Common variation near ROBO2 is associated with expressive vocabulary in infancy

Twin studies suggest that expressive vocabulary at ~24 months is modestly heritable. However, the genes influencing this early linguistic phenotype are unknown. Here we conduct a genome-wide screen and follow-up study of expressive vocabulary in toddlers of European descent from up to four studies of the EArly Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology consortium, analysing an early (15–18 months, ‘one-word stage’, NTotal=8,889) and a later (24–30 months, ‘two-word stage’, NTotal=10,819) phase of language acquisition. For the early phase, one single-nucleotide polymorphism (rs7642482) at 3p12.3 near ​ROBO2, encoding a conserved axon-binding receptor, reaches the genome-wide significance level (P=1.3 × 10−8) in the combined sample. This association links language-related common genetic variation in the general population to a potential autism susceptibility locus and a linkage region for dyslexia, speech-sound disorder and reading. The contribution of common genetic influences is, although modest, supported by genome-wide complex trait analysis (meta-GCTA h215–18-months=0.13, meta-GCTA h224–30-months=0.14) and in concordance with additional twin analysis (5,733 pairs of European descent, h224-months=0.20)

Factors associated with the early language development of New Zealand children

Poster PresentationProblem under investigation. This project was undertaken to establish reliable, population-based normative data on the early language development of children growing up in New Zealand (NZ). The project had two aims: (1) to develop nationally representative norms for early vocabulary and grammar based on a NZ adaptation of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words & Sentences (NZ CDI:WS) and (2) to examine their association with demographic, family and child variables. Methods. The target population was parents of monolingual, English-speaking children aged 16-30 months living in NZ. We aimed to collect data on 100 girls and 100 boys at each month of age via a dedicated website (www.kidswords.org), where parents completed an online version of the NZ CDI:WS and a demographic questionnaire. Parents of over 2,600 children participated, representing 87% of our target. 51% of the children were girls; 62% were first-born; 3% were twins and all 16 regions of NZ were represented. Results and conclusion. Children’s expressive vocabulary size ranged from a mean of 67 words (95% CI = 58, 76) at age 16 months to 477 words (95% CI = 453, 502) at 30 months. Age accounted for 47% of the variance in vocabulary size in this age range, while sex, birth order, and whether the child was a twin accounted for 3% additional variance. Similarly, age accounted for 42% of the variance in grammatical complexity scores (CDI section E), with the same factors accounting for 1.6% additional variance. Vocabulary size and grammatical complexity scores were highly correlated (r = .85; 95% CI = .84, 1.00). Percentiles for vocabulary size will be presented and cross-linguistic comparisons will be made between the NZ data and CDI data from other countries. Further uses of the data collected from this project will be discussed

Makroökonomische Daten zur Messung von Outsourcing

Produktion, Outsourcing, Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen, E01, L16, L23, L60, Outsourcing, Industrial organization, National accounts,

School-age outcomes of late-talking toddlers: Long-term effects of an early lexical deficit

Background Early intervention for children identified as late talkers (LTs) at the age of 24 months is still a controversial issue in research and clinical routine. Previous studies have shown inconsistent results regarding predictors of early lexical deficits on school-age outcomes of late-talking toddlers. Methods In a five-wave follow-up study, we investigated various aspects of language and literacy abilities in 39 German-speaking third-graders who had been identified as LTs at the age of 24 months, compared to 39 typically developing children (TDC) also attending the third grade. The duration of auditory sensory memory was examined at the age of 4 years using mismatch negativity (MMN) of tones - an event-related potential not confounded by any language skill. In addition, the predictive value of memory performance was examined in a longitudinal perspective. Results Overall, LTs scored within normal range in language and literacy assessments. However, LTs differed from TDC in vocabulary size, verbalization of semantic relations, non-word repetition, and spelling. The findings can be explained by phonological working memory. The duration of auditory sensory memory and spatial working memory did not account for any variance. Conclusions LTs sustain persistent phonological processing limitations even though their native language and literacy performance lay within the normal range at school age. Further research on second language acquisition, academic achievements, and the efficacy of early intervention in late-talking toddlers is recommended