in-person versus video chat language samples. Child speech and language characteristics (including mean length of utterance, type-token ratio, number of different words, grammatical errors/omissions, and child speech intelligibility) did not differ significantly between in-person and video chat methods. This was the case for between-group analyses and within-child comparisons. Furthermore, transcription reliability (conducted on a subset of samples) was high and did not differ between in-person and video chat methods. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that child language samples collected via video chat are largely comparable to in-person samples in terms of key speech and language measures. Best practices for maximizing data quality for using video chat language samples are provided., Language sampling is a common assessment tool speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and researchers use to evaluate children's spontaneous, expressive language (Costanza-Smith, 2010; Hux et al., 1993). Language samples are often elicited [...]

The neurobiological substrates that cause people with dyslexia to experience difficulty in acquiring accurate and fluent reading skills are still largely unknown. Although structural and functional brain anomalies associated with dyslexia have been reported in adults and school-age children, these anomalies may represent differences in reading experience rather than the etiology of dyslexia. Conducting MRI studies of pre-readers at risk for dyslexia is one approach that enables us to identify brain alterations that exist before differences in reading experience emerge. The current review summarizes MRI studies that examine brain differences associated with risk for dyslexia in children before reading instruction and meta-analyzes these studies. In order to link these findings with current etiological theories of dyslexia, we focus on studies that take a modular perspective rather than a network approach. Although some of the observed differences in pre-readers at risk for dyslexia may still be shaped by language experiences during the first years of life, such studies underscore the existence of reading-related brain anomalies prior to reading onset and could eventually lead to earlier and more precise diagnosis and treatment of dyslexia.

A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed "the visual word form area" (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5- and 6-year-old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school-based reading instruction who varied in their reading ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure responses to individual letters, false fonts, and faces in left and right fusiform gyri. We then evaluated whether signal change and size (spatial extent) of letter-sensitive cortex (greater activation for letters versus faces) and letter-specific cortex (greater activation for letters versus false fonts) in these regions related to (a) standardized measures of word-reading ability and (b) signal change and size of face-sensitive cortex (fusiform face area or FFA; greater activation for faces versus letters). Greater letter specificity, but not letter sensitivity, in left fusiform gyrus correlated positively with word reading scores. Across children, in the left fusiform gyrus, greater size of letter-sensitive cortex correlated with lesser size of FFA. These findings are the first to suggest that in beginning readers, development of letter responsivity in left fusiform cortex is associated with both better reading ability and also a reduction of the size of left FFA that may result in right-hemisphere dominance for face perception.

The double-deficit hypothesis of dyslexia posits that both rapid naming and phonological impairments can cause reading difficulties, and that individuals who have both of these deficits show greater reading impairments compared to those with a single deficit. Despite extensive behavioral research, the brain basis of poor reading with a double-deficit has never been investigated. The goal of the study was to evaluate the double-deficit hypothesis using functional MRI. Activation patterns during a printed word rhyme judgment task in 90 children with a wide range of reading abilities showed dissociation between brain regions that were sensitive to phonological awareness (left inferior frontal and inferior parietal regions) and rapid naming (right cerebellar lobule VI). More specifically, the double-deficit group showed less activation in the fronto-parietal reading network compared to children with only a deficit in phonological awareness, who in turn showed less activation than the typically-reading group. On the other hand, the double-deficit group showed less cerebellar activation compared to children with only a rapid naming deficit, who in turn showed less activation than the typically-reading children. Functional connectivity analyses revealed that bilateral prefrontal regions were key for linking brain regions associated with phonological awareness and rapid naming, with the double-deficit group being the most aberrant in their connectivity. Our study provides the first functional neuroanatomical evidence for the double-deficit hypothesis of developmental dyslexia.

Reading disability (RD) is frequently associated with deficits in auditory processing (i.e., processing speech and non-linguistic sounds). Several hypotheses exist regarding the link between RD and auditory processing, but none fully account for the range/variety of auditory impairments reported in the literature. These impairments have been primarily summarized by qualitative reviews and meta-analytic evidence for most auditory processing impairments is lacking. We conducted a PRISMA-compliant meta-analysis quantifying the degree to which individuals with RD are impaired on four categories of auditory processing abilities: frequency discrimination, intensity discrimination, duration discrimination, and gap detection. This methodology was accepted and executed as a Registered Report. Auditory processing impairments of medium to large effect size were present in RD vs. typical groups for all categories: frequency (g = 0.79), duration (g = 0.80), and intensity discrimination (g = 0.60), as well as gap detection (g = 0.80). No differences were found across task designs (i.e., testing methods). This meta-analysis documents a large, multiple-domain non-linguistic, auditory processing impairment in RD. Contrary to previous studies, we found a significant deficit in intensity discrimination. The impairments described here must be accounted for by future causal hypotheses in RD and suggest that auditory processing impairments are broader than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We provide proof-of-principle for a mental health risk calculator advancing clinical utility of the irritability construct for identification of young children at high risk for common, early onsetting syndromes. Method: Data were harmonized from two longitudinal early childhood subsamples (total N = 403; 50.1% Male; 66.7% Nonwhite; Mage = 4.3 years). The independent subsamples were clinically enriched via disruptive behavior and violence (Subsample 1) and depression (Subsample 2). In longitudinal models, epidemiologic risk prediction methods for risk calculators were applied to test the utility of the transdiagnostic indicator, early childhood irritability, in the context of other developmental and social-ecological indicators to predict risk of internalizing/externalizing disorders at preadolescence (Mage = 9.9 years). Predictors were retained when they improved model discrimination (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC] and integrated discrimination index [IDI]) beyond the base demographic model. Results: Compared to the base model, the addition of early childhood irritability and adverse childhood experiences significantly improved the AUC (0.765) and IDI slope (0.192). Overall, 23% of preschoolers went on to develop a preadolescent internalizing/externalizing disorder. For preschoolers with both elevated irritability and adverse childhood experiences, the likelihood of an internalizing/externalizing disorder was 39–66%. Conclusions: Predictive analytic tools enable personalized prediction of psychopathological risk for irritable young children, holding transformative potential for clinical translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that early identification of developmental dyslexia is important for mitigating the negative effects of dyslexia, including reduced educational attainment and increased socioemotional difficulties. The strongest pre-literacy predictors of dyslexia are rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness (PA), letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory. The relationship among these constructs has been debated, and several theories have emerged to explain the unique role of each in reading ability/disability. Furthermore, the stability of identification of risk based on these measures varies widely across studies, due in part to the different cut-offs employed to designate risk. We applied a latent profile analysis technique with a diverse sample of 1215 kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students from 20 schools, to investigate whether PA, RAN, letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory measures differentiated between homogenous profiles of performance on these measures. Six profiles of performance emerged from the data: average performers, below average performers, high performers, PA risk, RAN risk, and double-deficit risk (both PA and RAN). A latent class regression model was employed to investigate the longitudinal stability of these groups in a representative subset of children (n = 95) nearly two years later, at the end of 1st grade. Profile membership in the spring semester of pre-kindergarten or fall semester of kindergarten was significantly predictive of later reading performance, with the specific patterns of performance on the different constructs remaining stable across the years. There was a higher frequency of PA and RAN deficits in children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. There was no evidence for the IQ-achievement discrepancy criterion traditionally used to diagnose dyslexia. Our results support the feasibility of early identification of dyslexia risk and point to the heterogeneity of risk profiles. These findings carry important implications for improving outcomes for children with dyslexia, based on more targeted interventions.

How do people spell the thousands of words at the tips of their tongues? Are words with "regular" sound-to-letter correspondences (e.g., "blink") spelled using the same neural systems as those with "irregular" correspondences (e.g., "yacht")? By offering novel neuroimaging evidence, we aim to advance contemporary debate about whether people use a "single" lexical memory process or whether "dual" mechanisms of lexical memory and sublexical phonological rules work in concert. We further aim to advance understanding of how people read by taking a fresh look at the related yet distinct capacity to spell. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, 12 participants heard low-frequency regular words, irregular words, and nonwords (e.g., "shelm") and responded whether a visual presentation of the word was spelled correctly or incorrectly. While behavioral measures suggested some differences in accuracy and reaction time for the different word types, the neuroimaging results alone demonstrated robust differential processing and support a dual-route model of spelling, with implications for how spelling is taught and remediated in clinical and educational contexts.

The association between prenatal stress and children's socioemotional development is well established. The COVID‐19 pandemic has been a particularly stressful period, which may impact the gestational environment. However, most studies to‐date have examined prenatal stress at a single time point, potentially masking the natural variation in stress that occurs over time, especially during a time as uncertain as the pandemic. This study leveraged dense ecological momentary assessments from a prenatal randomized control trial to examine patterns of prenatal stress over a 14‐week period (up to four assessments/day) in a U.S. sample of 72 mothers and infants. We first examined whether varied features of stress exposure (lability, mean, and baseline stress) differed depending on whether mothers reported on their stress before or during the pandemic. We next examined which features of stress were associated with 3‐month‐old infants' negative affect. We did not find differences in stress patterns before and during the pandemic. However, greater stress lability, accounting for baseline and mean stress, was associated with higher infant negative affect. These findings suggest that pathways from prenatal stress exposure to infant socioemotional development are complex, and close attention to stress patterns over time will be important for explicating these pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]