Open AccessRelationship between early language competence and cognitive emotion regulation in adolescence
Author(s) -
Sarah Griffiths,
Chatrin Suksasilp,
Laura Lucas,
Cherian Sebastian,
Courtenay Norbury
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
royal society open science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 51
ISSN - 2054-5703
DOI - 10.1098/rsos.210742
Subject(s) - psychology , cognition , developmental psychology , affect (linguistics) , competence (human resources) , association (psychology) , longitudinal study , task (project management) , cognitive psychology , medicine , social psychology , psychiatry , management , communication , pathology , economics , psychotherapist
Cognitive emotion regulation improves throughout adolescence and promotes good mental health. Here, we test whether language skills at school entry predict success in emotion regulation in an experimental task at age 10–11, using longitudinal data from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study. We additionally compared the performance of children with and without language disorder (LD). Across the whole sample ( N = 344), language skills at school entry predicted emotion regulation success in Year 6 ( β = 0.23), over and above the concurrent association between language and regulation success. There was no evidence that children with LD that could engage in the task were less successful regulators compared to peers with typical language. However, a quarter of children with LD were unable to complete the task. These children had more severe language difficulties, lower non-verbal IQ and more comorbid conditions. This has implications for clinicians addressing mental health needs for children with neurodevelopmental conditions that affect language, as conversations about emotions and emotion regulation are an integral part of therapy. The longitudinal relationship between language skills and the capacity to use temporal distancing for emotion regulation in early adolescence suggests that language may drive improvements in emotion regulation.