1. Socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with prevalence of developmental language disorders, but not rate of language or literacy growth in children from 4 to 11 years: evidence from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study (SCALES)
- Author
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Emily Simonoff, Courtenay Frazier Norbury, Vamvakas G, Andrew Pickles, Tony Charman, Gillian Baird, and Griffiths Sl
- Subjects
Gerontology ,Vocabulary ,media_common.quotation_subject ,education ,Psychological intervention ,medicine.disease ,Literacy ,Disadvantaged ,Language assessment ,medicine ,Language proficiency ,Language disorder ,Psychology ,Socioeconomic status ,media_common - Abstract
Background: Language ability is associated with socio-economic factors. Here we investigate the long-term association between socio-economic disadvantage and the prevalence and persistence of language disorder. Methods: Teachers rated the language skills of 7267 children starting school in Surrey, UK (aged 4;9-5;10, 59% eligible children). Comprehensive language assessment was conducted with a monolingual sub-sample in Year 1 (n = 529, age 5-6), Year 3 (n = 499, age 7-8), and Year 6 (n = 384, age 10-11). Logistic regression determined the association of Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index scores (IDACI) and language proficiency. Structural Equation Models estimated the association of IDACI and prevalence of developmental Language Disorder (LD) in Year 1, and IDACI and language and literacy growth from Years 1 – 6. Findings: Predicted probability of language disorder was 2.5 times greater at the 10 th centile of IDACI rank (.19 [.11, .27]) versus the 90th centile (.07 [.04, .09]). IDACI rank did not associate with growth in raw scores on any measure of language or word reading. Socioeconomic gaps in vocabulary and sentence recall throughout primary school were ameliorated when language status at school entry was accounted for, but persisted for word reading. Interpretation: The association of neighbourhood disadvantage with language and literacy primarily reflects higher rates of language disorder in areas of socio-economic deprivation. Interventions that alleviate deprivation and enhance the language and literacy experiences of disadvantaged children could reduce socioeconomic attainment gaps. However, the persistence of language disorder suggests on-going support is required to attenuate personal and societal cost. Funding: Wellcome: WT094836AIA and Economic and Social Research Council: ES/R003041/1 (Norbury); NIHR KCL/South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Biomedical Research Centre and Senior Investigator Awards NF-SI-0617-10120 (Pickles) and NIHR200242 (Simonoff). Declaration of Interest: None to declare. Ethical Approval: Consent procedures and study protocol were developed in consultation with Surrey County Council and approved by the Royal Holloway Ethics Committee (where the study was initiated) in Year 1 and the UCL Research Ethics Committee in Year 6 (9733/002).
- Published
- 2021