Economic and Social Research Council
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Sociability helps language-impaired children

About one in 15 British children has a language impairment which affects their ability to learn and use language despite otherwise normal development, meaning that each year over 56,000 children start school with language difficulties.

As these difficulties can persist into adulthood, with potential adverse effects on wellbeing, researchers investigated factors that can enhance resilience of children with Language Impairments (LI).

Using the Manchester Language Study, the UK's largest longitudinal study of individuals with language impairments, researchers identified the frequent sociability of children with LI as a positive strength and a source of resilience. Seventy-one per cent of children with LI were found to be highly 'prosocial', bringing positive ‘prosocial’ attributes to interactions with others, including being helpful and sharing, showing kindness and consideration, cooperating and expressing empathy.

To date, there has been no systematic effort to build on these prosocial tendencies in intervention programmes. "It is more common to target areas of deficits rather than strengths," says Professor Conti-Ramsden. Language intervention has the potential to change the developmental course of children’s language difficulties and improve long-term outcomes. "But it may be time to re-think intervention goals for children with LI that include developing existing strengths that can in turn influence longer-term outcomes," she stresses.

Further information

This article was published in the Summer 2016 issue of the Society Now magazine.

Channel website: http://www.esrc.ac.uk

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