Infant Regulation: Associations with Child Language Development in a Longitudinal Cohort

Objective: To determine whether infants who have regulatory problems (eg, sleeping, crying, and feeding problems) at 1 year of age are at increased risk of experiencing language difficulties at ages 5 and 11 years, compared with settled infants. Study design: Parent survey and child assessment data (n = 1131) were drawn from a longitudinal community cohort study. Latent Class Analysis identified 5 profiles of infant regulation including those who were settled (37%), had tantrums (21%), had sleep problems (25%), were moderately unsettled (13%), and severely unsettled (3%) at 12 months of age. Adjusted regression analyses examined associations between infant regulatory profiles and language ability (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–fourth edition) at ages 5 and 11 years. Results: Infants who were moderately unsettled had lower language scores at age 5 (adjusted mean difference, −3.89; 95% CI, −6.92 to −0.86) and were more likely to have language difficulties (aOR, 2.71; 95% CI, 1.28-5.75), than infants who were settled. Infants who were severely unsettled at 12 months of age, had lower language scores at ages 5 (adjusted mean difference, −7.71; 95% CI, −13.07 to −2.36) and 11 (adjusted mean difference, −6.50; 95% CI, −11.60 to −1.39), than infants who were settled. Severely unsettled infants were 5 times more likely to have language difficulties at age 5 than their settled counterparts (aOR, 5.01; 95% CI, 1.72-14.63). Conclusions: Children at 1 year of age with multiple regulatory problems are at an increased risk for poorer language skills at ages 5 and 11 years.