title: Language and Social Competence in Childhood: Synthesizing Existing Literature and Examining Developmental Pathways
Creators: name: Wieczorek, Karolina Marta
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: language
subject: social competence
subject: children
subject: developmental language disorder
subject: Education--Social Sciences
subject: Mental Health
subject: Psychology--Developmental
subject: Speech Pathology
subject: Psychology--Clinical

description: In this dissertation, I examined the connections between language and social competence in children. These associations were examined in children ranging from 2 to 12 years of age, and who demonstrated diverse language abilities ranging from clinical difficulties to those showcasing typical language development. Associations were examined using two approaches: 1) via systematic review and meta-analysis of existing literature, while assessing for moderators, and 2) via drawing on a large prospective cohort to examine longitudinal mediation pathways. In Chapter Two, I conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the association between language and social competence in children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and assessed relevant moderators of this association. Merging results from 21 studies and 6,830 children, a significant association was found between language and social competence in children with DLD (r = .18; 95% confidence interval = .12–.24; p &lt; .001), that was small in magnitude. The association was moderated by language aspect, with no other moderators significantly influencing the association of interest. In Chapter Three, I completed a systematic review and three meta-analyses to explore links between social competence and three types of language skills (i.e., overall, receptive, and expressive) in typically developing children. In combining the results from 130 studies and 62,120 children, significant associations were found were between social competence and overall language (r = .27, 95% confidence interval [.21, .32], p &lt;.001), receptive language (r = .23, 95% confidence interval [.20, .27], p &lt;.001) and expressive language (r = .20, 95% confidence interval [.16, .24], p &lt;.001), that were medium in magnitude. Associations were moderated by study design (i.e., overall language, expressive language), social type (i.e., overall language), geographic region (i.e., expressive language), and publication status (i.e., receptive language). No other moderators significantly impacted the associations of interest. In Chapter Four, I facilitated a longitudinal mediation analysis to explore developmental pathways between language and social skills in a large, prospective cohort called All Our Families (AOF). Specifically, I drew on a sample of 3,387 children to examine pathways between expressive language in toddlerhood, to social skills in middle childhood, via core language and pragmatic language around the time of school entry (i.e., examining pathways from 2 to 5 to 8 years of age). Several covariates known to impact language development were controlled for in the analyses. Via examining indirect effects, it was found that pragmatic language, but not core language, partially mediated the pathway of interest. In Chapter Five, I integrate the findings from the three studies, discuss implications and highlight limitations of my dissertation research. Together, my dissertation provides support for the longstanding notion that language and social competence are related during childhood, and enhances the knowledge base regarding the nuances of these relations in children with varying language skills.