Language Development of Children Raised in Institutional Settings: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Findings.

The current study investigated language development of children residing in institutional care (IC) in Russia, compared to peers raised by biological family care (BFC). We used standardized behavioral testing (Preschool Language Scale-5, McArthur CDI), and an event-related potential picture-word matching paradigm. Children in IC significantly underperformed on the measures of receptive and expressive language development, with larger deficits in expressive domain. ERP findings indicated that children in IC did not demonstrate significant N400 effect in response to semantic violations; there were no significant group differences in semantic processing between IC and the BFC groups. In the late time window of 400-600 ms, phonologically legal pseudowords elicited an ERP component with the positive amplitude in the IC group, resembling P300 ERP component, whereas the BFC group showed the expected N400 effect. The findings point to less efficient lexical processing in the IC group. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate both the behavioral and neuropsychological aspects of language development, focusing on phonological and lexical-semantic processing, in children who currently live in IC.

Language Outcomes in Adults with a History of Institutionalization: Behavioral and Neurophysiological Characterization.

Impoverished early care environments are associated with developmental deficits in children raised in institutional settings. Despite the accumulation of evidence regarding deficits in general cognitive functioning in this population, less is known about the impact of institutionalization on language development at the level of brain and behavior. We examined language outcomes in young adults and adolescents raised in institutions (n = 23) as compared to their socioeconomic status and age peers raised in biological families (n = 24) using a behavioral language assessment and linguistic event-related potentials (ERPs). Controlling for intelligence, adults with a history of institutionalization demonstrated deficits in lexical and grammatical development and spelling. Analyses of ERP data revealed significant group differences in the dynamic processing of linguistic stimuli. Adults with a history of institutionalization displayed reduced neural sensitivity to violations of word expectancy, leading to reduced condition effects for temporo-spatial factors that tentatively corresponded to the N200, P300/N400, and phonological mismatch negativity. The results suggest that language is a vulnerable domain in adults with a history of institutionalization, the deficits in which are not explained by general developmental delays, and point to the pivotal role of early linguistic environment in the development of the neural networks involved in language processing.