Predictive Measures in Child Language Development: The Role of Familial History and Early Expressive Vocabulary Elena Capelli, Chiara Dondena, Maria Luisa Lorusso, Sara Mascheretti, Raffaella Pozzoli, Antonio Salandi, Massimo Molteni, Valentina Riva, Chiara Cantiani Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 2024 Purpose: Prediction of developmental language disorder in children under 3 years of age is challenging. Among early risk factors, research has focused on having a positive familial history (FH+) for language or literacy problems and on late language emergence, that is, late-talker (LT) status. The interaction between these two risk factors and their cumulative effect is still debated. Here, we (a) investigate the effect of FH+ on 24-month language development, (b) test for cumulative effects of FH+ status and early language delay on 36-month language outcomes, and (c) disentangle the direct and indirect effects of familial history (FH) on the language outcome. Method: One hundred eighty-five Italian children were followed up longitudinally between 24 and 36 months of age (64 FH+ and 121 FH−) through parental questionnaires and direct child assessment. Results: At the age of 24 months, the FH+ group showed worse expressive vocabulary and higher prevalence of LT. At the age of 36 months, main effects of LT and FH were identified on lexical and phonological performances, respectively. Interestingly, significant interaction effects were identified on expressive vocabulary and phonological processing. Path analysis highlights that FH had a direct effect on later measures of phonology, whereas its effect on 36-month lexical abilities was indirect, via measures of expressive vocabulary at 24 months. Conclusions: The study suggests specific predictive roles of FH and LT status on language development. Interestingly, FH+ seems to represent an additive risk for LT children. The use of cumulative risk measures is confirmed as a powerful approach to identify those children with the highest probability of developing persistent language difficulties. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.26790580
EEG Functional Connectivity Analysis for the Study of the Brain Maturation in the First Year of Life Anna Falivene, Chiara Cantiani, Chiara Dondena, Elena Maria Riboldi, Valentina Riva, Caterina Piazza Sensors, 2024 Brain networks are hypothesized to undergo significant changes over development, particularly during infancy. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate brain maturation in the first year of life in terms of electrophysiological (EEG) functional connectivity (FC). Whole-brain FC metrics (i.e., magnitude-squared coherence, phase lag index, and parameters derived from graph theory) were extracted, for multiple frequency bands, from baseline EEG data recorded from 146 typically developing infants at 6 (T6) and 12 (T12) months of age. Generalized linear mixed models were used to test for significant differences in the computed metrics considering time point and sex as fixed effects. Correlational analyses were performed to ascertain the potential relationship between FC and subjects’ cognitive and language level, assessed with the Bayley-III scale at 24 (T24) months of age. The results obtained highlighted an increased FC, for all the analyzed frequency bands, at T12 with respect to T6. Correlational analyses yielded evidence of the relationship between FC metrics at T12 and cognition. Despite some limitations, our study represents one of the first attempts to evaluate brain network evolution during the first year of life while accounting for correspondence between functional maturation and cognitive improvement.
“Armonia” project: Musical rhythmic activities to sustain linguistic inclusion in kindergartens, supported by technology Chiara Cantiani, Chiara Dondena, Roberta Agostoni, Maria Luisa Lorusso Ricerche Di Psicologia, 2024 Il progetto ARMONIA si propone di favorire l'inclusione nel contesto prescolare attraverso il superamento delle barriere legate al linguaggio. Questo obiettivo chiama le realtà sanitarie e educative a collaborare in rete sfruttando le nuove tecnologie e le più recenti conoscenze scientifiche. La tecnologia offre strumenti sempre più efficienti per evidenziare precocemente la possibile presenza di fragilità nello sviluppo linguistico, anche in bambini di madrelingua non italiana. La ricerca scientifica sta evidenziando come il potenziamento precoce di abilità ritmico-musicali, in contesti ecologici e ludici, può essere un fattore decisivo per un buono sviluppo linguistico. Il progetto ARMONIA si pone quindi l'obiettivo di far crescere una rete di collaborazione tra scuole d'infanzia, famiglie e specialisti dell'età evolutiva finalizzata al potenziamento delle competenze comunicative-linguistiche, tramite delle attività ritmico-musicali proposte all'interno del contesto scolastico tramite la piattaforma digitale MuLiMi. Sono stati inclusi nello studio 218 bambini di età prescolare, tra cui bambini monolingui senza (n = 106) e con fragilità linguistico-comunicative (n = 40), e bambini non madrelingua italiana (n = 72). Tutti i bambini sono stati valutati in tre momenti dell'anno scolastico attraverso una batteria di test implementati sulla piattaforma digitale MuLiMi per l'indagine di competenze verbali (vocabolario e competenze grammaticali ricettive, apprendimento di nuove parole, ripetizione di non-parole) e non verbali (discriminazione di ritmi e sincronizzazione ritmica). In aggiunta, informazioni sono state raccolte dalle docenti e dai genitori tramite questionari. Le attività ritmico-musicali, proposte tramite la piattaforma MuLiMi, sono state svolte a scuola dalle docenti opportunamente formate e hanno riguardato le seguenti aree: elaborazione acustica non-linguistica e linguistica, elaborazione prosodica, e sincronizzazione ritmica.Lo studio è tutt'ora in corso. Si attendono benefici immediati per i bambini delle scuole coinvolte nella sperimentazione. Si attendono inoltre benefici per la comunità scolastica allargata: la rete di comunicazione scuola-famiglia-specialisti testata all'interno del progetto potrebbe favorire l'individuazione precoce di situazioni da monitorare, e l'utilizzo di attività di potenziamento potranno concorrere alla riduzione delle situazioni di disagio e ad una migliore integrazione dei bambini e delle loro famiglie nei contesti di riferimento.
Application of Machine Learning Analysis of EEG Connectivity Data and Environmental Factors for the Identification of neurodevelopmental conditions Caterina Piazza, Anna Falivene, Shalini Pandurangan, Silvia Rapella, Chiara Dondena, Elena Maria Riboldi, Chiara Cantiani, Valentina Riva 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications Memea 2024 Proceedings, 2024 Nowadays neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) represent an important health issue and much effort is devoted to improve the process of diagnosis. The combination of objective data coming from different domains might improve the prediction of NDDs. Machine learning (ML) techniques represent a promising tool to reach this aim. The goal of the present work was to combine EEG functional connectivity, socio-demographic and environmental features to distinguish between infants at higher and lower likelihood of developing NDDs (HL-NDDs VS LL NDDs infants), specifically autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and language learning impairments (LLI). Data acquired in 302 infants (148 LL-NDDs and 154 HL-NDDs) were analyzed with support vector machine (SVM). The average model accuracy during test phase was 62.7%• Despite the accuracy was lower in respect to the values reported in the literature, we found the model performance acceptable considering that HL-NDDs group was made by infants at risk for two different types of NDDs (i.e. ASD and LLI) and that the classification was not based on clinical outcomes but only on the risk status.
Comparing remote versus in-person assessment of learning skills in children with specific learning disabilities Valentina Lampis, Chiara Dondena, Chiara Mauri, Martina Villa, Antonio Salandi, Massimo Molteni, Chiara Cantiani, Sara Mascheretti Digital Health, 2024 Background Interactive telemedicine applications have been progressively introduced in the assessment of cognitive and literacy skills. However, there is still a lack of research focusing on the validity of this methodology for the neuropsychological assessment of children with Specific Learning Disorder (SLD). Methods Seventy-nine children including 40 typically developing children (18 males, age 11.5 ± 1.06) and 39 children with SLD (24 males, age 12.3 ± 1.28) were recruited. Each participant underwent the same neuropsychological battery assessing reading accuracy, speed, and comprehension, writing, numerical processing, computation, and semantic numerical sense, twice (once during an in-person session (I) and once during a remote (R) home-based videoconference session). Four groups were subsequently defined based on the administration order. Repeated-measure-ANOVAs with assessment type (R vs. I testing) as within-subject factor and diagnosis (SLD vs. TR) and administration order (R-I vs. I-R) as between-subject factors, and between-group t-tests comparing the two assessment types within each time of administration, were run. Results No differences emerged between I and R assessments of reading accuracy and speed, numerical processing, and computation; on the contrary, potential biases against R assessment emerged when evaluating skills in writing, reading comprehension, and semantic numerical sense. However, regardless of the assessment type, the scores obtained with I and R assessments within the same administration time point overlapped. Discussion These results partially support the validity and reliability of the assessment of children's learning skills via a remote home-based videoconferencing system. Implementing telemedicine as an assessment tool may increase timely access to primary health care and to support research activity.
Baseline EEG in the first year of life: Preliminary insights into the development of autism spectrum disorder and language impairments Caterina Piazza, Chiara Dondena, Elena Maria Riboldi, Valentina Riva, Chiara Cantiani Iscience, 2023 Early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders is important to ensure a prompt and effective intervention, thus improving the later outcome. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and language learning impairment (LLI) are among the most common neurodevelopmental disorders, and they share overlapping symptoms. This study aims to characterize baseline electroencephalography (EEG) spectral power in 6- and 12-month-old infants at higher likelihood of developing ASD and LLI, compared to typically developing infants, and to preliminarily verify if spectral power components associated with the risk status are also linked with the later ASD or LLI diagnosis. We found risk status for ASD to be associated with reduced power in the low-frequency bands and risk status for LLI with increased power in the high-frequency bands. Interestingly, later diagnosis shared similar associations, thus supporting the potential role of EEG spectral power as a biomarker useful for understanding pathophysiology and classifying diagnostic outcomes.
Intergenerational longitudinal associations between parental reading/musical traits, infants’ auditory processing, and later phonological awareness skills Chiara Cantiani, Chiara Dondena, Massimo Molteni, Valentina Riva, Maria Luisa Lorusso Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2023 The intergenerational transmission of language/reading skills has been demonstrated by evidence reporting that parental literacy abilities contribute to the prediction of their offspring’s language and reading skills. According to the “Intergenerational Multiple Deficit Model,” literacy abilities of both parents are viewed as indicators of offspring’s liability for literacy difficulties, since parents provide offspring with genetic and environmental endowment. Recently, studies focusing on the heritability of musical traits reached similar conclusions. The “Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment (MAPLE)” framework proposed that language/reading and musical traits share a common genetic architecture, and such shared components have an influence on the heritable neural underpinnings of basic-level skills underlying musical and language traits. Here, we investigate the intergenerational transmission of parental musical and language-related (reading) abilities on their offspring’s neural response to a basic auditory stimulation (neural intermediate phenotype) and later phonological awareness skills, including in this complex association pattern the mediating effect of home environment. One-hundred and seventy-six families were involved in this study. Through self-report questionnaires we assessed parental reading abilities and musicality, as well as home literacy and musical environment. Offspring were involved in a longitudinal study: auditory processing was measured at 6 months of age by means of a Rapid Auditory Processing electrophysiological paradigm, and phonological awareness was assessed behaviorally at 5 years of age. Results reveal significant correlations between parents’ reading skills and musical traits. Intergenerational associations were investigated through mediation analyses using structural equation modeling. For reading traits, the results revealed that paternal reading was indirectly associated with children’s phonological awareness skills via their electrophysiological MisMatch Response at 6 months, while maternal reading was directly associated with children’s phonological awareness. For musical traits, we found again that paternal musicality, rather than maternal characteristics, was associated with children’s phonological phenotypes: in this case, the association was mediated by musical environment. These results provide some insight about the intergenerational pathways linking parental reading and musical traits, neural underpinnings of infants’ auditory processing and later phonological awareness skills. Besides shedding light on possible intergenerational transmission mechanisms, this study may open up new perspectives for early intervention based on environmental enrichment.
Synchronizing with the rhythm: Infant neural entrainment to complex musical and speech stimuli Chiara Cantiani, Chiara Dondena, Massimo Molteni, Valentina Riva, Caterina Piazza Frontiers in Psychology, 2022 Neural entrainment is defined as the process whereby brain activity, and more specifically neuronal oscillations measured by EEG, synchronize with exogenous stimulus rhythms. Despite the importance that neural oscillations have assumed in recent years in the field of auditory neuroscience and speech perception, in human infants the oscillatory brain rhythms and their synchronization with complex auditory exogenous rhythms are still relatively unexplored. In the present study, we investigate infant neural entrainment to complex non-speech (musical) and speech rhythmic stimuli; we provide a developmental analysis to explore potential similarities and differences between infants’ and adults’ ability to entrain to the stimuli; and we analyze the associations between infants’ neural entrainment measures and the concurrent level of development. 25 8-month-old infants were included in the study. Their EEG signals were recorded while they passively listened to non-speech and speech rhythmic stimuli modulated at different rates. In addition, Bayley Scales were administered to all infants to assess their cognitive, language, and social-emotional development. Neural entrainment to the incoming rhythms was measured in the form of peaks emerging from the EEG spectrum at frequencies corresponding to the rhythm envelope. Analyses of the EEG spectrum revealed clear responses above the noise floor at frequencies corresponding to the rhythm envelope, suggesting that – similarly to adults – infants at 8 months of age were capable of entraining to the incoming complex auditory rhythms. Infants’ measures of neural entrainment were associated with concurrent measures of cognitive and social-emotional development.
Atypical ERP responses to audiovisual speech integration and sensory responsiveness in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder Valentina Riva, Elena Maria Riboldi, Chiara Dondena, Caterina Piazza, Massimo Molteni, Chiara Cantiani Infancy, 2022 Atypical sensory responses are included in the diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Autistic individuals perform poorly during conditions that require integration across multiple sensory modalities such as audiovisual (AV) integration. Previous research investigated neural processing of AV integration in infancy. Yet, this has never been studied in infants at higher likelihood of later ASD (HR) using neurophysiological (EEG/ERP) techniques. In this study, we investigated whether ERP measures of AV integration differentiate HR infants from low-risk (LR) infants and whether early AV integration abilities are associated with clinical measures of sensory responsiveness. At age 12 months, AV integration in HR (n = 21) and LR infants (n = 19) was characterized in a novel ERP paradigm measuring the McGurk effect, and clinical measures of sensory responsiveness were evaluated. Different brain responses over the left temporal area emerge between HR and LR infants, specifically when AV stimuli cannot be integrated into a fusible percept. Furthermore, ERP responses related to integration of AV incongruent stimuli were found to be associated with sensory responsiveness, with reduced effects of AV incongruency being associated with reduced sensory reactivity. These data suggest that early identification of AV deficits may pave the way to innovative therapeutic strategies for the autistic symptomatology. Further replications in independent cohorts are needed for generalizability of findings.
Impact of Early Rhythmic Training on Language Acquisition and Electrophysiological Functioning Underlying Auditory Processing: Feasibility and Preliminary Findings in Typically Developing Infants Chiara Dondena, Valentina Riva, Massimo Molteni, Gabriella Musacchia, Chiara Cantiani Brain Sciences, 2021 Previous evidence has shown that early auditory processing impacts later linguistic development, and targeted training implemented at early ages can enhance auditory processing skills, with better expected language development outcomes. This study focuses on typically developing infants and aims to test the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of music training based on active synchronization with complex musical rhythms on the linguistic outcomes and electrophysiological functioning underlying auditory processing. Fifteen infants participated in the training (RTr+) and were compared with two groups of infants not attending any structured activities during the same time frame (RTr−, N = 14). At pre- and post-training, expressive and receptive language skills were assessed using standardized tests, and auditory processing skills were characterized through an electrophysiological non-speech multi-feature paradigm. Results reveal that RTr+ infants showed significantly broader improvement in both expressive and receptive pre-language skills. Moreover, at post-training, they presented an electrophysiological pattern characterized by shorter latency of two peaks (N2* and P2), reflecting a neural change detection process: these shifts in latency go beyond those seen due to maturation alone. These results provide preliminary evidence on the efficacy of our training in improving early linguistic competences, and in modifying the neural underpinnings of auditory processing in infants.
