Complement clause comprehension plays a key role in language and cognitive development, particularly in supporting Theory of Mind (ToM). This study examines how bilingual exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affect children's understanding of finite complement clauses introduced by speech verbs (e.g., ‘say’). Children with ASD frequently experience difficulties in complement clauses, especially when these structures encode false beliefs or require complex mental-state reasoning. In contrast, bilingualism has been associated with advantages in executive functions (e.g., working memory, cognitive flexibility) and enhanced ToM abilities, both of which relate to complement clause comprehension. These findings raise the possibility that bilingual experience may mitigate some of the linguistic and cognitive difficulties typically observed in ASD. To investigate these possibilities, we tested 126 children (79 with ASD, 47 neurotypical) using a cross-linguistic picture selection task designed to minimize ToM demands, in either English, French, or German. We explored the role of cognitive (working memory, nonverbal IQ, inhibitory control) and linguistic (syntax, vocabulary) predictors, and continuous measures of bilingual language experience. Results showed that children with ASD performed significantly lower than their neurotypical peers, with more pronounced age-related gains in the neurotypical group. While bilingualism per se did not predict performance, richer and more proficient use of the language of testing positively influenced complement clause comprehension, particularly in children with ASD. Visuospatial working memory, nonverbal IQ, and receptive vocabulary emerged as significant positive predictors of complement clause comprehension, whereas broader syntactic ability and inhibitory control did not. Complement clause comprehension predicted ToM outcomes in children with ASD, but not in neurotypical children, suggesting that complement understanding may serve as a compensatory mechanism for ToM reasoning in autism. These findings highlight that bilingualism is not inherently associated with either advantages or disadvantages for syntactic development and further underscore the intricate links between complements and cognition in ASD.

Complement clauses, such as Mary says that Santa exists, are complex linguistic structures that have been argued to help children grasp others' beliefs when those beliefs do not align with reality. This study investigates whether using children's books containing false-complement clauses can improve false-belief reasoning in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children. The question is whether structured dialogic reading at home, led by parents, improves children's understanding of complex syntax and also false beliefs. The study involved 26 native French-speaking children, 14 with TD and 12 with ASD, aged between 34 and 121 months. Screening ensured that they had not mastered complement clauses or false-belief reasoning. The children's parents participated in a dyadic reading program over 8 weeks, with specially designed books targeting either complement or relative clause structures. A cross-over design was used so that all children were read both of the books but in two orders. Children were tested before, at the change-over point, and after all the training. It was hypothesized that improvement in false-belief tasks would occur only after exposure to the book containing false-complement clauses. Results showed that both ASD and TD children showed significant progress in false-belief tasks after reading the target book, but no improvement after reading the control book. Importantly, this improvement was consistent regardless of the child's clinical status. The relative clause training did not produce similar effects, indicating a specific advantage of complement training for theory of mind development. Statistical analyses confirmed these findings, with significant improvements seen in false complements (P < 0.001) and false beliefs (P < 0.01) across the intervention. In conclusion, the findings align with previous studies that suggest false-complement training boosts performance in false-belief tasks, and highlight the benefits of parent-led, home-based, ecological training of language.

Language interventions may yield greater benefits for younger children than their older counterparts, making it critical to evaluate children's language skills as early as possible. Yet, assessing young children's language presents many challenges, such as limited attention spans, low expressive language, and hesitancy to speak with an unfamiliar examiner. To address these challenges, the Quick Interactive Language Screener for Toddlers (QUILS:TOD; for children 24- to 36-months of age) was developed as a quick, tablet-based language screener capable of assessing children's vocabulary, syntax, and word learning skills. We explored how children's performance on the QUILS:TOD and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, another language screener, at two years of age relates to their performance one year later on the Quick Interactive Language Screener (QUILS), a validated and normed screener for children between three and six years of age. Results revealed that performance on the QUILS:TOD was predictive of QUILS performance, highlighting the utility of the QUILS:TOD for identifying which children at age two would continue to lag behind their peers at age three. Lastly, although all QUILS:TOD areas (vocabulary, syntax, and word learning) were predictive of QUILS performance, the most robust predictor of children's performance on the same receptive language dimensions at 3 years was their syntax, emphasizing the necessity of evaluating language beyond vocabulary.

In this study we compared how well DALL·E 2 and DALL·E 3 visually represented the meaning of linguistic prompts also given to young children in comprehension tests. Sentences representing fundamental components of grammatical knowledge were selected from assessment tests used with several hundred English-speaking children aged 2–7 years for whom we had collected original item-level data. DALL·E 2 was given these prompts five times to generate 20 cartoons per item, for 9 adult judges to score. Results revealed no conditions in which DALL·E 2-generated images that matched the semantic accuracy of children, even at the youngest age (2 years). DALL·E 2 failed to assign the appropriate roles in reversible forms; it fared poorly on negation despite an easier contrastive prompt than the children received; it often assigned the adjective to the wrong noun; it ignored implicit agents in passives. As a follow-up study, we queried DALL·E 3 to generate 8 images each of the same prompts. This demonstrated a consistent failure to compositionally represent syntactic structure (in particular for negation and reversible prepositional phrases), albeit with some improvements from DALL·E 2. This work points to a clear absence of compositional sentence representations for both DALL·E 2 and DALL·E 3.

The research report describes the ability of Kazakh preschool children to tell narratives relating to mental states, and the connection with theory of mind tasks about false beliefs. Three groups of preschool children (N = 29; 3-, 4-, and 5- year-olds) from the city of Almaty were tested in the Kazakh language. The results show very high correlations between understanding false belief tasks and producing effective narratives, even when age is controlled. According to Astington (1998) successful performance on false belief tasks and the ability to tell oral stories shows that the preschool children are becoming prepared for literacy in the Kazakh language as their mother tongue.

IntroductionThe role of language in false belief reasoning has been much debated for twenty-five years or more, especially the relative contributions of general language development, complement syntax, vocabulary, and executive function. However, the empirical studies so far have fallen short, in that they generally have too few participants for adequate statistical modeling; they do not include control variables; or they are cross-sectional rather than longitudinal, making inferences about causal direction much more tenuous.MethodsThe present study considers the role of these different variables in the development of false belief reasoning over several months of testing, with 258 children aged three to five years. The children are also from under-resourced communities, broadening the populations that generally contribute such data.ResultsA cross-sectional and a longitudinal regression analysis reveals the contribution of each variable to the children’s success on the false belief measures. Finally, a structural equation model tests the relative contribution of the different potential factors over time, how they interact, and change. The model is an excellent fit to the data. Inhibitory control, complement comprehension and vocabulary all have effects on false belief reasoning at the first time point (T1). However, at T3, the major proximal contribution is the child’s comprehension of complements, though the longitudinal pathways of vocabulary and inhibitory control also pave the way.DiscussionOur data confirm the specific contribution of complement syntax but also makes clear, as do training studies, that a certain amount of preparedness in vocabulary and in executive function skills is also necessary.

Bilingual children demonstrate varying levels of proficiency in each of the two languages to which they are exposed. Even though it is widely acknowledged that bilingual children are not a homogenous group, existing studies on dual-language profiles in bilingual children have focused on expressive language profiles. In this study, we used the normative data from the Quick Interactive Language Screener: English-Spanish (QUILS:ES; de Villiers et al., 2021; Iglesias et al., 2021) and latent profile analysis to identify dual-language profiles in receptive language skills in a large sample of Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers. We also examined demographic, dual-language experience, and home literacy environment factors that contributed to receptive dual-language profile membership. The optimal model represents a three-profile solution, including a balanced-low profile, an English-dominant average profile, and a balanced-high profile. Comparing participants' profile membership against their age and risk status for language impairment based on the QUILS:ES screening results, we found that while being in an older age group significantly increases a child's likelihood of being in a balanced-high profile, an older child displaying a balanced-low profile is at a higher risk for language impairment. Age, socioeconomic status, and home literacy environment factors were found to be associated with strong dual-language skills, whereas (relative) dual-language experience did not predict profile membership. Together, these findings extend previous work that examined the heterogeneity within Spanish-English bilingual children by demonstrating substantial variability in their receptive language skills and providing insights into malleable factors that may be targeted to support dual-language development.

In this study we compared how well DALL-E 2 visually represented the meaning of linguistic prompts also given to young children in comprehension tests. Sentences representing fundamental components of grammatical knowledge were selected from assessment tests used with several hundred English-speaking children aged 2-7 years for whom we had collected original item-level data. DALL-E 2 was given these prompts five times to generate 20 cartoons per item, for 9 adult judges to score. Results revealed no conditions in which DALL-E 2-generated images that matched the semantic accuracy of children, even at the youngest age (2 years). DALL-E 2 failed to assign the appropriate roles in reversible forms; it failed on negation despite an easier contrastive prompt than the children received; it often assigned the adjective to the wrong noun; it ignored implicit agents in passives. This work points to a clear absence of compositional sentence representations for DALL-E 2.

The paper presents the first comprehensive look at the language development of Romani-speaking children from resource-poor Roma communities in several European countries. 250 participants aged 3- to 10-years participated. The experimental tasks assess knowledge in eight key areas of grammar and morphology, including fast mapping of novel items. The special properties of Romani allow new insights on long distance wh-movement and possessive agreement, and the data question the universality of other distinctions in passives and wh-movement from complements. The results demonstrate that the Roma children as a group are as proficient in their primary language as children in other countries, despite massive economic deficits and lack of parental education. This is important because Roma children are massively overrepresented in special education and "special schools" especially in Eastern Europe, and one contributing factor is their inadequate skill in the state language of their domicile.

Two-part s-possessives such as the dad’s kid’s bike admit at least two distinct interpretations: the dad has a kid who has a bike, or the dad has a bike that is made for kids. We propose that the former interpretation derives from recursively embedding DP-possessives, and the latter from representing kid’s bike as a generic NP-possessive. Accordingly, in the right context, two-part s-possessives are fully ambiguous for adults between ‘recursive’ and ‘generic’ readings. These readings can be disambiguated syntactically. Consider the difference in meaning when we insert a relative clause and extract the constituent kid’s bike — the kid’s bike that is the dad’s — versus when we extract the head noun bike — the bike that is the dad’s kid’s. Our story-based experiment demonstrates that 4-7-year-olds (N=79) and adults (N=68) strongly favor (~80%) the generic interpretation of phrases like the kid’s bike that is the dad’s, as the A-over-A constraint blocks the extraction of a DP-possessive out of a recursive DP. Similarly, adults show a strong preference (~80%) for recursive interpretations of phrases like the bike that is the dad’s kid’s, as the A-over-A constraint blocks the extraction of the head noun bike out of the generic NP-possessive kid’s bike. However, 4-5-year-olds admit generic readings of these recursive phrases 54% of the time; it is not until 6 or 7 years that children show an adult-like preference for the recursive interpretation (~80%). These data support two complementary claims. First, that recursive possessives are acquired late on account of their syntax, and second that children, like adults, represent generic possessives under a different syntactic node than regular possessives.

OBJECTIVE:This study was designed to produce a new parent-report measure, the Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin-Infant Toddler Assessment of Communication and Language (DREAM-IT) in order to provide norms for the developmental skills of children aged 0-36 months in four areas: expressive language, receptive language, cognitive play and social skills.METHODOLOGY:The scale was designed to be both broader and deeper than existing instruments that neglect one or more of these significant domains involved in early language. Items were chosen by a group of specialists with clinical experience working with the age group and with attention to the developmental literature. Caregivers were tested individually by a trained person who asked the questions and provided examples. In addition to an extensive health questionnaire, caregivers answered questions in Mandarin about their child's behaviour using a scale of 'not yet', 'sometimes' or 'always' or listing out words and/or sounds understood or said by the child. The 476 participating caregivers were recruited at maternal and child healthcare clinics centred in Chengdu, China, 191 of whom were tested a second time seven months later. The children were sampled in three-month age-bands from 0 to 36 months. The sample was balanced for child gender by age band, and parental education was balanced. Caregivers of 0-24-month-old children and caregivers of 12-36 months were each asked a different set of questions, to determine the appropriate age range and cutoff points for each question, requiring the sample size to be doubled for children aged 12-24 months.RESULTS:The results were subject to item-response theory analysis to remove outlying items, and the resulting internal reliability was high for each domain (average Cronbach's alpha=0.87). The final instrument (between 67 and 113 questions in total) was refined to include the least redundant questions that had the highest intercorrelations, with attention paid to coverage of all domains across the age range. Two scales were developed: one for children 0-18 months, the second for children aged 18-36 months. The longitudinal design permitted the creation of growth curves and norms for each domain for six-month intervals from 0 to 36 months. A small sample of 32 parents of children with Down syndrome aged 18-36 months provided validation that the scales are highly sensitive to developmental delay.CONCLUSION:The instrument shows considerable promise for detecting early communication problems in children in China.WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS:What is already known on the subject In China, efforts were made in recent years to develop language assessments for infants and toddlers, but limitations existed with the domains included and number of items included per age group. Many clinical practitioners also continued to rely on language subtests of general developmental scales, which were limited in depth and breadth of language skills tested and were never intended for diagnosis of language delay. What this paper adds to existing knowledge This paper discusses the development of a valid caregiver report instrument for early communication and language skills of infants and toddlers in mainland China. The Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin-Infant Toddler (DREAM-IT) includes foundational domains necessary for language and communication development in young children (receptive language, expressive language, cognitive play and social communication domains). The results show strong internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha) for each domain on a sample of 716 children sampled in three-month age bands from 0 to 36 months. The external validity proved strong when tested on a group of 32 young children with Down syndrome. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Besides helping to inform the diagnosis of language delays in infants and toddlers in China, the caregiver report instrument has special features to support clinical practitioners in a field that is just emerging in China. The unique support features include the automatic generation of a profile of relative strengths and weaknesses of the child on the report and the recommendation of child-specific caregiver coaching videos on a companion app.

Background Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a condition that significantly affects children's achievement but has been understudied. We aim to estimate the prevalence of DLD in Shanghai, compare the co-occurrence of difficulties between children with DLD and those with typical development (TD), and investigate the early risk factors for DLD.Methods We estimated DLD prevalence using data from a population-based survey with a cluster random sampling design in Shanghai, China. A subsample of children (aged 5-6 years) received an onsite evaluation, and each child was categorized as TD or DLD. The proportions of children with socio-emotional behavior (SEB) difficulties, low non-verbal IQ (NVIQ), and poor school readiness were calculated among children with TD and DLD. We used multiple imputation to address the missing values of risk factors. Univariate and multivariate regression models adjusted with sampling weights were used to estimate the correlation of each risk factor with DLD.Findings Of 1082 children who were approached for the onsite evaluation, 974 (90.0%) completed the language ability assessments, of whom 74 met the criteria for DLD, resulting in a prevalence of 8.5% (95% CI 6.3-11.5) when adjusted with sampling weights. Compared with TD children, children with DLD had higher rates of concurrent difficulties, including SEB (total difficulties score at-risk: 156 [17.3%] of 900 TD vs. 28 [37.8%] of 74 DLD, p < 0.0001), low NVIQ (3 [0.3%] of 900 TD vs. 8 [10.8%] of 74 DLD, p < 0.0001), and poor school readiness (71 [7.9%] of 900 TD vs. 13 [17.6%] of 74 DLD, p = 0.0040). After accounting for all other risk factors, a higher risk of DLD was associated with a lack of parent-child interaction diversity (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 3.08, 95% CI = 1.29-7.37; p = 0.012) and lower kindergarten levels (compared to demonstration and first level: third level (aOR = 6.15, 95% CI = 1.92-19.63; p = 0.0020)).Interpretation The prevalence of DLD and its co-occurrence with other difficulties suggest the need for further attention. Family and kindergarten factors were found to contribute to DLD, suggesting that multi-sector coordinated efforts are needed to better identify and serve DLD populations at home, in schools, and in clinical settings.

Early screening for language problems is a priority given the importance of language for success in school and interpersonal relationships. The paucity of reliable behavioral instruments for this age group prompted the development of a new touchscreen language screener for 2-year-olds that relies on language comprehension. Developmental literature guided selection of age-appropriate markers of language disorder risk that are culturally and dialectally neutral and could be reliably assessed. Items extend beyond products of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and syntax) and tap the process by which children learn language, also known as fast mapping. After piloting an extensive set of items (139), two phases of testing with over 500 children aged 2; 0-2; 11 were conducted to choose the final 40-item set. Rasch analysis was used to select the best fitting and least redundant items. Norms were created based on 270 children. Sufficient test-retest reliability, Cronbach's alpha, and convergent validity with the MB-CDI and PPVT are reported. This quick behavioral measure of language capabilities could support research studies and facilitate the early detection of language problems.

This is the first known study of the socio-cognitive development of Lyuli children, a Roma-type group living in Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The research was conducted in schools in Bukhara serving both Lyuli children and Uzbek children, both of whom are multi-lingual but whose sociolinguistic circumstances are somewhat different. There has been less cross-cultural work on later stages of Theory of Mind development, in which children have to make inferences about the mental states of characters in a complex narrative. The research here shows that the children from both groups do remarkably well on these tasks, and their multilingualism is hypothesized to be the source of their success relative to other children studied with similar narratives.

INTRODUCTION:This research examined the classification accuracy of the Quick Interactive Language Screener (QUILS) for identifying preschool-aged children (3;0 to 6;9) with developmental language disorder (DLD). We present data from two independent samples that varied in prevalence and diagnostic reference standard.METHODS:Study 1 included a clinical sample of children (54 with DLD; 13 without) who completed the QUILS and a standardized assessment of expressive grammar (Syntax subtest from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced; Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-Preschool 2nd Edition; or Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test-3 rd Edition). Study 2 included a community sample of children (25 with DLD; 101 without) who completed the QUILS and the Auditory Comprehension subtest of the Preschool Language Scales-5th Edition (PLS-5; Zimmerman et al., 2011). Discriminant analyses were conducted to compare classification accuracy (i.e., sensitivity and specificity) using the normreferenced cut score (< 25th percentile) with empirically derived cut scores.RESULTS:In Study 1, the QUILS led to low fail rates (i.e., high specificity) in children without impairment and statistically significant group differences as a function of children's clinical status; however, only 65% of children with DLD were accurately identified using the norm-referenced cutoff. In Study 2, 76% of children with DLD were accurately identified at the 25th percentile cutoff and accuracy improved to 84% when an empirically derived cutoff (<32nd percentile) was applied.CONCLUSIONS:Findings support the clinical application of the QUILS as a component of the screening process for identifying the presence or absence of DLD in community samples of preschool-aged children.

BackgroundLittle is known about the spontaneous speech characteristics of young children with language delay in Mandarin, relative to their peers. Until the recent development of standardized language assessments normed in China on Mandarin-speaking children, it was difficult to independently identify atypically developing children to study their spontaneous speech, and only case studies have been available. AimTo investigate which aspects of spontaneous speech might be distinctive for atypical development in a short play session. Methods & ProceduresA total of 86 Mandarin-speaking children, boys and girls aged 2;6-4;6, were tested using the new standardized assessment for Mandarin, Diagnostic Receptive Expressive Assessment of Mandarin-Comprehensive (DREAM-C), at a major urban hospital in China. Of the children, 39 were identified by DREAM-C as atypically developing in language development (Total Standard score M = 72, SD = 8.9), and 47 scored in the typical range (Total Standard score M = 103, SD = 10.8), using the four scales of Receptive, Expressive Semantics and Syntax. All children then took part in a 15-min semi-structured play session during which their spontaneous speech was recorded by professionals. A variety of games and pictures were used in an attempt to elicit spontaneous questions, negatives and descriptions. Their recorded speech samples were then coded by linguists directly into a database in FilemakerPro for different aspects of vocabulary, sentence variety and grammatical morphemes/structures heard. Outcomes & ResultsThe results describe the characteristics of the speech samples for the typical and atypical groups for age groups 2;6-3.5 (N = 52) and 3;6-4.6 (N = 34). Vocabulary diversity was indicated on an ordinal scale ranging from simple communicative signals including headshakes and words such as 'hi' to 'a rich variety of different content words'. Grammatical diversity similarly ranged from 'only yes/no answers', through to the appearance of multi-clause sentences. Morphosyntax was coded in terms of which morphemes were observed at all in the session, such as aspect markers (LE, ZAI, GUO), and nominal morphemes (DE, GE), and also whether function words such as pronouns, Wh-questions and classifiers were singular or varied in the session. There is considerable optionality in morpheme expression in Mandarin, so measurements such as the percentage supplied in obligatory contexts, though useful for languages such as English, are harder to compute. Nevertheless, the data show change over age in all these aspects of language, and reveal what a typically developing child might be expected to produce in a 15-min sample in such a session. For example, it was rare for the typically developing children by age 3.5 not to have at least simple sentences with some function words, and to use adjectives, nouns and verbs, unlike the children with atypical scores. The morphemes DE, LE and GUO showed significant differences in likelihood across groups for both ages, but BA and ZAI were significantly different only for the older age group. In contrast, GE was common in all groups. The atypical group has markedly lower frequency in several grammatical aspects such as the use of diverse questions, classifiers and pronouns, with much less change across age groups, implying slower growth. The results provide useful information on the relative likelihood of observing different varieties of words, sentence types and morphemes in a short speech sample, which are substantially different in the typical versus atypical groups in both age bands, and change over age. Conclusions & ImplicationsThese data validate the DREAM-C classifications, but the details can also be used to inform the choice of targets for intervention for young children who experience delays in Mandarin language acquisition. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDSWhat is already known on the subjectSpontaneous language samples have been used as a means of studying language in China. However, because of the amount of training and time required to transcribe and analyse spontaneous language samples, there is not yet a sufficient basis for identifying language differences between children with and without language disorder in mainland China. What does this paper add to existing knowledgeAfter using DREAM-C to provide an objective measurement of children with and without language disorders, an easy-to-administer spontaneous language assessment protocol and scoring record form allowed the comparison of the spontaneous language of 39 children with atypically developing language with 47 children who scored in the typical range to observe language differences between those with and without typical language development. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?The study documents differences in vocabulary and sentence variety, and use of different morphemes such as classifiers, passives and aspect markers to aid in choosing targets for intervention by demonstrating the path of development. In addition, the spontaneous language assessment protocol and scoring record form holds promise for allowing clinicians and researchers to more easily study the language of individual children to personalize intervention, but also of groups of children to understand the emergence of basic Mandarin linguistic features.

Developing a language screener for Dual Language Learners presents numerous challenges. We discuss possible solutions for theoretical and methodological problems often encountered in the development of such a test and illustrate possible solutions using a newly developed language screener for Dual Language Learners. The process for developing, validating and norming the screener is also offered as a potential model for the development of other assessments for Dual Language Learners throughout the world. The twelve types of subtests are in three categories: Vocabulary, Syntax, and Process. Results from the Tryout and Norming phase on 362 Dual Language Learners aged 3–5;11 years are presented, together with the results of item selection via IRT, validity, and reliability testing. The advantage of using Best Scores is highlighted as a useful measure to identify children who are at risk for language difficulties that will impact their academic success. Importantly, knowledge is found to be distributed across the languages. Desarrollar un evaluador del lenguaje para estudiantes bilingües presenta numerosas dificultades. Abordamos las posibles soluciones para problemas teóricos y metodológicos que se encuentran a menudo en dichas pruebas, e ilustramos las posibles soluciones utilizando un evaluador recientemente desarrollado para estudiantes bilingües. El proceso de desarrollo, validación y normalización del evaluador se ofrece también como un modelo potencial para el desarrollo de otras evaluaciones de estudiantes bilingües a nivel mundial. Los 12 tipos de subpruebas se reúnen en tres categorías: vocabulario, sintaxis y proceso. Se presentan los resultados de la fase de prueba y normalización en 362 estudiantes bilingües de tres a cinco; 11 años, junto con los resultados de la selección de ítems a través de las pruebas de IRT, validez y fiabilidad. La ventaja de utilizar las mejores puntuaciones destaca como medida útil para identificar a los niños con riesgo de dificultades lingüísticas, las cuales repercutirán en su éxito académico. De manera notable, se ha detectado que el conocimiento se distribuye entre los idiomas.