Children with impairments that make speaking and understanding others difficult are two times more likely to develop mental illnesses later in life, Australian National University researchers have found.
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Shaun Goh and Richard O'Kearney, of the Research School of Psychology, mined data from 19 longitudinal studies of children stretching back to the 1980s to establish a link between specific language impairments and later mental ill health.
Mr Goh said children were diagnosed with specific language impairment by speech therapists when they had a difficulty communicating orally and their trouble could not be attributed to another condition, such as autism or impaired hearing. Children with a specific language impairment may have trouble understanding what other people are saying or struggle in expressing themselves in full sentences, he said.
Mr Goh said previous studies looking at a possible link between language impairments and later mental illness had provided mixed results, and he started his research unsure as to whether it existed.
But by combining the data from many studies it had emerged that children with language impairments were twice as likely as other children to develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, behavioural problems and depression and anxiety.
The PhD student said it was too early to make specific recommendations on how to lessen the risk of mental illness among children with language impairments but simple psychological interventions may be beneficial. Strategies to help a child regulate his or her emotions and build resilience could help, he said.
"The increased level of risk of mental health problems is not as severe and drastic as to warrant a doom and gloom kind of picture," he said.
Mr Goh said he was now looking at long term government data to investigate the impact of different types of parenting and children's temperament on their mental health.
Another study will look at how the way parents interact with their children impacts on their psychological development, through an online questionnaire.
Mr Goh said the way children with language impairments were parented and the way they socialise with other children could prove influential in their long term mental health.
■ Parents can participate in the study at childcommunication.org
