The Relation Between Early Childhood Behavioral Inhibition and Language Outcomes

Abstract

Behavioral inhibition (BI) is a temperament classified as fearful reactions or withdrawal from unfamiliar situations. BI can be detected as early as four months, and it has been found to lead to many negative developmental outcomes. Children who exhibit BI tend to have limited formative interactions, which could hinder development. There is a significant amount of research regarding how early BI can predict socioemotional outcomes, such as social anxiety disorder; however, there is less information on how early BI may affect other developmental processes, such as language development. To address this gap in research, this project assessed the relation between BI at age 3 and language outcomes at ages 3 and 7. The data for this research project were obtained through the Temperament Over Time Study (TOTS), a longitudinal study investigating the individual and environmental factors associated with social development from infancy through childhood. Correlation matrices were performed to analyze the relation between the reported levels of BI at age 3 and the language scores from the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory at age 3 and the Woodcock-Johnson-IV at age 7. The results from these analyses indicated a statistically significant correlation between BI and Sentence Complexity scores at age 3, which suggests a potential relation between BI and expressive language outcomes in the short term.