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Volume 10
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Article

Maternal Depression Affects Infants’ Lexical Processing Abilities in the Second Year of Life

by
Ruth Brookman
1,2,*,
Marina Kalashnikova
1,3,4,
Janet Conti
2,
Nan Xu Rattanasone
5,
Kerry-Ann Grant
6,
Katherine Demuth
5 and
Denis Burnham
1
1
The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1957, Penrith, NSW 2750, Australia
2
School of Psychology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1957, Penrith, NSW 2750, Australia
3
Basque Centre for Cognition, Brain and Language, Paseo Mikeletegi 69, 2º, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain
4
IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Plaza Euskadi 5, 48009 Bilbao, Spain
5
Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Balaclava Road, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia
6
Health Education and Training Institute, Locked Bag 7118, Parramatta Bc, NSW 2124, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Brain Sci. 2020, 10(12), 977; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120977
Submission received: 8 November 2020 / Revised: 23 November 2020 / Accepted: 9 December 2020 / Published: 12 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Development of Communication and Language: Social, Environmental, and Neurobiological Influences)
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Abstract

Maternal depression and anxiety have been proposed to increase the risk of adverse outcomes of language development in the early years of life. This study investigated the effects of maternal depression and anxiety on language development using two approaches: (i) a categorical approach that compared lexical abilities in two groups of children, a risk group (mothers with clinical-level symptomatology) and a control non-risk group, and (ii) a continuous approach that assessed the relation between individual mothers’ clinical and subclinical symptomatology and their infants’ lexical abilities. Infants’ lexical abilities were assessed at 18 months of age using an objective lexical processing measure and a parental report of expressive vocabulary. Infants in the risk group exhibited lower lexical processing abilities compared to controls, and maternal depression scores were negatively correlated to infants’ lexical processing and vocabulary measures. Furthermore, maternal depression (not anxiety) explained the variance in infants’ individual lexical processing performance above the variance explained by their individual expressive vocabulary size. These results suggest that significant differences are emerging in 18-month-old infants’ lexical processing abilities, and this appears to be related, in part, to their mothers’ depression and anxiety symptomatology during the postnatal period.
Keywords: language development; lexical processing; vocabulary; postnatal; maternal depression; maternal anxiety; infancy language development; lexical processing; vocabulary; postnatal; maternal depression; maternal anxiety; infancy

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Brookman, R.; Kalashnikova, M.; Conti, J.; Xu Rattanasone, N.; Grant, K.-A.; Demuth, K.; Burnham, D. Maternal Depression Affects Infants’ Lexical Processing Abilities in the Second Year of Life. Brain Sci. 2020, 10, 977. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120977

AMA Style

Brookman R, Kalashnikova M, Conti J, Xu Rattanasone N, Grant K-A, Demuth K, Burnham D. Maternal Depression Affects Infants’ Lexical Processing Abilities in the Second Year of Life. Brain Sciences. 2020; 10(12):977. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120977

Chicago/Turabian Style

Brookman, Ruth, Marina Kalashnikova, Janet Conti, Nan Xu Rattanasone, Kerry-Ann Grant, Katherine Demuth, and Denis Burnham. 2020. "Maternal Depression Affects Infants’ Lexical Processing Abilities in the Second Year of Life" Brain Sciences 10, no. 12: 977. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120977

APA Style

Brookman, R., Kalashnikova, M., Conti, J., Xu Rattanasone, N., Grant, K.-A., Demuth, K., & Burnham, D. (2020). Maternal Depression Affects Infants’ Lexical Processing Abilities in the Second Year of Life. Brain Sciences, 10(12), 977. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10120977

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