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Developmental Associations Between Conduct Problems and Expressive Language in Early Childhood: A Population-Based Study

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Abstract

Conduct problems have been associated with poor language development, however the direction of this association in early childhood remains unclear. This study examined the longitudinal directional associations between conduct problems and expressive language ability. Children enrolled in the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N = 14, 004; 50.3 % boys) were assessed at 3 and 5 years of age. Parent reports of conduct problems and standardised assessments of expressive language were analyzed using cross-lagged modeling. Conduct problems at 3 years was associated with poorer expressive language at 5 years and poorer expressive language at 3 years was associated with increased conduct problems by 5 years. The results support reciprocal associations, rather than a specific unidirectional path, which is commonly found with samples of older children. The emergence of problems in either domain can thus negatively impact upon the other over time, albeit the effects were modest. Studies examining the effects of intervention targeting conduct problems and language acquisition prior to school entry may be warranted in testing the efficacy of prevention programmes related to conduct problems and poor language ability early in childhood.

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Notes

  1. Amendments have since been made to the child benefit scheme in the UK, which are now means-tested. As of 2013, eligibility is determined based on family income.

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Acknowledgments

Permission to use the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study given by the ESRC Data Archive at Essex is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank the participants and their families for their long-term commitment to this study. We would also like to acknowledge Xuecheng Liu for his statistical expertise.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Lisa-Christine Girard

    Present address: School of Public Health, Physiotherapy, and Population Sciences, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Room B205, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP), Université de Montreal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Lisa-Christine Girard & Richard E. Tremblay

  2. Paris-Sud Innovation Group in Adolescent Mental Health, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM U669), Inserm U669 97 Boulevard du Port-Royal, 75679, Paris cedex 14, France

    Lisa-Christine Girard & Bruno Falissard

  3. Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK

    Jean-Baptiste Pingault

  4. School of Economics, Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Orla Doyle

  5. Faculté de Médecine, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France

    Bruno Falissard

  6. Faculté de Médecine, Université Paris-Descartes, Paris, France

    Bruno Falissard

  7. Institute of Genetic, Neurobiological, and Social Foundations of Child Development, Tomsk State University, Tomsk Oblast, Russian Federation

    Richard E. Tremblay

  8. Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Richard E. Tremblay

  9. School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Richard E. Tremblay

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  1. Lisa-Christine Girard
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Correspondence to Lisa-Christine Girard.

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Girard, LC., Pingault, JB., Doyle, O. et al. Developmental Associations Between Conduct Problems and Expressive Language in Early Childhood: A Population-Based Study. J Abnorm Child Psychol 44, 1033–1043 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0094-8

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