Behavioral, Emotional and School Adjustment in Adolescents with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) Is Related to Family Involvement

Mario Valera-Pozo, Daniel Adrover-Roig, Josep A. Pérez-Castelló, Victor A. Sanchez-Azanza and Eva Aguilar-Mediavilla
Additional contact information
Mario Valera-Pozo: Universitat de les Illes Balears-Cta. Valldemossa, Km. 7.5-07122 Palma, Spain
Daniel Adrover-Roig: Universitat de les Illes Balears-Cta. Valldemossa, Km. 7.5-07122 Palma, Spain
Josep A. Pérez-Castelló: Universitat de les Illes Balears-Cta. Valldemossa, Km. 7.5-07122 Palma, Spain
Victor A. Sanchez-Azanza: Universitat de les Illes Balears-Cta. Valldemossa, Km. 7.5-07122 Palma, Spain
Eva Aguilar-Mediavilla: Universitat de les Illes Balears-Cta. Valldemossa, Km. 7.5-07122 Palma, Spain

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: Developmental language disorder (DLD) refers to a language delay in the absence of other underlying causes. Individuals with DLD can also present other problems related to behavioral, scholarly, and emotional aspects of their daily lives because of their language difficulties. Moreover, these difficulties could be influenced by family and socioeconomic characteristics. Twenty-eight bilingual adolescents with and without DLD in typical schools were followed from childhood to adolescence. At age five, language and cognitive variables were assessed. In addition, language, behavior, emotional and school adjustment, and socioeconomic and family aspects were evaluated at age 12. Results reveal that adolescents with DLD show poorer school adjustment and less adaptive skills when evaluated by their tutors, and a larger index of emotional problems when self-assessed. Moreover, family involvement, but not socioeconomic status (SES), emerged as a protective factor since it was related to behavioral, emotional, and school adjustment, a result that was further confirmed by structural equation modeling. Therefore, a more global approach involving individuals, schools and families is needed to provide adolescents with DLD adequate support. It is important to stimulate their social skills and emotional adjustment so they can cope with social difficulties more easily, especially at school.

Keywords: language delay; specific language impairment; family involvement; mental health; school adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/1949/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/6/1949/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:6:p:1949-:d:333255

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().