title: Children with differing developmental trajectories of prelinguistic communication skills: language and working memory at age 5.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In this article, the authors examine the developmental continuity from prelinguistic communication to kindergarten age in language and working memory capacity.
  
  
  METHODS
  Following work outlining 6 groups of children with different trajectories of early communication development (ECD; Määttä, Laakso, Tolvanen, Ahonen, & Aro, 2012), the authors examined their later development by psychometric assessment. Ninety-one children first assessed at ages 12-21 months completed a battery of language and working memory tests at age 5;3 (years;months).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two of the ECD groups previously identified as being at risk for language difficulties continued to show weaker performance at follow-up. Seventy-nine percent of the children with compromised language skills at follow-up were identified on the basis of the ECD groups, but the number of false positives was high. The 2 at-risk groups also differed significantly from the typically developing groups in the measures tapping working memory capacity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In line with the dimensional view of language impairment, the accumulation of early delays predicted the amount of later difficulties; however, at the individual level, the prediction had rather low specificity. The results imply a strong link between language and working memory and call for further studies examining the early developmental interaction between language and memory.
authors.forename: Sira
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Määttä
authors.forename: Marja-Leena
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Laakso
authors.forename: Asko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tolvanen
authors.forename: Timo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ahonen
authors.forename: Tuija
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aro
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007807:Language Tests; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*