Pathways From Early Vocabulary to School-Age Social Skills: Findings From a Large Prospective Cohort Study

Abstract

This study investigated developmental pathways between early language and later social skills in a large, prospective cohort consisting of 3387 mother-child dyads. Mediational pathways were examined between parent-reported expressive language (at 2 years of age) and social skills (at 8 years of age), via core language and pragmatic language (at 5 years of age). The analyses accounted for biological and environmental factors known to be associated with language development (i.e., child sex at birth, child birthweight, family income, mother's level of education, primary language spoken in the home, and perinatal health factors). Results indicated that pragmatic language, but not core language, acted as a significant partial mediator in the pathway of interest. These results support a developmental chain from early expressive language in toddlerhood to subsequent social skills in middle childhood via pragmatic language skills around school entry. Implications for theory and practice, and limitations are reviewed.

Summary

• Using a large prospective cohort study, we investigated developmental pathways between early language at 2 years and social skills at 8 years.
• Pragmatic language at age 5, but not core language, acted a significant partial mediator in pathway of interest.
• These results support a developmental chain from early expressive language in toddlerhood to social skills in middle childhood via pragmatic language skills around school entry.