language development research paper topics

Observation

The littlest linguists: new research on language development.

• Bilingualism
• Developmental Psychology
• Language Development

How do children learn language, and how is language related to other cognitive and social skills? For decades, the specialized field of developmental psycholinguistics has studied how children acquire language—or multiple languages—taking into account biological, neurological, and social factors that influence linguistic developments and, in turn, can play a role in how children learn and socialize. Here’s a look at recent research (2020–2021) on language development published in Psychological Science . 

Preverbal Infants Discover Statistical Word Patterns at Similar Rates as Adults: Evidence From Neural Entrainment

Dawoon Choi, Laura J. Batterink, Alexis K. Black, Ken A. Paller, and Janet F. Werker (2020)

One of the first challenges faced by infants during language acquisition is identifying word boundaries in continuous speech. This neurological research suggests that even preverbal infants can learn statistical patterns in language, indicating that they may have the ability to segment words within continuous speech.

Using electroencephalogram measures to track infants’ ability to segment words, Choi and colleagues found that 6-month-olds’ neural processing increasingly synchronized with the newly learned words embedded in speech over the learning period in one session in the laboratory. Specifically, patterns of electrical activity in their brains increasingly aligned with sensory regularities associated with word boundaries. This synchronization was comparable to that seen among adults and predicted future ability to discriminate words.

These findings indicate that infants and adults may follow similar learning trajectories when tracking probabilities in speech, with both groups showing a logarithmic (rather than linear) increase in the synchronization of neural processing with frequent words. Moreover, speech segmentation appears to use neural mechanisms that emerge early in life and are maintained throughout adulthood.

Parents Fine-Tune Their Speech to Children’s Vocabulary Knowledge

Ashley Leung, Alexandra Tunkel, and Daniel Yurovsky (2021)

Children can acquire language rapidly, possibly because their caregivers use language in ways that support such development. Specifically, caregivers’ language is often fine-tuned to children’s current linguistic knowledge and vocabulary, providing an optimal level of complexity to support language learning. In their new research, Leung and colleagues add to the body of knowledge involving how caregivers foster children’s language acquisition.

The researchers asked individual parents to play a game with their child (age 2–2.5 years) in which they guided their child to select a target animal from a set. Without prompting, the parents provided more informative references for animals they thought their children did not know. For example, if a parent thought their child did not know the word “leopard,” they might use adjectives (“the spotted, yellow leopard”) or comparisons (“the one like a cat”). This indicates that parents adjust their references to account for their children’s language knowledge and vocabulary—not in a simplifying way but in a way that could increase the children’s vocabulary. Parents also appeared to learn about their children’s knowledge throughout the game and to adjust their references accordingly.

Infant and Adult Brains Are Coupled to the Dynamics of Natural Communication

Elise A. Piazza, Liat Hasenfratz, Uri Hasson, and Casey Lew-Williams (2020)

This research tracked real-time brain activation during infant–adult interactions, providing an innovative measure of social interaction at an early age. When communicating with infants, adults appear to be sensitive to subtle cues that can modify their brain responses and behaviors to improve alignment with, and maximize information transfer to, the infants.

Piazza and colleagues used functional near-infrared spectroscopy—a noninvasive measure of blood oxygenation resulting from neural activity that is minimally affected by movements and thus allows participants to freely interact and move—to measure the brain activation of infants (9–15 months old) and adults while they communicated and played with each other. An adult experimenter either engaged directly with an infant by playing with toys, singing nursery rhymes, and reading a story or performed those same tasks while turned away from the child and toward another adult in the room.

Results indicated that when the adult interacted with the child (but not with the other adult), the activations of many prefrontal cortex (PFC) channels and some parietal channels were intercorrelated, indicating neural coupling of the adult’s and child’s brains. Both infant and adult PFC activation preceded moments of mutual gaze and increased before the infant smiled, with the infant’s PFC response preceding the adult’s. Infant PFC activity also preceded an increase in the pitch variability of the adult’s speech, although no changes occurred in the adult’s PFC, indicating that the adult’s speech influenced the infant but probably did not influence neural coupling between the child and the adult.

Theory-of-Mind Development in Young Deaf Children With Early Hearing Provisions

Chi-Lin Yu, Christopher M. Stanzione, Henry M. Wellman, and Amy R. Lederberg (2020)

Language and communication are important for social and cognitive development. Although deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children born to deaf parents can communicate with their caregivers using sign language, most DHH children are born to hearing parents who do not have experience with sign language. These children may have difficulty with early communication and experience developmental delays. For instance, the development of theory of mind—the understanding of others’ mental states—is usually delayed in DHH children born to hearing parents.

Yu and colleagues studied how providing DHH children with hearing devices early in life (before 2 years of age) might enrich their early communication experiences and benefit their language development, supporting the typical development of other capabilities—in particular, theory of mind. The researchers show that 3- to 6-year-old DHH children who began using cochlear implants or hearing aids earlier had more advanced language abilities, leading to better theory-of-mind growth, than children who started using hearing provisions later. These findings highlight the relationships among hearing, language, and theory of mind.

The Bilingual Advantage in Children’s Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review

Cassandra J. Lowe, Isu Cho, Samantha F. Goldsmith, and J. Bruce Morton (2021)

Acommon idea is that bilingual children, who grow up speaking two languages fluently, perform better than monolingual children in diverse executive-functioning domains (e.g., attention, working memory, decision making). This meta-analysis calls that idea into question.

Lowe and colleagues synthesized data from studies that compared the performance of monolingual and bilingual participants between the ages of 3 and 17 years in executive-functioning domains (1,194 effect sizes). They found only a small effect of bilingualism on participants’ executive functioning, which was largely explained by factors such as publication bias. After accounting for these factors, bilingualism had no distinguishable effect. The results of this large meta-analysis thus suggest that bilingual and monolingual children tend to perform at the same level in executive-functioning tasks. Bilingualism does not appear to boost performance in executive functions that serve learning, thinking, reasoning, or problem solving.

APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines .

Please login with your APS account to comment.

Teaching: Ethical Research to Help Romania’s Abandoned Children 

An early intervention experiment in Bucharest can introduce students to the importance of responsive caregiving during human development.

Silver Linings in the Demographic Revolution 

Podcast: In her final column as APS President, Alison Gopnik makes the case for more effectively and creatively caring for vulnerable humans at either end of life.

Communicating Psychological Science: The Lifelong Consequences of Early Language Skills

“When families are informed about the importance of conversational interaction and are provided training, they become active communicators and directly contribute to reducing the word gap (Leung et al., 2020).”

Privacy Overview

• Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
• Speech and Language
• Research Topics

Language Development in the Digital Age

Total Downloads

Total Views and Downloads

About this Research Topic

The digital age is changing our children’s lives and childhood dramatically. New technologies transform the way people interact with each other, the way stories are shared and distributed, and the way reality is presented and perceived. Parents experience that toddlers can handle tablets and apps with a level ...

Keywords : language development, digital environments, robotics, situated and embodied cognition, learning mechanisms

Important Note : All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

Topic Editors

Topic coordinators, recent articles, submission deadlines.

Submission closed.

Participating Journals

Total views.

• Demographics

No records found

total views article views downloads topic views

Top countries

Top referring sites, about frontiers research topics.

With their unique mixes of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author.

Disclaimer » Advertising

• HealthyChildren.org

• Previous Article
• Next Article

The Importance of Language-Learning Environments to Child Language Outcomes

POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The author has indicated she has no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The author has indicated she has no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

• Split-Screen
• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data
• Peer Review
• CME Quiz Close Quiz
• Open the PDF for in another window
• Get Permissions
• Cite Icon Cite
• Search Site

Heidi M. Feldman; The Importance of Language-Learning Environments to Child Language Outcomes. Pediatrics October 2019; 144 (4): e20192157. 10.1542/peds.2019-2157

Download citation file:

• Ris (Zotero)
• Reference Manager

A strong foundation in language skills is associated with positive, long-term academic, occupational, and social outcomes. Individual differences in the rate of language development appear early. Approximately 16% of children experience delays in initial phases of language learning; approximately half of those show persistent difficulties that may lead to clinical disorders. 1   Because of the high prevalence of language disorders and lifelong implications of early delays, prevention is of utmost importance. Primary prevention takes place before any problems are detected, preventing the condition from occurring. Secondary prevention takes place after early detection of a disorder, resulting in a mild rather than severe variant. Children learn language from their interactions with caregivers in their environment. An obvious direction for both primary and secondary prevention is improving language-learning environments.

In the study entitled “Parenting Behavior and Child Language: A Meta-analysis” by Madigan et al 2   in this issue of Pediatrics , the authors summarize evidence about “2 primary types of parenting” in relation to child language outcomes. Sensitive responsiveness refers to a parent’s ability to perceive, interpret, and respond quickly and appropriately to the children’s signals. The authors assume that sensitive responsiveness implies contingent responding to foster coordinated communicative exchanges. Warmth refers to caregiver physical affection or positive affect with the child. In the meta-analysis, it was found that sensitive responsiveness and warmth both contributed to child language outcomes. The effect size was greater for sensitivity than warmth and greater in studies of children from low or diverse socioeconomic status (SES) than from high SES.

The authors have performed an excellent service by conducting this meta-analysis and presenting it to a pediatric audience. So important are the features of the learning environment to language development that they have been referred to as “language nutrition.” 3   Pediatric clinicians routinely counsel families about food nutrition. We should address language nutrition with similar urgency. Of course, demonstrating the association between parenting qualities and child outcomes, as in the meta-analysis, does not yet imply which, if any, interventions would successfully change the learning environment or improve child outcomes. Data are accumulating that home-based interventions can raise the level of sensitivity and warmth, 4   although the effectiveness of less-intense interventions must be evaluated.

It is worth noting that sensitivity and warmth do not necessarily represent 2 distinct parenting types but rather 2 features of parenting. Definitions of parental sensitivity in other studies include warmth as a feature. 4   Sensitive responsivity can be disentangled from qualities specifically related to caregiver-child connections in verbal exchange. 5   Precision in the description of language-learning environments is difficult because a meta-analysis depends on the researchers’ characterization.

Sensitivity and warmth do not represent all the critical ingredients of healthy language nutrition. Three other features have been associated with language outcomes. First is the quantity of child-directed speech. Hart and Risley 6   made seminal observations that children of highly educated parents heard many more words than children of less-educated parents and then had better language skills at school entry. Findings that quantity of input is important, irrespective of SES, have been made by using all-day-long audio recordings of the child’s language environment in English- and Spanish-speaking children 7   and in children born term and preterm. 8   These studies corroborate the importance of quantity of child-directed speech and collectively form the foundation of public policy efforts to reduce the “30 million word gap” before a child’s entering school. 9   Second is the quality of the language input. 10   Quality includes diversity of the vocabulary and complexity of grammar. Third is the nature of the caregiver-child interactions, beyond responsivity and warmth. 5   Important qualitative features include degree of caregiver-child engagement with symbols, such as words or signs; frequency of routines and rituals, such as naming or book-reading; and the connectedness of exchange, reflected in topic maintenance and turn-taking.

The proportion of the various ingredients that comprise language nutrition likely varies as a function of the child’s stage of development. 4   Early on, especially in infancy, parental sensitivity and warmth (the focus of the meta-analysis) likely has substantial impact. Once children have begun speaking, cognitive and language features of the input, reflected in quantity and quality of linguistic input and qualitative features of verbal interactions, likely become increasingly impactful. 4   Although features of the environment may be modifiable, promoting stable change and sustainable results may be challenging. 11  

Meta-analyses on the topic of language development are extremely helpful. However, now we also need well-designed treatment studies to inform us about the nature and intensity of interventions to improve language-learning environments and child outcomes. On the basis of the results of the meta-analysis, primary care clinicians should educate caregivers about the importance of their parenting to their children’s language development. If families demonstrate limited warmth, responsiveness, or other components of language nutrition, it is imperative to counsel them and refer to community-based programs to educate and support them in improving their children’s language-learning environment.

Opinions expressed in these commentaries are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the American Academy of Pediatrics or its Committees.

FUNDING: Support for this work was provided by a grant from the NIH RO1- HD069150. Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

COMPANION PAPER: A companion to this article can be found online at www.pediatrics.org/cgi/doi/10.1542/peds.2018-3556 .

socioeconomic status

Competing Interests

Advertising Disclaimer »

Citing articles via

Email alerts.

Affiliations

• Editorial Board
• Editorial Policies
• Journal Blogs
• Pediatrics On Call
• Online ISSN 1098-4275
• Print ISSN 0031-4005
• Pediatrics Open Science
• Hospital Pediatrics
• Pediatrics in Review
• AAP Grand Rounds
• Latest News
• Pediatric Care Online
• Red Book Online
• Pediatric Patient Education
• AAP Toolkits
• AAP Pediatric Coding Newsletter

First 1,000 Days Knowledge Center

Institutions/librarians, group practices, licensing/permissions, integrations, advertising.

• Privacy Statement | Accessibility Statement | Terms of Use | Support Center | Contact Us
• © Copyright American Academy of Pediatrics

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Login | Register

• Editorial Team
• Editorial Policies
• Author Guidelines
• Reviewer Guidelines
• Statistics and Methods
• Research Integrity
• Full Policies

Language Development Research: An Open-Science Journal

Read author guidelines (PDF) before submission, and ensure your article includes a standalone Data, Code and Materials Availability Statement.

Science is for everyone. We set up Language Development Research (ISSN 2771-7976) because we don't believe in locking articles behind paywalls, in charging taxpayers and universities to publish research they've already funded, or in privileging papers that are "exciting" over those committed to scientific rigour. We believe that open science is better science. We uphold the highest standards of research integrity . We insist on open data and materials , and commit to publishing every article that is judged by our peer review process to meet our criteria for methodological and theoretical rigour .

We invite submissions of empirical and theoretical investigations of children's language development : typical and atypical, mono-, bi- and multi-lingual, spoken, signed, or written. We are also interested in the exploration of any topic or population relevant to language development, broadly construed (e.g., second language learning, artificial language learning, adult psycholinguistics, computational modeling).

Fiercely independent, we are answerable to no one except the scientific community and our 30-member strong Editorial Board of respected researchers . Please browse our articles  (below on this page), learn more about the journal and its editorial policies , and, when you're ready, submit your article .

Whether or not children can understand metaphor (e.g., ‘John is a  lion ,’ conveying that John is strong and brave) has been a matter of contention in the developmental literature for several decades (for reviews, see Gibbs, 1994; Pouscoulous, 2011; Vosniadou, 1987; Winner, 1988/1997). Much of the research on metaphor comprehension in children was conducted during the 1970s and 80s and suggested that children’s abilities with figurative language are only attained in early adolescence (Asch & Nerlove, 1960; Winner, 1988/1997; Winner, Rosenstiel, & Gardner, 1976). Some more recent research suggests that the lack of understanding found by early studies was linked in part to the complexity of the tasks used and attests instead to an early metaphorical ability emerging during the preschool years (Deamer, 2013; Pouscoulous, 2011; Özçalışkan, 2005). 

Despite the recent resurgence of interest in studies of metaphor development, the field is missing a coherent account of how metaphor comprehension abilities develop throughout childhood. This gap may be due to methodological differences, but there could also be theoretical conflicts. For instance, the idea that children go through a prolonged literal stage, processing language literally regardless of context, persists in some recent accounts of figurative language development (Levorato & Caccari, 1995, 2002). This position, however, is at odds with other findings in pragmatic development, which highlight children’s early pragmatic competence (Matthews, 2014). There is a clear need to integrate insights from children’s metaphor and figurative language comprehension into the broader research context of pragmatic development .

The aim of the special issue is to bring together researchers who work on  metaphor development across the lifespan from different theoretical perspectives and methodologies.  We especially encourage papers that link theoretical and empirical research, for instance by conducting theoretically informed empirical studies or by empirically testing and comparing the predictions of existing pragmatic theories of metaphor comprehension development. We also welcome methodological papers.  We invite authors to submit their original research manuscripts via  https://ldr.lps.library.cmu.edu/submissions/  (for author guidelines, see:  https://ldr.lps.library.cmu.edu/site/authorguidelines/ ). When submitting, please be sure to select  Metaphor Comprehension Special Issue  in the Article Type/Section box.

Important dates

Submission deadline: 1 May 2024 

(Action) Editors

Ingrid Lossius Falkum & Mary Beth Neff

Featured Articles

David Pagmar, Kirsten Abbot-Smith, Danielle Matthews

Predictors of children's conversational contingency

Evelina Leivada, Elliot Murphy

A demonstration of the uncomputability of parametric models of language acquisition and a biologically plausible alternative

alejandrina cristia, Marisa Casillas

Non-word repetition in children learning Yélî Dnye

Linda Kelly, Elizabeth Nixon, Jean Quigley

It’s Your Turn: The Dynamics of Conversational Turn-Taking in Father-Child and Mother-Child Interaction

Khazar Khorrami, Okko Räsänen

Can phones, syllables, and words emerge as side-products of cross-situational audiovisual learning? - A computational investigation

Karla K McGregor, Ronald Pomper, Nichole Eden, Timothy Arbisi-Kelm, Nancy Ohlmann, Shivani Gajre, Erin Smolak

Children’s language abilities predict success in remote communication contexts

Disa Witkowska, Laura Lucas, Maria Jelen, Hannah Kin, Courtenay Norbury

Development of complex syntax in the narratives of children with English as an Additional Language and their monolingual peers

Giulia Bovolenta, Emma Marsden

Expectation violation enhances the development of new abstract syntactic representations: evidence from an artificial language learning study

Nicola Dawson, Yaling Hsiao, Alvin Wei Ming Tan, Nilanjana Banerji, Kate Nation

Features of lexical richness in children's books: Comparisons with child-directed speech

Ben Ambridge

Language Development Research Editorial: Why do we need another journal?

Mitja Nikolaus, Eliot Maes, Jeremy Auguste, Laurent Prévot, Abdellah Fourtassi

Large-scale study of speech acts' development in early childhood

Audun Rosslund, Julien Mayor, Gabriella Óturai, Natalia Kartushina

Parents’ hyper-pitch and low vowel category variability in infant-directed speech are associated with 18-month-old toddlers’ expressive vocabulary

Samuel David Jones, Madeline Dooley, Ben Ambridge

Passive sentence reversal errors in autism: Replicating Ambridge, Bidgood, and Thomas (2020)

Victoria Knowland, Mohreet Rauni, Gareth Gaskell, Sarah Walker, Elaine van Rijn, Courtenay Norbury, Lisa-Marie Henderson

Sleep behaviour in children with developmental language disorder

Benjamin Edward deMayo, Danielle Kellier, Mika Braginsky, Christina Bergmann, Cielke Hendriks, Caroline Frances Rowland, Michael C Frank, Virginia Marchman

Web-CDI: A system for online administration of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories

Maxime Alexandra Tulling, Ailís Cournane

Wishes before ifs: mapping “fake” past tense to counterfactuality in wishes and conditionals

Natalia Kartushina, Nivedita Mani, Aslı Aktan-Erciyes, Khadeejah Alaslani, Naomi J. Aldrich, Alaa Almohammadi, Haifa Alroqi, Lucy M. Anderson, Elena Andonova, Suzanne Aussems, Mireille Babineau, Mihaela Barokova, Christina Bergmann, Cara Cashon, Stephanie Custode, Alex de Carvalho, Nevena Dimitrova, Agnieszka Dynak, Rola Farah, Christopher Fennell, Anne-Caroline Fiévet, Michael C Frank, Margarita Gavrilova, Hila Gendler-Shalev, Shannon P. Gibson, Katherine Golway, Nayeli Gonzalez-Gomez, Ewa Haman, Erin Hannon, Naomi Havron, Jessica Hay, Cielke Hendriks, Tzipi Horowitz-kraus, Marina Kalashnikova, Junko Kanero, Christina Keller, Grzegorz Krajewski, Catherine Laing, Rebecca A. Lundwall, Magdalena Łuniewska, Karolina Mieszkowska, Luis Muñoz, Karli Nave, Nonah Olesen, Lynn Perry, Caroline Frances Rowland, Daniela Santos Oliveira, Jeanne Shinskey, Aleksander Veraksa, Kolbie Vincent, Michal Zivan, Julien Mayor

COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition: associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains

Iris Broedelet, Paul Boersma, Judith Rispens

Distributional learning of novel visual object categories in children with and without developmental language disorder

Martin Fortier, Danielle Kellier, María Fernández-Flecha, Michael C Frank

Ad-hoc pragmatic implicatures among Shipibo-Konibo children in the Peruvian Amazon

Matt Hilton, Katherine E. Twomey, Gert Westermann

Face time: Effects of shyness and attention to faces on early word learning

Robert Fromont, Lynn Clark, Joshua Wilson Black, Margaret Blackwood

Maximizing accuracy of forced alignment for spontaneous child speech

Anika van der Klis, Rianne van Lieburg, Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng, Clara Cecilia Levelt

Pauses matter: Rule-learning in children

Joshua Hartshorne, Yujing Huang, Lauren Skorb

Some puzzling findings regarding the acquisition of verbs

Ben Ambridge, Stewart McCauley, Colin Bannard, Michelle Davis, Thea Cameron-Faulkner, Alison Gummery, Anna Theakston

Uninversion error in English-speaking children’s wh-questions: Blame it on the bigrams?

Janet Yougi Bang, George Kachergis, Adriana Weisleder, Virginia Marchman

An automated classifier for periods of sleep and target-child-directed speech from LENA recordings

Lena V. Kremin, Amel Jardak, Casey Lew-Williams, Krista Byers-Heinlein

Bilingual children’s comprehension of code-switching at an uninformative adjective

Ana Maria Gonzalez-Barrero, Rodrigo Dal Ben, Hilary Killam, Krista Byers-Heinlein

Word learning in 14-month-old monolinguals and bilinguals: Challenges and methodological opportunities

Elspeth Wilson, Kate Cain, Catherine Davies, Jenny Gibson, Holly Joseph, Ludovica Serratrice, Margreet Vogelzang

Children’s development of conversational and reading inference skills: a call for a collaborative approach

Elizabeth Swanson, Michael C Frank, Judith Degen

Syntactic adaptation and word learning in children and adults

Top 119+ Innovative Language Development Research Topics – Innovative Ideas

Language is a huge part of being human. It allows us to share thoughts ideas, and understand the world. Studying how language develops is a very interesting area that combines many different subjects. 

If you are a student studying linguistics, education, psychology, or related fields, researching language development topics can provide valuable insights. You can look at the cognitive processes involved, how social factors influence them, and the cultural impacts that shape how we comprehend and use language. 

From exploring the role of genetics and critical periods for picking up language to analyzing bilingualism , dialect differences, and language disorders – there are countless fascinating research possibilities in this area. 

This comprehensive list contains over 119 compelling language development research topics to spark your academic curiosity and expand your knowledge of this captivating field.

Importance of Innovative Language Development Research

Table of Contents

The way children learn language is crucial. New research in this area can help us understand how kids grow and develop mentally. It can also lead to better teaching methods in schools and support for children who struggle with language delays or disorders.

This kind of research covers many different fields. In psychology and brain science, the complex thinking processes involved in truly mastering a language are shown. It informs teaching methods that match a child’s developmental stage and can identify language issues earlier for support.

The research also examines how factors like speaking multiple languages, family income levels, and cultural backgrounds affect language learning. Understanding these differences promotes fairness and equal learning opportunities for all children.

As we continue to advance artificial intelligence, insights from children’s language development can even help make language models and human-computer interactions feel more natural and user-friendly.

At its heart, pioneering research into how kids acquire language uncovers the intricacies of one of humanity’s most fundamental abilities—communicating through speech and words. 

It is work that connects many disciplines and can positively impact education, helping kids with special needs, bridging cultural gaps, and enhancing our interactions with technology.

Recommended Readings: “ Top 111 Environmental Issues Research Topics To Explore “.

Historical Perspective Of the Evolution Of Language Development

Let’s take a look at the historical perspective of the evolution of language development studies. 

From Early Observations to Modern Scientific Inquiry

For a really long time, people have been super interested in understanding how children pick up language and speaking skills. This area of study has gone on quite a journey, shifting from early ideas and thoughts to becoming a proper, careful science with research and experts all working together.

Way way back, famous thinkers like Plato and Aristotle talked about language development and how it connects to the human mind and thinking. But it wasn’t until the 1600s and 1700s that scholars started making more organized observations and thoughts about it.

People like John Locke and Étienne Bonnot de Condillac challenged the belief that knowledge is just naturally inborn in us. Instead, they said the mind starts off like a blank slate, and language/knowledge comes from experiences and the things a child sees and hears around them.

In the 1800s, the study of language gained more attention and interest. Researchers like Wilhelm Wundt and Charles Darwin made important contributions. Wundt started the first psychology lab for hands-on studies, while Darwin’s famous ideas about evolution influenced the study of language from a biological viewpoint, too.

The 1900s brought a revolution, with modern linguistics taking off and thinkers like Noam Chomsky. Chomsky’s ideas about kids having an inborn natural ability for language challenged old beliefs and caused a lot of big debate and discussion.

At the same time, progress in psychology, brain science, and learning about the human mind has led to key understandings about the thinking processes, brain activity, and social factors involved in language development. Long-term studies following kids, experiments, and new brain imaging have also let researchers untangle the complex mix of biological and environmental impacts.

Today, the study of how kids learn language is a thriving, active field with many types of experts – linguists, psychologists, brain scientists, teachers, anthropologists, and more – all working together. 

Using diverse methods, they explore the intricate ways that thinking abilities, social settings, cultures, and biology all shape a child’s path to mastering speaking and language.

From those earliest thoughts to today’s careful scientific work, the story of how language development studies have changed over time shows just how fascinated humans are with one of our most fundamental skills – the ability to communicate through speech and words.

Top 119+ Language Development Research Topics

Here is the list of the top 119+ language development research topics accoding to different categories. Let’s look. 

How Kids Learn

• How thinking helps kids learn language.
• How kids learn words and sentences.
• How memory helps kids learn language.
• How paying attention helps kids learn the language.
• How doing things helps kids learn the language.

Family and Friends

• How money, where you live, and what job your parents have affect how kids learn to talk.
• How your family and where you live affect how you learn to talk.
• How moms and dads talk to kids helps them learn language.
• How knowing two languages affects how kids learn language.
• How kids learn to talk when they live with people from different cultures.

Language Problems

• Why do some kids have trouble learning to talk?
• What happens in the brain when kids have trouble talking?
• How kids with autism learn to talk.
• Why do some kids have trouble reading?
• Ways to help kids who have trouble talking.
• Ideas about how kids learn to make sentences.
• How kids learn the sounds of words.
• How kids learn word parts.
• How kids learn what words mean.
• How kids learn to talk politely.

Brain and Language

• Pictures of the brain show how kids understand and talk.
• Parts of the brain help kids understand and talk.
• How the brain changes as kids learn to talk.
• Why do kids use one side of their brain more for talking?
• Why do some kids have trouble talking because of their genes?

Learning with Computers

• How computers help kids learn language.
• How to pretend computer worlds help kids learn the language.
• How computers that change for each kid help them learn the language.
• How being in a pretend world helps kids learn language.
• How games help kids learn language.

School Talk

• Rules about language in schools for different languages.
• How schools help kids who move to a new country learn language.
• Things that help little kids learn language in schools.
• Plans for what kids will learn about language in school.
• How teachers help kids learn language.

Reading and Writing

• How talking helps kids learn to read and write.
• How kids learn to hear and play with the sounds in words.
• How feelings help kids learn to read and write.
• How knowing lots of words helps kids read and understand stories.
• How do kids who know two languages learn to read and write?

Kids with Special Needs

• How kids learn to talk who can’t hear.
• How kids with Down syndrome learn to talk.
• How kids with lots of energy learn to talk.
• How kids who were born early learn to talk.
• How babies’ brains are different when moms use medicine.

Talk in Different Languages

• How kids learn to talk in different languages.
• How kids talk in different languages.
• How knowing one language helps kids learn another.
• How kids learn new languages.
• How does it sound the same in lots of languages?

Online Talk

• How Instagram and Snapchat change how kids talk.
• How new words happen when people talk online.
• How people change between two languages when they talk online.
• How kids learn to be safe online when they talk.
• Being mean online hurts kids’ learning of the language.

Boys and Girls Talk

• How girls and boys talk as they grow up.
• How people think girls and boys should talk.
• How people talk to show they have power over others.
• How kids talk about being a girl or a boy.
• How boys and girls talk on the internet.

Talk and Who You Are

• How kids keep their family language when they move to a new place.
• How kids feel about the languages they speak.
• How people feel about what languages they speak.
• How people talk about keeping a language alive.
• How people talk about where they come from.

Talk and Feelings

• How feelings help kids learn to talk.
• How hearing people’s feelings helps kids understand what they say.
• How kids use talking to feel better.
• How moms’ and dads’ feelings change how kids learn to talk.
• How kids learn to know how others feel by listening to them.

Understanding Talk

• How do kids know what words mean?
• How kids understand what people say.
• How do kids know what words mean when they hear them in a sentence?
• How do kids know what’s happening next when they hear someone talk?
• How the brain makes talking makes sense.

Talk and Music

• How music helps kids learn to talk.
• How playing music helps kids learn to talk.
• How do the ups and downs of talking and music help kids understand them?
• It is how the brain listens to music and talks in the same way.
• How the brain thinks about talking and music together.

Talk Change

• How talking changed a long time ago.
• How people talk and act like monkeys when they learn to talk.
• How people talk and act like their friends when they talk.
• How talking and thinking changed each other.
• How people talk and think on computers.

Talking When You’re Old

• How people talk changes when they get older.
• How people’s brains learn new things about talking when they’re older.
• How brains change and make talking harder when people get sick.
• How people help older people talk better.
• How do talking and moving go together when you’re older?

Talking and Feeling Bad

• How can talking show if someone’s feeling bad?
• How talking helps people feel better.
• How people talk shows if they’re feeling bad.
• How talking shows if someone might hurt themselves.
• How talking helps people feel better when they’re feeling bad.

Talking and Deciding

• How people talk about making choices.
• How people change what they say to make others think what they want.
• How people make rules about talking when they’re making choices.
• How talking shows what groups people are in.
• How can talking make groups of people want the same things?

Talking and Computers

• How computers understand what people say.
• How computers listen and talk to help people learn.
• How computers change what people say into different languages.
• How computers write down what people say without them doing it.
• How talking to computers helps people do things.

Talking about Health

• How people understand health words.
• How doctors and people talk to each other in different languages.
• How people say things to help others be healthy.
• How people talk about being healthy in different languages.
• How does not understanding what someone says keep people from being healthy?

Talking and the Earth

• How people talk about the Earth and how to keep it safe.
• How people talk about helping the Earth.
• How people talk about keeping languages alive and saving the Earth.
• How people talk and think about making the Earth safe.
• How people talk about making the Earth safe for everyone.

Talking and Laws

• How people use talking to figure out if someone broke the law
• How people talk when they need help with the law.
• How can people change what someone says in court so others can understand?
• How people change what someone says in another language in court.
• How talking affects what happens in court.
• How people make rules about talking when they’re making choices in court.

These topics cover a range of areas related to language development research, with simpler language to make them more accessible for everyone.

Current Trends in Language Development Research

The study of how children learn language is constantly changing, driven by discoveries, modern tools, and experts from different fields working together to better understand it.

• There should be more focus on kids learning two or more languages at the same time, exploring the thinking skills and social factors that impact mastering multiple languages from a young age.
• Advanced brain imaging techniques, such as fMRI and NIRS, can be used to see which areas of the brain are active when children process and develop language abilities.
• We will examine how language development is connected to other skills like decision-making, understanding others’ perspectives, and social-emotional growth.
• Using cutting-edge computer programs and analysis methods to study large amounts of data and find patterns in how kids pick up language over time.
• Doing long-term studies that follow language development from infancy through the teen years, revealing important milestones and individual differences.
• Investigating how factors like family income, cultural backgrounds, and exposure to diverse languages impact language learning outcomes.
• Researchers, teachers, and speech experts collaborate to turn findings into effective support strategies for kids struggling with language delays or disorders.
• Exploring the impacts of digital media and technology on language development, both potential risks and opportunities for language enrichment.

These trends show how the study of kids’ language development involves many different experts working together to deepen our understanding of this core human ability. The goal is to improve teaching practices, better support neurodiverse children, and create more inclusive learning environments.

Challenges and Opportunities in Language Development Research

Unraveling how children acquire language is a journey paved with challenges and opportunities that shape the course of this vital research field.

• Understanding the big differences in how quickly and in what ways kids pick up language
• Untangling the complicated mix of biological, thinking ability, and environmental factors involved
• Designing strong long-term studies that can follow language development over many years
• Dealing with ethical considerations when doing research with young children
• Overcoming barriers in accessing diverse cultural and language communities
• Bringing together insights from many different expert fields into one clear understanding

Opportunities

• Using new advances in brain science and imaging to unlock fresh insights
• Taking advantage of big data and computer analysis to spot patterns
• Exploring how new technologies and digital media impact language learning
• Experts from different fields working closely together for a fuller picture
• Turning research findings into real-world applications for teaching and support
• Promoting cross-cultural understanding and inclusivity in language studies
• Addressing important issues like language delays, disorders, and achievement gaps

Navigating these challenges and seizing the opportunities will shape a deeper, more inclusive understanding of how children master the profound gift of language.

Closing Up 

The study of how kids learn language is an exciting and ever-changing area, full of opportunities for new and innovative discoveries. As we explore these fresh research ideas, we open the door to a better understanding of one of the most amazing abilities humans have – truly mastering language. 

From uncovering the intricate workings of the young mind to looking at how culture and environment play a role, each line of research has the potential to transform how we teach, provide support, and create inclusive learning spaces for all children. 

By having experts from different fields work closely together, using modern technologies, and staying curious with an open mindset, researchers in this area can keep expanding what we know. This will ultimately lead to a future where every child gets the chance to grow and unleash the full power of language.

How can I contribute to language development research as a student?

As a student, you can engage in literature reviews, assist with data collection and analysis, and participate in research projects under the guidance of faculty mentors.

What are some practical applications of language development research?

Language development research has applications in education, speech therapy, machine translation, assistive technology, and cognitive rehabilitation, among other fields.

How do socioeconomic factors influence language development?

Socioeconomic factors can impact language development by shaping access to educational resources, language-rich environments, and social opportunities, which in turn affect linguistic skills and outcomes.

Similar Articles

Top 19 Tips & Tricks On How To Improve Grades?

Do you want to improve your grades? If yes, then don’t worry! In this blog, I have provided 19 tips…

How To Study For Final Exam – 12 Proven Tips You Must Know

How To Study For Final Exam? Studying for the final exam is very important for academic success because they test…

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• Utility Menu

Our research in the U.S. and abroad seeks to understand why so many adolescents struggle with literacy and how to design contexts that offer meaningful learning experiences to advance equity and excellence in literacy and learning for all. Our research reveals that language development varies across contexts and individuals and continues throughout adolescence.

Our results make visible to educators and researchers the ubiquitous, yet often invisible, language demands of the particular sociocultural practices of school literacy and learning.

Research Categories

Young children’s discourse development: sociocultural & individual differences, the language for school reading: core academic language skills (cals), the language for school writing: monolingual and efl writers, multilingual and multicultural learners: development in more than one language, educational practices & interventions: promoting learners’ voices , language for learning: towards a language learning theory relevant for education.

• How It Works
• PhD thesis writing
• Master thesis writing
• Bachelor thesis writing
• Dissertation writing service
• Dissertation abstract writing
• Thesis proposal writing
• Thesis editing service
• Thesis proofreading service
• Thesis formatting service
• Coursework writing service
• Research paper writing service
• Architecture thesis writing
• Computer science thesis writing
• Engineering thesis writing
• History thesis writing
• MBA thesis writing
• Nursing dissertation writing
• Psychology dissertation writing
• Sociology thesis writing
• Statistics dissertation writing
• Buy dissertation online
• Write my dissertation
• Cheap thesis
• Cheap dissertation
• Custom dissertation
• Dissertation help
• Pay for thesis
• Pay for dissertation
• Senior thesis
• Write my thesis

211 Research Topics in Linguistics To Get Top Grades

Many people find it hard to decide on their linguistics research topics because of the assumed complexities involved. They struggle to choose easy research paper topics for English language too because they think it could be too simple for a university or college level certificate.

All that you need to learn about Linguistics and English is sprawled across syntax, phonetics, morphology, phonology, semantics, grammar, vocabulary, and a few others. To easily create a top-notch essay or conduct a research study, you can consider this list of research topics in English language below for your university or college use. Note that you can fine-tune these to suit your interests.

Linguistics Research Paper Topics

If you want to study how language is applied and its importance in the world, you can consider these Linguistics topics for your research paper. They are:

• An analysis of romantic ideas and their expression amongst French people
• An overview of the hate language in the course against religion
• Identify the determinants of hate language and the means of propagation
• Evaluate a literature and examine how Linguistics is applied to the understanding of minor languages
• Consider the impact of social media in the development of slangs
• An overview of political slang and its use amongst New York teenagers
• Examine the relevance of Linguistics in a digitalized world
• Analyze foul language and how it’s used to oppress minors
• Identify the role of language in the national identity of a socially dynamic society
• Attempt an explanation to how the language barrier could affect the social life of an individual in a new society
• Discuss the means through which language can enrich cultural identities
• Examine the concept of bilingualism and how it applies in the real world
• Analyze the possible strategies for teaching a foreign language
• Discuss the priority of teachers in the teaching of grammar to non-native speakers
• Choose a school of your choice and observe the slang used by its students: analyze how it affects their social lives
• Attempt a critical overview of racist languages
• What does endangered language means and how does it apply in the real world?
• A critical overview of your second language and why it is a second language
• What are the motivators of speech and why are they relevant?
• Analyze the difference between the different types of communications and their significance to specially-abled persons
• Give a critical overview of five literature on sign language
• Evaluate the distinction between the means of language comprehension between an adult and a teenager
• Consider a native American group and evaluate how cultural diversity has influenced their language
• Analyze the complexities involved in code-switching and code-mixing
• Give a critical overview of the importance of language to a teenager
• Attempt a forensic overview of language accessibility and what it means
• What do you believe are the means of communications and what are their uniqueness?
• Attempt a study of Islamic poetry and its role in language development
• Attempt a study on the role of Literature in language development
• Evaluate the Influence of metaphors and other literary devices in the depth of each sentence
• Identify the role of literary devices in the development of proverbs in any African country
• Cognitive Linguistics: analyze two pieces of Literature that offers a critical view of perception
• Identify and analyze the complexities in unspoken words
• Expression is another kind of language: discuss
• Identify the significance of symbols in the evolution of language
• Discuss how learning more than a single language promote cross-cultural developments
• Analyze how the loss of a mother tongue affect the language Efficiency of a community
• Critically examine how sign language works
• Using literature from the medieval era, attempt a study of the evolution of language
• Identify how wars have led to the reduction in the popularity of a language of your choice across any country of the world
• Critically examine five Literature on why accent changes based on environment
• What are the forces that compel the comprehension of language in a child
• Identify and explain the difference between the listening and speaking skills and their significance in the understanding of language
• Give a critical overview of how natural language is processed
• Examine the influence of language on culture and vice versa
• It is possible to understand a language even without living in that society: discuss
• Identify the arguments regarding speech defects
• Discuss how the familiarity of language informs the creation of slangs
• Explain the significance of religious phrases and sacred languages
• Explore the roots and evolution of incantations in Africa

Sociolinguistic Research Topics

You may as well need interesting Linguistics topics based on sociolinguistic purposes for your research. Sociolinguistics is the study and recording of natural speech. It’s primarily the casual status of most informal conversations. You can consider the following Sociolinguistic research topics for your research:

• What makes language exceptional to a particular person?
• How does language form a unique means of expression to writers?
• Examine the kind of speech used in health and emergencies
• Analyze the language theory explored by family members during dinner
• Evaluate the possible variation of language based on class
• Evaluate the language of racism, social tension, and sexism
• Discuss how Language promotes social and cultural familiarities
• Give an overview of identity and language
• Examine why some language speakers enjoy listening to foreigners who speak their native language
• Give a forensic analysis of his the language of entertainment is different to the language in professional settings
• Give an understanding of how Language changes
• Examine the Sociolinguistics of the Caribbeans
• Consider an overview of metaphor in France
• Explain why the direct translation of written words is incomprehensible in Linguistics
• Discuss the use of language in marginalizing a community
• Analyze the history of Arabic and the culture that enhanced it
• Discuss the growth of French and the influences of other languages
• Examine how the English language developed and its interdependence on other languages
• Give an overview of cultural diversity and Linguistics in teaching
• Challenge the attachment of speech defect with disability of language listening and speaking abilities
• Explore the uniqueness of language between siblings
• Explore the means of making requests between a teenager and his parents
• Observe and comment on how students relate with their teachers through language
• Observe and comment on the communication of strategy of parents and teachers
• Examine the connection of understanding first language with academic excellence

Language Research Topics

Numerous languages exist in different societies. This is why you may seek to understand the motivations behind language through these Linguistics project ideas. You can consider the following interesting Linguistics topics and their application to language:

• What does language shift mean?
• Discuss the stages of English language development?
• Examine the position of ambiguity in a romantic Language of your choice
• Why are some languages called romantic languages?
• Observe the strategies of persuasion through Language
• Discuss the connection between symbols and words
• Identify the language of political speeches
• Discuss the effectiveness of language in an indigenous cultural revolution
• Trace the motivators for spoken language
• What does language acquisition mean to you?
• Examine three pieces of literature on language translation and its role in multilingual accessibility
• Identify the science involved in language reception
• Interrogate with the context of language disorders
• Examine how psychotherapy applies to victims of language disorders
• Study the growth of Hindi despite colonialism
• Critically appraise the term, language erasure
• Examine how colonialism and war is responsible for the loss of language
• Give an overview of the difference between sounds and letters and how they apply to the German language
• Explain why the placement of verb and preposition is different in German and English languages
• Choose two languages of your choice and examine their historical relationship
• Discuss the strategies employed by people while learning new languages
• Discuss the role of all the figures of speech in the advancement of language
• Analyze the complexities of autism and its victims
• Offer a linguist approach to language uniqueness between a Down Syndrome child and an autist
• Express dance as a language
• Express music as a language
• Express language as a form of language
• Evaluate the role of cultural diversity in the decline of languages in South Africa
• Discuss the development of the Greek language
• Critically review two literary texts, one from the medieval era and another published a decade ago, and examine the language shifts

Linguistics Essay Topics

You may also need Linguistics research topics for your Linguistics essays. As a linguist in the making, these can help you consider controversies in Linguistics as a discipline and address them through your study. You can consider:

• The connection of sociolinguistics in comprehending interests in multilingualism
• Write on your belief of how language encourages sexism
• What do you understand about the differences between British and American English?
• Discuss how slangs grew and how they started
• Consider how age leads to loss of language
• Review how language is used in formal and informal conversation
• Discuss what you understand by polite language
• Discuss what you know by hate language
• Evaluate how language has remained flexible throughout history
• Mimicking a teacher is a form of exercising hate Language: discuss
• Body Language and verbal speech are different things: discuss
• Language can be exploitative: discuss
• Do you think language is responsible for inciting aggression against the state?
• Can you justify the structural representation of any symbol of your choice?
• Religious symbols are not ordinary Language: what are your perspective on day-to-day languages and sacred ones?
• Consider the usage of language by an English man and someone of another culture
• Discuss the essence of code-mixing and code-switching
• Attempt a psychological assessment on the role of language in academic development
• How does language pose a challenge to studying?
• Choose a multicultural society of your choice and explain the problem they face
• What forms does Language use in expression?
• Identify the reasons behind unspoken words and actions
• Why do universal languages exist as a means of easy communication?
• Examine the role of the English language in the world
• Examine the role of Arabic in the world
• Examine the role of romantic languages in the world
• Evaluate the significance of each teaching Resources in a language classroom
• Consider an assessment of language analysis
• Why do people comprehend beyond what is written or expressed?
• What is the impact of hate speech on a woman?
• Do you believe that grammatical errors are how everyone’s comprehension of language is determined?
• Observe the Influence of technology in language learning and development
• Which parts of the body are responsible for understanding new languages
• How has language informed development?
• Would you say language has improved human relations or worsened it considering it as a tool for violence?
• Would you say language in a black populous state is different from its social culture in white populous states?
• Give an overview of the English language in Nigeria
• Give an overview of the English language in Uganda
• Give an overview of the English language in India
• Give an overview of Russian in Europe
• Give a conceptual analysis on stress and how it works
• Consider the means of vocabulary development and its role in cultural relationships
• Examine the effects of Linguistics in language
• Present your understanding of sign language
• What do you understand about descriptive language and prescriptive Language?

List of Research Topics in English Language

You may need English research topics for your next research. These are topics that are socially crafted for you as a student of language in any institution. You can consider the following for in-depth analysis:

• Examine the travail of women in any feminist text of your choice
• Examine the movement of feminist literature in the Industrial period
• Give an overview of five Gothic literature and what you understand from them
• Examine rock music and how it emerged as a genre
• Evaluate the cultural association with Nina Simone’s music
• What is the relevance of Shakespeare in English literature?
• How has literature promoted the English language?
• Identify the effect of spelling errors in the academic performance of students in an institution of your choice
• Critically survey a university and give rationalize the literary texts offered as Significant
• Examine the use of feminist literature in advancing the course against patriarchy
• Give an overview of the themes in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
• Express the significance of Ernest Hemingway’s diction in contemporary literature
• Examine the predominant devices in the works of William Shakespeare
• Explain the predominant devices in the works of Christopher Marlowe
• Charles Dickens and his works: express the dominating themes in his Literature
• Why is Literature described as the mirror of society?
• Examine the issues of feminism in Sefi Atta’s “Everything Good Will Come” and Bernadine Evaristos’s “Girl, Woman, Other”
• Give an overview of the stylistics employed in the writing of “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernadine Evaristo
• Describe the language of advertisement in social media and newspapers
• Describe what poetic Language means
• Examine the use of code-switching and code-mixing on Mexican Americans
• Examine the use of code-switching and code-mixing in Indian Americans
• Discuss the influence of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” on satirical literature
• Examine the Linguistics features of “Native Son” by Richard Wright
• What is the role of indigenous literature in promoting cultural identities
• How has literature informed cultural consciousness?
• Analyze five literature on semantics and their Influence on the study
• Assess the role of grammar in day to day communications
• Observe the role of multidisciplinary approaches in understanding the English language
• What does stylistics mean while analyzing medieval literary texts?
• Analyze the views of philosophers on language, society, and culture

English Research Paper Topics for College Students

For your college work, you may need to undergo a study of any phenomenon in the world. Note that they could be Linguistics essay topics or mainly a research study of an idea of your choice. Thus, you can choose your research ideas from any of the following:

• The concept of fairness in a democratic Government
• The capacity of a leader isn’t in his or her academic degrees
• The concept of discrimination in education
• The theory of discrimination in Islamic states
• The idea of school policing
• A study on grade inflation and its consequences
• A study of taxation and Its importance to the economy from a citizen’s perspectives
• A study on how eloquence lead to discrimination amongst high school students
• A study of the influence of the music industry in teens
• An Evaluation of pornography and its impacts on College students
• A descriptive study of how the FBI works according to Hollywood
• A critical consideration of the cons and pros of vaccination
• The health effect of sleep disorders
• An overview of three literary texts across three genres of Literature and how they connect to you
• A critical overview of “King Oedipus”: the role of the supernatural in day to day life
• Examine the novel “12 Years a Slave” as a reflection of servitude and brutality exerted by white slave owners
• Rationalize the emergence of racist Literature with concrete examples
• A study of the limits of literature in accessing rural readers
• Analyze the perspectives of modern authors on the Influence of medieval Literature on their craft
• What do you understand by the mortality of a literary text?
• A study of controversial Literature and its role in shaping the discussion
• A critical overview of three literary texts that dealt with domestic abuse and their role in changing the narratives about domestic violence
• Choose three contemporary poets and analyze the themes of their works
• Do you believe that contemporary American literature is the repetition of unnecessary themes already treated in the past?
• A study of the evolution of Literature and its styles
• The use of sexual innuendos in literature
• The use of sexist languages in literature and its effect on the public
• The disaster associated with media reports of fake news
• Conduct a study on how language is used as a tool for manipulation
• Attempt a criticism of a controversial Literary text and why it shouldn’t be studied or sold in the first place

Finding Linguistics Hard To Write About?

With these topics, you can commence your research with ease. However, if you need professional writing help for any part of the research, you can scout here online for the best research paper writing service.

There are several expert writers on ENL hosted on our website that you can consider for a fast response on your research study at a cheap price.

As students, you may be unable to cover every part of your research on your own. This inability is the reason you should consider expert writers for custom research topics in Linguistics approved by your professor for high grades.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment * Error message

Name * Error message

Email * Error message

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

As Putin continues killing civilians, bombing kindergartens, and threatening WWIII, Ukraine fights for the world's peaceful future.

Ukraine Live Updates

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List

Developmental Language Disorder and Autism: Commonalities and Differences on Language

Associated data.

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author, GS. The data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Language and communication deficits characterize both autism spectrum disorder and developmental language disorder, and the possibility of there being a common profile of these is a matter of tireless debate in the research community. This experimental study addresses the relation of these two developmental conditions in the critical topic of language. A total of 103 children (79 males, 24 females) participated in the present study. Specifically, the study’s sample consisted of 40 children with autism, 28 children with developmental language disorder, and 35 typically developing children between 6 and 12 years old. All children completed language and cognitive measures. The results showed that there is a subgroup inside the autism group of children who demonstrate language difficulties similar to children with developmental language disorder. Specifically, two different subgroups were derived from the autism group; those with language impairment and those without. Both autism and language-impaired groups scored lower than typically developing children on all language measures indicating a common pathology in language ability. The results of this study shed light on the relation between the two disorders, supporting the assumption of a subgroup with language impairment inside the autism spectrum disorder population. The common picture presented by the two developmental conditions highlights the need for further research in the field.

1. Theoretical Premises

A growing body of research focuses on the investigation of language and communication deficits observed in children with developmental disorders, such as Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (e.g., [ 1 , 2 ]). Individuals diagnosed with DLD are found to have difficulties in areas related to the structure of a language, such as phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. It has been suggested that individuals diagnosed with ASD have difficulties in another category associated with language, namely pragmatics. Pragmatics resides at the top of the hierarchy of the building blocks of language and is defined as one’s ability to use the language appropriately in each context [ 3 ]. Deficits in this last component of language led some researchers to the conclusion that structural language deficits may also be present in ASD [ 4 ]. Nowadays, the research community has raised its interest in whether ASD and DLD disorders overlap, and examines the possibility that these two disorders may consist of different manifestations of the same underlying cause.

1.1. Developmental Language Disorder

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is not a term included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), however, it is widely accepted amongst both the scientific community and clinicians. Instead, the DSM-5 includes the term “Language Disorder” (within neurodevelopmental disorders) to define persistent difficulties in the acquisition and use of language, because of impairments presented in comprehension or production [ 5 ]. Until recently, it was widely referred to as “Specific Language Impairment (SLI)”. Nevertheless, in the recent past the term proposed by Bishop and colleagues [ 6 ], namely “Developmental Language Disorder” (DLD; CATALISE-2 consortium; Criteria and Terminology Applied to Language Impairments: Synthesizing the Evidence), has been widely accepted and used extensively. In the present study, we will refer to this disorder using this term (Developmental Language Disorder; DLD). The symptomatology of DLD includes difficulties that create obstacles to communication or learning in everyday life, and those language problems are unlikely to resolve or will have not been resolved by five years of age and are not associated with a known biomedical condition such as brain injury, neurodegenerative conditions, genetic conditions or chromosome disorders such as Down syndrome, hearing loss, autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability [ 6 ].

DLD is a heterogeneous disorder; symptoms can be either expressive (e.g., syntax, vocabulary, phonology, and motor skills), receptive (i.e., comprehensive skills), or a combination of the two [ 7 ]. Recently, more empirical evidence supports that children with DLD are also deficient in pragmatics, a non-core feature of language [ 8 ]. It has also been suggested that a subtype of DLD exists and presents reduced pragmatic abilities [ 9 ].

1.2. Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism is a disorder characterized primarily by social deficits, as two of the three main diagnostic features, namely impaired communication and reciprocal social interaction, exist within the social domain. According to the DSM-5, a diagnosis of ASD has to include deficits in (1) social communication, and social interaction which occur across multiple contexts and (2) restricted repetitive behaviors, interests, and activities [ 5 ].

Although structural language impairment as part of a communication deficit, is not a necessity for an ASD diagnosis (according to DSM-5), it is strongly associated with ASD [ 4 ]. Specifically, it has been stated that approximately 63% of all children diagnosed with ASD have language impairment [ 10 ]. It has also been found that over half of the individuals with ASD have additional deficits in other levels of the structure of a language, such as in phonology, grammar, and semantics [ 11 ]. A delay in language acquisition and a lack of the ability to use language appropriately in social contexts (lack of pragmatic abilities) are the core features of ASD. Pragmatic abilities are a hallmark feature of the disorder, regardless of an individual’s level of functioning [ 2 , 12 ].

ASD is a highly heterogeneous disorder, with a wide range of abilities in language and cognition throughout the spectrum. Understanding the nature of these deficits is complicated by the great heterogeneity of language and cognitive abilities within this population [ 2 ]. For instance, although many ASD individuals present expressive and receptive language impairments, there is also an important number of ASD individuals who do not display any language deficits (ALN subgroup) [ 13 ]. This variability complicates the effort to understand the nature of the cognitive and language deficits of the disorder.

Language impairment is the primary symptom of DLD condition. As previously mentioned, studies are supporting the existence of language deficits in ASD individuals [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. This finding triggered the scientific community to further investigate the relation of the two developmental conditions in the domain of language. Research evidence so far has provided some interesting findings pointing at commonalities in the language domain [ 15 , 16 ]. Data from the use of language tasks along with data from cognition neuroimaging and genetics in ASD children provide evidence for the existence of an ASD-LI (ASD plus Language Impairment) subgroup within the ASD group [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. Figure 1 represents the ASD-LI “subgroup” of shared symptoms between the two disorders.

A depiction of the proposed intermediate category ASD-LI, sharing features from both ASD and DLD.

In this figure, an overlap is identified between the two disorders. This overlap, this common area between the two disorders has been documented by different studies despite the widely accepted view of them being characterized by different symptoms [ 14 , 15 , 16 ]. A possible link between ASD and DLD has been stated as a matter of investigation for additional research. Studies to date had allowed researchers to draw different conclusions based on controversial findings. Currently, there are two key assumptions within the research community addressing the relation of ASD and DLD. The two different perspectives are presented in Figure 2 .

Models of the relationship between DLD and ASD. They depict different theories explaining the relation between ASD and DLD.

In particular, one part of the research community argues that the two disorders are distinct and attribute any common ground to superficial similarities; (e.g., [ 2 , 13 , 17 , 18 ]) while the other part of the community argues that the two disorders consist of different manifestations of the same pathology and lie on the same continuum [ 19 ]. This second assumption has received important support from researchers supporting that ASD and DLD disorders are comorbid (e.g., [ 15 , 16 ]).

The debate regarding whether there is a common etiological phenotype between the two disorders is still ongoing. Research so far cannot provide conclusions on the similarities and differences between the two disorders. The need for more research in the area is underlined, to provide evidence either to support or dismiss the assumption of a common etiology behind DLD and ASD.

1.3. A Potential Overlap between ASD and DLD: Language Development in DLD

Language problems are common in children, with DLD prevalence estimated to be 7.5% [ 20 ]. Children with DLD present impairments in language acquisition and use, despite having normal nonverbal intelligence and in the absence of other significant developmental/hearing deficits, autism, and severe neurological impairment [ 21 ]. Language abilities of individuals with DLD are assessed through multiple measures of both expressive and receptive language. Children with DLD demonstrate deficits in verbal working memory (e.g., [ 22 , 23 ]) and on nonverbal as well [ 23 , 24 ].

Research so far, in an attempt to identify the specific causes of DLD, has pointed out some clinical markers, related to DLD deficits [ 25 ]. Specific errors of tense marking (i.e., omission of the past tense marker, 3rd person present tense marker) [ 26 ], poor sentence repetition [ 27 ], and poor non-word repetition are all considered as discriminative markers of DLD children from typically developing (TD) children [ 28 ].

Specifically, tense marking ability has been documented as a DLD indicator by the early studies of Rice et al. [ 29 ] and Marchman et al. [ 30 ]. It has been identified as a key feature of children with DLD, examined by an elicitation task, and a task of the use of third person singular [ 31 ]. Children with DLD were also found to demonstrate poor performance on syntactic tense throughout the primary school years [ 30 ]. Furthermore, sentence repetition is a good indicator of DLD, for children speaking English [ 27 ] or dialects of English [ 32 ], also Cantonese [ 33 ], French [ 34 , 35 ], and Greek Cypriot [ 36 ].

For example, in the first study conducted in Cyprus, measuring and validating Sentence Repetition Task (SRT) in Greek-Cypriot children, results showed significant differences, as the group of children with DLD scored poorer than the TD group of children participated in the study [ 36 ]. The results from the English speaking population are reported by Conti-Ramsden et al. [ 27 ], who investigated different potential clinical markers of DLD and found that sentence repetition (also third person singular task, tense marking, and non-word repetition) could be the strongest clinical marker for the identification of DLD. A repetition task considers contributing to the identification of children’s weaknesses and strengths in the language domain [ 37 ].

Another important clinical marker in the field is non-word repetition. A majority of research has pointed out a strong connection between consistently poor performance on non-word repetition tasks and DLD (see [ 38 ]). In these tasks, listeners are first asked to hear a made-up word modeled after their native language, (e.g., “vonk” in English, or “Βηκα” in Greek), and then, repeat it back immediately. The non-word repetition task is considering an excellent clinical marker to distinguish DLD individuals from typically developing individuals [ 1 , 28 ].

Especially, non-word repetition tasks received a great deal of attention in investigations of language impairments. Indeed, their connection to language impairments occurs reliably across the literature [ 39 , 40 ]. Non-word repetition tasks have received significant attention in studies of language impairments because of their ability to comprehend the underlying deficits of children with DLD and acts as a possible identifier of these children. A meta-analysis provided evidence from different studies indicating that children with DLD displayed difficulty repeating not only long non-words but even short nonwords [ 40 ].

Tasks such as Non-Word Repetition (NWR) and Sentence Repetition (SNT), have received great research interest as psycholinguistic markers of DLD [ 27 , 41 , 42 ]. NWR and SNT measures are used as phonological short-term memory indicators, and putative markers for DLD [ 41 ]. NWR can discriminate DLD from other childhood communication disorders [ 42 ] and exceeds other language measures such as past tense marking in its specificity and sensitivity to detect language-impaired individuals [ 27 ].

In addition to the above, it is also important to make a brief reference to the field of pragmatic language and its relation to DLD. Pragmatic language is strongly associated with deficits presented in ASD individuals, whereas, its relation to individuals with DLD ability, is still not determined. On the one hand, studies are supporting additional pragmatic impairments in children with DLD [ 3 , 43 , 44 ] while on the other, evidence of intact pragmatic ability, is provided [ 45 , 46 ], highlighting the need for more research in the field.

DLD has been extensively studied in several different languages, and interesting results emerged from studies conducted in the Greek language. Studies in Greek-speaking children with DLD revealed important results especially in relation to specific domains of linguistic or cognitive difficulties.

The main findings indicate difficulties of children with DLD in their ability to comprehend thematic roles, namely, grammatical subject–object relations in complex main-relative clauses, by utilizing pro- and post-verb clitics about their peers [ 47 ], and in the production and understanding of pronouns [ 48 , 49 ]. In addition, longitudinal studies inform for persistent impairments in specific aspects of language, such as persistent problems with specific grammatical operations 5 years later [ 50 , 51 ].

Interestingly, controversial results are reported by studies investigating clitic production in Greek-speaking children with DLD. Studies are reporting that children with DLD omit direct-object clitics [ 52 , 53 ] while others report no differences between children with DLD and TD peers in similar tasks [ 54 , 55 , 56 ]. Narratives have also been tested in Greek-speaking children and found to be effective in differentiating DLD children from TD [ 57 ]. The authors noted that narratives can indeed be a useful tool to identify and assess language-impaired children in the Greek language.

Additional findings support that children with DLD have difficulties in understanding the semantic and pragmatic functions of mental state verbs and working memory [ 58 ]. Mainly, research on the Greek language specifies difficulties that children with DLD perform in semantics, morphosyntax, and pragmatics and not necessarily in phonology (see also [ 59 ]).

The majority of research in the Greek language focuses on specific areas of linguistic ability. Nevertheless, more research is needed related to the linguistic abilities of DLD children on all linguistic domains, especially in comparison to the abilities presented by ASD children, to effectively locate the similarities and differences of the two disorders and shed light on the predominate “comorbidity” question.

1.4. Language Ability in ASD

Language ability in autism was described from early on as impaired, especially concerning the social use of language and to the quality of the spoken language (e.g., [ 60 , 61 ]). However, not much investigation conducted in the following years related to the language deficits in autism, possibly because early studies did not reveal any significant differences in linguistic domains of phonology, syntax, and morphology, between children with ASD and TD children, matched either on age, IQ or language (e.g., [ 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]).

Research so far provided evidence of higher-verbal children with ASD, who score similar to TD children, based on a range of structural language measures [ 66 ]. The ability in phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax of a subgroup of ASD individuals is furthermore supported by different studies [ 67 , 68 ]. It has been found that there are individuals with ASD who present good or even elevated structural language abilities on formal testing, by using sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structure [ 69 , 70 ].

The great heterogeneity observed within the ASD population is also apparent in the extent of structural language difficulties that co-occur with ASD [ 4 , 66 , 71 ]. It is argued that a percentage of 25% and 30% of children with ASD are minimally verbal or nonverbal, based on studies ascertained via population-based or clinical samples [ 72 , 73 ]. The incidences presented may vary according to individuals’ age, different study criteria of language ability definitions, and by the way the sample was ascertained [ 74 ]. Nevertheless, impaired language development is often the first irregular symptom to be identified by parents of children who are later on diagnosed with ASD [ 75 , 76 ]. It has also been found that over half of the individuals with ASD have additional deficits in different levels of the structure of a language, such as in phonology, grammar, and semantics [ 11 ]. In addition, the progress of lower verbal children with ASD, found to be slower, and also presenting flatter language development [ 66 ].

As it concerns the communication domain, diagnostic features refer to delays and impairments in language acquisition, and qualitative deficits in discourse and other pragmatic aspects of language as well. A great emphasis in the research community about language in autism has focused its interest on the pragmatic impairments, which are treated as universal among ASD individuals and are specific to this disorder [ 4 , 77 ]. The pragmatic impairment, is a hallmark feature of the disorder, regardless of an individual’s level of functioning [ 2 , 12 ].

In the Greek language, only limited studies included children with ASD. In a study investigating the narrative skills of 30 Greek-speaking children with ASD (ALN and ASD-LI) and a TD group, their narrative ability was measured in terms of both microstructural and macrostructural properties. Microstructural properties are referring to lexical and syntactic measures of complexity and macrostructure to the diversity in the use of internal state terms (ISTs) and the complexity of the story’s structure. The results showed that increased language ability and syntactic complexity are positively connected to ASD children’s narrative performance. However, both ALN and ASD-LI groups of children with ASD scored lower than the TD controls in measures of the production of Theory of Mind-unrelated ISTs, modifier clauses, and story structure complexity [ 78 ].

In an additional study in the Greek language with high-functioning ASD children, results were indicative of difficulties in the ASD group at the interface of syntax with pragmatics and prosody. Specifically, they produced significant deficits in their ability to distinguish a discourse prominent element and to consider intonation relevant for a particular interpretation that excludes clitics, in relation to their TD peers [ 79 ].

The difficulties of ASD-LI children in the Greek language are also supported by a study with Greek-Cypriot children investigating comprehension and production of two-constituent compound words. The results of the study indicate that despite the ASD-LI children’s ability to recognize compound constituents they demonstrated impairments to understand the compound meaning. In addition, they produced semantically inappropriate responses when attempted to explain the meaning of the compounds, indicating limitations in their conceptual-intentional system [ 80 ].

To sum up, ASD is a highly heterogeneous disorder, with impaired cognitive-language abilities throughout the spectrum. Understanding the nature of these language deficits is complicated by the great heterogeneity of language and cognitive abilities within this population [ 2 ]. For instance, although many ASD individuals present expressive and receptive language impairments, there is, simultaneously, an important number of ASD individuals who do not display any language deficit [ 13 ]. This variability complicates the effort to understand the nature of the cognitive and language deficits of the disorder. More research is necessary to clarify the nature of the language impairments in (subgroups of) children with ASD, and how it may be related to that presented in other developmental conditions of language pathology, such as DLD.

1.5. ASD and DLD Children’s Relation on Language Ability

Many studies have examined any potential phenotypic overlap between autism and DLD, especially in the language domain. Numerous studies have found that there are many similarities in the language abilities of children with autism and children with DLD and argue that the reason for these similarities is a shared etiology [ 14 , 15 ].

1.5.1. Similarities

Impaired language development is apparent in DLD and—at least—in subgroups of ASD individuals. The relationship though, of these two developmental conditions with language deficits, is still undetermined. In the last twenty years, several assumptions have been made suggesting that a clear diagnostic border separating the two disorders may not emerge as clear as expected [ 15 , 16 , 81 ]. This hypothesis is supported by studies concluding that there are common features between the two disorders [ 15 , 16 ]. Furthermore, Lindgren and colleagues in their 2009 study discovered no statistically compelling differences between the two groups in a variety of language domains. Those discoveries of language similarities, gave voice to the researchers to contemplate that there is a possible shared etiology at the background of the two disorders [ 82 ].

In addition, Lloyd and colleagues [ 83 ] administered a standardized language test to three groups of children, ASD, DLD, and a shared group with common symptoms from both disorders. The results provided mixed results. Despite that, the composite scores of the “shared” and ASD groups had the most similarities, and the DLD group had the lower expressive language scores, all three groups had the least difficulty with “Listening to Paragraphs” (which involves abstracting and remembering information from two short texts). It also showed that all three groups had difficulty with “Recalling Sentences” (SRT; which involves repeating sentences of increasing length and complexity). Comparable performance in expressive language between the ASD and DLD groups measured by the task of Repeating Sentences has also been stated by Manolitsi and Botting study [ 84 ]. In addition, others demonstrated similar phonology [ 85 ] and vocabulary delays [ 85 , 86 ].

The assumption of a common phenotypical path linking the two developmental conditions is furthermore strongly supported by McGregor and colleague’s findings [ 86 ]. In their study, they compared an ASD group of children, who were free of syntactic deficits and had age-appropriate word knowledge, a group of children with ASD plus concomitant syntactic language impairments (ASD-LI), a DLD group of children, an age-matched group (AM), and a syntax-matched group (SM), both consisted by unaffected peers. Their results showed that ASD-LI children, performed similarly to the DLD group, and both showed sparse lexicons with partial word knowledge and immature knowledge of word—relationships. The authors state for a behavioral overlap related to the syntax–lexicon interface and point to the possibility of a commonality in the ASD-LI and DLD phenotypes.

The grammar ability of the two groups has also been studied by Tuller and colleagues [ 87 ], who stated that both ASD and DLD participants make mistakes with clitic pronouns and complex sentences. They also reported that the ASD-LI group (and the children with DLD) were particularly sensitive to consonants in syllable final position, notably liquids and obstruents in internal coda position when examined on a standardized word repetition task. ASD-LI and DLD groups were identified to develop the same strategies in an attempt to avoid syllabic complexity, such as the omission of a segment. Riches and colleagues [ 18 ] also reported that syllabic structure is problematic for adolescents with ASD plus language impairment.

More recent data also highlight the possible overlap between the two conditions. Specifically, the CELF-4 standardized test was administered to assess ASD, DLD, and TD children’s language skills. The results showed no significant differences in language between the DLD and ASD groups, suggesting an overlap in the linguistic profiles of children with DLD and children with ASD [ 88 ].

Recent evidence supports the existence of common ground between the two conditions in relation to the field of semantics. Gladfelter and Barron [ 89 ] explored whether global–local processing differences influence the type of semantic features children with ASD, DLD, and typically developing peers learn to produce when learning new words. The results showed that the children from the clinical groups produced more global, in relation to local, semantic features in their definitions than the TD group. This finding further supports a common feature in semantic language and may reflect common deficits in depth of word knowledge.

In addition, a study by Modyanova and colleagues [ 90 ] investigating the performance of ALN and ASD-LI children in their ability in tense marking and morphosyntax revealed a clear distinction in the morphosyntactic abilities of the two subgroups. ASD-LI scored significantly worse with grammatical ability. The ASD-LI profile was closer to the one usually performed by the DLD children, and perhaps even more impaired. A study comparing ASD and DLD groups on tasks of working memory and morphosyntactic processing showed that children in both groups were more accurate and faster at detecting errors occurring late, rather than early, in the sentence, indicating no evidence of different patterns of performance for the DLD and ASD groups [ 91 ].

There is also research evidence supporting the existence of a common ground related to the field of pragmatics. In a recent study, where ASD-high function (HFA), DLD and TD groups of children participated, the groups were experimentally tested on various components of grammar, pragmatics, and nonverbal cognition. The results showed similar performance of DLD and HFA in pragmatics, lower than their TD peers. However, the DLD group performed significantly lower than the TD children on grammar and several cognition tests, while the HFA group did not [ 92 ]. Thus, although a similar profile is identified on pragmatics, differences are also noted by this study.

Additionally, Norbury and colleagues [ 93 ] also investigated pragmatic language and the narratives of ASD, DLD and TD children and revealed no significant differences between children with ASD and DLD, who produced similarly simple narratives that lacked semantic richness and omitted important story elements, when compared to TD peers. Importantly, pragmatic errors were common across groups.

As it concerns the longitudinal outcomes of the proposed overlap, data from adolescents come to add to the “commonality” hypothesis. Specifically, Conti-Ramsden and colleagues [ 94 ], in their study, found that 3.9% of teenagers previously diagnosed with DLD, showed sufficient characteristics of autistic behavior and met the criteria for an autism diagnosis. Leyfer and colleagues [ 95 ] determined that a percentage of 41% of a DLD diagnosed group of children, reached the diagnostic boundaries for ASD in social and communication domains, and also displayed impairments in structural language. In line with the previously mentioned discoveries, data from long-term studies provide evidence that individuals who were previously diagnosed with DLD, as teenagers and adults, express characteristics that are similar to autism [ 96 , 97 ]. Those findings could imply a possible relation between the two disorders, which becomes more apparent with children’s growth, as social expectations grow as well, and their DLD symptoms alone cannot explain their social deficiencies. Then it seems that their symptoms might become more autistic-like.

1.5.2. Differences

Despite the above-mentioned studies arguing in favor of possible comorbidity of the two conditions, another theoretical position states that the similarities in the language and memory performance of children with autism and children with DLD are simply superficial, and do not suggest a common etiology [ 98 ].

The evidence for this position gains support from studies in which children with DLD and children with autism demonstrate different patterns of deficits between the two conditions (e.g., [ 2 , 13 ]). For instance, Demouy and colleagues [ 85 ] examined receptive and expressive language in children with ASD, DLD, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Other Specified (PDD-NOS) and reported that skills in ASD and DLD rely on different mechanisms, while PDD-NOS showed an intermediate profile sharing some characteristics of both AD and DLD. The results identified significant differences between three groups in syntax, pragmatics, and prosody. DLD demonstrated correlations between chronological age and raw scores in all language tasks, while the two other groups did not. In addition, DLD showed correlation within all raw scores in language tasks, the majority of correlations were also found in PDD-NOS but not in the ASD group. The authors suggest that language skills in ASD and DLD are not comorbid, however, they argue about the existence of some common symptoms, as they consider PDD-NOS as an intermediate profile sharing some characteristics of both ASD and DLD.

In another study with adolescents with DLD and ASD-LI, the findings showed the second groups’ participants to outperform DLDs’ in lexical tasks involving word associations and structures [ 83 ]. In an additional study with adolescents, Loucas and colleagues [ 99 ] investigated three groups of ASD-LI, DLD, and TD adolescents, in tasks of spoken word recognition with frequency (low/high) differences and several phonological onset neighbors. They found that adolescents with ASD-LI needed more speech to identify low-frequency words with opponents of low density, than the other two groups, which showed a similar performance, pointing to differences between clinical conditions.

Furthermore, data derived from the field of non-word and sentence repetition tasks provide important evidence related to the nature of the commonalities observed. Some studies have been found different patterns of errors related to ASD and DLD children, on non-word and tasks which require repetition of sentences [ 13 , 18 ]. Specifically, Whitehouse and colleagues [ 13 ] claim that even if some common deficits do exist in both disorders, there are different underlying causes behind those. They have disclosed different kinds of non-word repetition mistakes between the two groups, concluding that there is no evidence supporting that those two disorders may have a common behavioral or etiological result. However, this result should be viewed with caution, because the number of participants in the ASD group who performed poorly enough on the non-word repetition measure and was included in the analysis was small ( n = 8). An additional study [ 99 ], despite concluding on the same findings as Whitehouse and colleagues [ 13 ], did not find any compelling differences between the two groups concerning their overall error rates, and their percentage of phonemic mistakes that specifically affected the syllable structure of the stimuli, on word-repetition performance. Though, again, the results should be seen with discretion because ASD-LI children were not matched on their chronological or verbal mental age (VMA) to DLD children [ 99 ].

The assumption that ASD participants demonstrate higher performance than DLD participants in nonword tasks is furthermore supported by other scientists [ 17 , 18 ]. For instance, Durrleman and Delage [ 17 ] reported that both groups, ASD and DLD, performed worse than TD on NWR tasks, of the same chronological age. Group differences reveal the most pronounced impairments relate to the DLD group since the children with ASD performed superior to the group with DLD. These authors also reported similar deficits for third person accusative clitic production and general morphosyntax between the two groups and stated the existence of a subgroup of children with ASD, which showed intact grammar except for 1st person accusative clitic production, where children with DLD showed good performance.

A more recent study compared the performance of individuals with ASD with individuals with Syntactic-Developmental Language Impairment (SyDLI) and a TD group. their results support that although the two clinical groups show similar performance in syntactic tasks, they produced different error patterns [ 100 ]. Creemers and Schaeffer [ 101 ] showed another demonstration of the differences between the two groups in a Dutch-speaking population. ASD and DLD participants were compared to a lexical-syntactic task of mass-count distinction, and a pragmatic task (testing the use of definite markers). The results showed that the ASD participants perform better than the DLD participants on the grammatical mass-count task, similar to the TD level. They performed, however, worse than the DLD group when they were asked to provide a definite determiner, a task that requires pragmatic abilities [ 102 , 103 ].

In addition, data from pragmatic language and narrative tasks reveal different levels of performance between the ASD and DLD children. For instance, in a study using pragmatic language and narrative tasks, different levels of performance were produced between the ASD and DLD children, and narratives showed that ASD children produced more expressive mistakes during their story-telling compared to DLD children. Furthermore, ASD children were found to produce more receptive but not expressive mistakes compared to DLD children [ 84 ]. This finding is also supported by Hudry and colleagues [ 104 ] who found the receptive language abilities are more impaired than the expressive language abilities, in a group of pre-schoolers with autism. These findings led researchers to hypothesize that there are distinct etiologies explaining these deficits. In a review of the literature, Williams and colleagues [ 1 ] concluded at this second position, arguing that there is not much evidence supporting a shared etiology explaining their language deficits.

Given that the above studies point to a different phenotypical path, researchers are left to hypothesize that distinct etiologies are explaining these deficiencies. Still, there is not enough evidence to explain the origin of the similarities presented by the two developmental conditions. Recently, Taylor and Whitehouse [ 105 ] reviewed studies investigating overlaps in the phenotypes of DLD, ASD, and social (pragmatic) communication disorder (SPCD). They concluded that some children with language impairments will fall between the boundaries of conventional diagnostic criteria for ASD and DLD and could meet the criteria for SPCD. The authors argue that it may be the case for DLD, SPCD, and ASD to be related disorders that vary according to the degree of the presented deficits in different domains; namely structural language, pragmatic language, and circumscribed interests (also see [ 106 ]).

This possibility of relatedness as it derives from their similarities enhances the question as to whether DLD and ASD are parts of the same continuum, as Bishop supports [ 19 ]. The observed similarities between the two developmental conditions, let Bishop outbid in favor of a shared etiology of the two. She then argues that DLD and ASD constitute points on a continuum of the same disorder instead of separate conditions [ 19 ].

Considering all the above mentioned, we can conclude that, the commonality picture is blurred and the available research data provide conflicting results. We can conclude that there is important room for research, to deeply comprehend the relation between the two disorders, especially, in the language domain.

1.6. The Present Study

1.6.1. purpose of the study.

The importance of locating the similarities and differences of DLD and ASD developmental conditions is critical, to clarify the specific symptoms of each disorder and intervene accordingly. Despite the research efforts which have been made so far, the question is still open. Putting the findings together, it seems that there is some evidence supporting the possibility of an overlap between the two conditions in language domain.

Hence, this study aims to further investigate whether the observed similarities between the two disorders are surface manifestations of the same underlying neuropsychological dysfunction, or whether they derive from distinct pathologies. The relation between DLD and ASD will be extensively investigated in relation to the critical domain of language.

1.6.2. Hypotheses

We hypothesize that an ASD-LI subgroup of children will be formed, based on participants’ performance on the Expressive and Receptive Language Evaluation (EREL) [ 107 ], a measure which represents the Greek version of the CELF instrument and is suitable to identify children with DLD.

We also hypothesize that ASD (ASD-LI and ASD without Language Impairment; ALN) and DLD children will score lower than typically developed group (TD) on language measures. Specifically, we expect that ASD-LI and DLD groups to demonstrate poorer performance than ALN and TD groups on language tasks, and also the ALN group to score poorer than the TD group.

We hypothesize, especially, that the “Sentence Repetition Task” (SRT or RS; EREL instrument) will differentiate significantly the three clinical groups from the TD children, as it is considering to be an important instrument in the diagnostic process of DLD [ 2 ]. SRT can also provide information about the language profile of children and their language strengths and weaknesses [ 36 ]. Similarly, the Non-Words Repetition task (NWR) along with the SRT, is expected to accurately locate language impairments, if any, in the experimental groups, as both measures have received great research interest as psycholinguistic markers of DLD [ 27 , 41 , 42 ]. If there is a linguistic overlap in ASD-LI and DLD, then, in comparison to ALN and TD children, we expect both the ASD-LI and DLD groups to perform significantly worse on NWR and SRT tasks.

We also expect children’s symptoms in each group to reflect on the primary deficits of each disorder. Especially, DLD children are expected to present difficulties primarily on their general communication ability, while ASD children will demonstrate additional impairments in the social interaction ability, based on the primary deficits of each disorder. These abilities will be tested by the Children Communication Checklist Second Edition [ 108 ].

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. participants’ recruitment.

A total number of 103 children participated in the study (79 males, 24 females). Participants were 40 children (38 males, 2 females) referred by special educators and speech pathologists as ASD children (initial number tested 41 children, one child excluded), 24 children as DLD children (14 males, 10 females), and 39 TD children (27 males, 12 females) were recruited from the general population referred as a control group, aged 6–12 years old.

ASD and DLD participants were all recruited from private practices in Cyprus, located in different parts of the main cities in Cyprus to represent as much as possible different demographics in our study. The speech pathologists and special educators of children informed their parents if interested in attending the study. Specialists were specifically informed about the child characteristics which fitted this study’s profile. They were, specifically, instructed to request the parents’ availability for participation if their children were already diagnosed with ASD or DLD, or if the child’s characteristics were resembling such a profile. If parents were interested the researcher contacted them providing them with further information about the study. In the ASD referred group, an ASD diagnosis was needed, from a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, trained in the clinical administration of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition [ 109 ].

The children in the two clinical groups were recipients of special education services. From the initial DLD group, all of the participants were receiving speech therapy. From the ASD group, the majority of children ( n = 32) were involved in speech therapy, to address different deficits in language, related to different components of language, such as in structural and pragmatics domains.

In addition, a comparison group of children from the general population was formed. These children were selected randomly, from children aged 6–12 years, attending public schools in Cyprus.

For all the participants’, their relatives (mothers, n = 103) were also included in the study. Permission from the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee and parental consent for participation in the study were obtained before testing. Children’s verbal agreement was also obtained before testing.

2.1.1. Demographic Characteristics

Participants are all Greek native, from mixed socio-economic backgrounds.

2.1.2. Group Selection

DLD: The children met the inclusion criteria for Developmental Language Disorder described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (5th edition) [ 5 ]. Specifically, participants in the DLD group were able to participate, if they fitted on DLD diagnostic criteria of the study when administered the EREL measure. Participants who scored 1.25 standard deviation below the mean, were suitable for inclusion in this group. The children’s cognitive ability was also assessed, to reinsure that no participant fell in an intellectual disability score (75 or above), based on their performance on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence First Edition (WASI) [ 110 ]. Two participants had a score of 71, however, given that the IQ score obtained was general and not only their Nonverbal ability, but we also reached the maximum criterion of inclusion in the study.

Our decision to include participants with IQ scores around 75 is supported by several studies in which scores below and including 75 were allowed in language impairment samples [ 111 ]. In addition, it remains an unresolved question whether would have been more effective to expand the lower level of IQ score as low as 70 or below, thereby introducing greater variability within the group of children with language impairments. One statement is that there are no interesting language differences between groups defined according to the conventional criterion (Nonverbal IQ of 85 and above) and the expanded criterion (Nonverbal IQ 70 and above) [ 112 ]. Importantly, under the application of DLD criteria, children with nonverbal IQ scores below-average are not excluded, unless those scores are so low as to merit the diagnosis of intellectual disability [ 113 ]. Nevertheless, in this study, the threshold of 75 score which was set, was assessed for the general IQ ability of the participants, and consequently, we can assume that for this deficient group, their Nonverbal ability will be greater.

ASD: Children have to meet the inclusion criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder [ 5 ]. Participants in the ASD group were able to attend the study if they fitted an ASD diagnosis (A formal ASD diagnosis by licensed psychologists or psychiatrists, trained in the clinical use of the instrument ADOS-2). ASD children’s cognitive ability was within the normal range (75 or above), based on the WASI [ 110 ].

2.1.3. Exclusion Criteria

Exclusion criteria were IQ scores under the average and any other history of psychiatric or medical conditions. Additionally, children with other neurologic impairment, global developmental delay, or significant hearing impairment were excluded from the sample. Children whose parents are unwilling to complete the caregiver’s measures were also excluded from the study. Based on the above criteria, one child was excluded from the research, because it was not able to complete the WASI test.

The following section describes the different instruments and measures administered. All of the administrations were performed by the researcher, who has the qualifications to assess and provide diagnosis, as a licensed school psychologist. The overall examination had a duration of approximately 2.5 h, with a 10 min break in between. The mothers of the participants were simultaneously completing the measure administered to them unless they needed some additional help or clarifications from the researcher. In the second case, after the completion of the child’s participation, the researcher provided the appropriate guidance and help to the mothers to complete their measures.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. pre-test examination measure.

Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence First Edition (WASI) [ 110 ]. This scale is used to measure participants’ IQ and to ensure that no child presents intellectual disability among participants. The two-subtest short version will be utilized (vocabulary and matrix reasoning), and it is administered to provide a comprehensive picture of the participants’ general cognitive ability.

2.2.2. Assessment Measures

Expressive and Receptive Language Evaluation [ 107 ] (EREL; Greek standardized test similar to Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Fourth Edition, CELF-4 [ 114 ]. This test is a suitable instrument to assess language ability and it is administered to individuals from 5 to 12 years old. In this study, participants will be assessed with this instrument to detect their linguistic abilities. Individuals need to respond verbally to stimuli presented in pictures. The Core Language score for the respective CELF-4 presents high sensitivity of 0.86 and specificity of 0.96 [ 114 ]. The reliability index of the EREL was ranging from a = 0.78 to a= 0.96 on the Core Language score for the age groups represented in our study [ 107 ]. The Core Language subtests of the EREL were administered and are referring to:

(i) Concept and Following Directions, a subtest that examines participants’ ability to (a) interpret spoken directions of increasing length and complexity; (b) follow the stated order of mention of familiar shapes with varying characteristics such as color, size, or location; and (c) identify from among several choices the pictured objects that were mentioned. These abilities reflect short-term and procedural memory capacities.

An example of such a task is: (instructions: “show the sock and then show the bird. Let’s go”).

(ii) Word Structure, which aims to evaluate the participants’ ability to (a) apply word structure rules (morphology) to mark inflections, derivations, and comparison; and (b) select and use appropriate pronouns to refer to people, objects, and possessive relationships.

An example follows where the administer reads aloud the instructions and the participant only see the picture presented below. Instructions are given first for the picture on the left, “Here we have a fox”, and then we show the picture on the right. “Here we have two….” (and we expect the child to say “foxes”).

(iii) Formulated Sentences, to investigate the ability to formulate complete, semantically, and grammatically correct, spoken sentences of increasing length and complexity (i.e., simple, compound, and complex sentences), using given words (e.g., car, if, because) and contextual constraints imposed by illustrations. These abilities reflect the capacity to integrate semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic rules and constraints while using working memory.

In the following example, participants are asked to create a sentence by given the word “book” (“βιβλίο” in the Greek language).

(iv) Recalling Sentences, is a subtest by which the participant is asked to listen to spoken sentences of increasing length and complexity, and repeat the sentences without changing word meaning and content, word structure (morphology), or sentence structure (syntax). Semantic, morphological, and syntactic competence is examined, as it facilitates immediate recall (short-term memory).

Some examples of sentences to recall are:

• “Ζήτησε να έρθει μαζί μας γεμάτος χαρά” (He asked to come with us full of joy).
• “H κατάσταση ήταν πραγματικά πολύ άσχημη για όλους” (The situation was very bad for everyone).
• “Aποφάσισαν ότι το χωράφι θα πουληθεί και τα λεφτά θα μοιραστούν στα τρία αδέλφια και τις δύο αδελφές” (They decided that the field will be sold and the money will be divided to the three brothers and the two sisters), and

(v) Word Classes, aiming to evaluate the participants’ ability to analyze words for their meaning features, define words by referring to class relationships and shared meanings, and describe meanings that are unique to the reference or instance. In this task, at first, the participant has to choose two of four words provided, that he feels match each other. This subtest was completed only by children 9 years or older, instead of the Word Classes subtest.

For instance, the participant is given the words “fence”, “window”, “glass”, “carpet” and is asked to choose the two that better fit each other. Then, participants are asked, for instance, “how the words window and glass are related”?

Non-Word (NWR) task [ 115 ]. NWR task is considered an important clinical marker of DLD [ 27 , 41 ], and it was used in this study to detect potential language deficits of participants. The NWR is consisted of 32 non-words. The nonwords are divided into four categories of two, three, four, and five syllable pairs each. Non-words were selected from a list by a group of 58 undergraduate psychology students who were asked to judge the wordlikeness of non-words on a scale ranging from 1 (very unlikely to be rated as a real Greek word) to 5 (very likely to be rated as real Greek word) [ 115 ]. Instead of single nonwords, pairs were adopted to avoid ceiling effect, especially in older children. Instructions and test stimuli were read out loud by the experimenter at a normal rate. The children were instructed to listen carefully to the stimuli and repeat the pairs of nonwords as accurately as they could. Repetition responses were scored either as correct for each nonword pair (score 1) or incorrect (score 0). The maximum correct score that could be achieved was 16. The Cronbach’s αs of the scale ranged from α = 0.76 to α = 0.81, for different grades. An example of Nonwords of three syllables in Greek is “Βλυχηθμός- Ισκάτης”, and an example of four syllables nonwords is “Λαθηκιδής- Μελίκρατο”.

Children’s Communication Checklist-2 [ 108 ]. Is a 70-item questionnaire completed by a caregiver or school teacher and is suitable to detect communication difficulties in children from 4 to 16 years old. The caregiver/school teacher rates how frequently several types of behavior are observed. The response scale is treated as a 4-point Likert scale; less than once a week (or never). At least once a week, but not every day (or occasionally), Once or twice a day (or frequently), and Several times (more than twice) a day (or always).

It is a very useful tool for screening for language impairment, pragmatic impairment and is an indicator for further investigation of autism disorder. It consists of 10 different subscales (speech, syntax, semantics, coherence, inappropriate initiation, scripted language, use of context, nonverbal communication, social relations, and interests). The test manual reports internal consistency and inter-rater agreement for all scales. Internal consistency was 0.65 or more for all scales.

The test was not available in the Greek language and for this reason, it was translated back and forth from English to Greek by two native language speakers of each language before used. Checklist translated version agrees with the translation given from a thesis titled “The Adaptation of Children’s Communication Checklist [ 108 ] written in Greek language and implemented in parents of 4–7 years old children” [ 116 ].

The two composite scores of CCC-2 were used, namely General Communication Composite (GCC) and Social-Interaction Deviance Composite (SIDC). GCC is designed to discriminate between children with communication impairments and typically developing children and SIDC is derived to give optimal discrimination between children with typical DLD and those with pragmatic difficulties that are disproportionate to their structural language abilities. Usually, children in the autism spectrum score high in GCC (55 or below), while they present deficits in the SIDC (scores 8 or below). Children with DLD also typically present impairments on GCC (score of 55 or below), however, they score higher on the SIDC (9 or above) [ 117 , 118 ]. This proposed categorical division of symptoms was decided that fits this study’s hypothesis and selected for use.

2.3. Statistical Analysis

2.3.1. preliminary analysis.

Before comparing data between groups, univariate normality was tested for the four groups’ performance on each task and scale. Participants’ performances were normally distributed. Specifically, the histogram of standardized residuals indicated that the data contained approximately normally distributed errors, as did the normal Q–Q plot of standardized residuals, which showed points that were generally on the line. By visually checked the Q–Q plots for the model, the assumption of normality of the residuals is met. However, there were some minus individual outliers detected but they produced only small deviations of the normality. For this reason, outliers are not excluded from the analysis. Multivariate normality was also checked and heteroscedasticity was acceptable in all cases.

Furthermore, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to be informed about the internal consistency of the scales used. The CCC-2 subscale consisted of 70 items, α = 0.884, which indicates a high level of internal consistency of the scale with this specific sample.

We also tested to see if the data meet the assumption of collinearity indicated that multicollinearity was not a concern as the VIF’s of the scales was under 10 (Field, 2013). IQ-Total, VIF = 1.54; CCC-2 (speech) VIF = 4.58; CCC-2 (syntax) VIF = 5.3; CCC-2 (semantic) VIF = 3.84; CCC-2 (coherence) VIF = 4.76; CCC-2 (Inappropriate initiation) VIF = 4.61; CCC-2 (stereotyped) VIF = 4.87; CCC-2 (use of context) VIF = 4.60; CCC-2 (social) VIF = 2.62; CCC-2 (nonverbal) VIF = 2.63; CCC-2 (interests) VIF = 3.99); Multicollinearity was not also a concern for Words-Non Words Total (VIF = 8.5).

Next, multiple comparisons were contacted to detect highly correlated measures and items. It appeared that some factors of the CCC-2 were highly correlated and therefore it was decided that the two basic subcategories of CCC-2 will be used [ 117 ]. Specifically, the General Communication Composite (GCC; VIF = 1.05) of CCC-2, designed to discriminate between children with communication impairments and typically developing children and also the Social-Interaction Deviance Composite (SIDC; VIF = 1.05), derived to give optimal discrimination between children with typical DLD and those with pragmatic difficulties that are disproportionate to their structural language abilities, were used. This proposed categorical division of symptoms was decided that fits this study’s hypothesis and selected for use. A full correlation matrix among measures is provided ( Table 1 ).

Correlations among measures.

** Significant at p = 0.001. Note: CFD = Concept and Following Directions; WS = Word Structure; RS = Recalling Sentences; FS = Formulated Sentences; WC = Word Classes EREL measures; NWR = Non-Word Repetition Task; SIDC = Social-Interaction Deviance Composite, Children’s Communication Checklist-2; GCC = General Communication Composite, Children’s Communication Checklist-2.

2.3.2. Power Analysis

An a priori power analysis was conducted using G*Power3 [ 119 ] to test the difference between three independent group means using analysis of covariance, a large effect size (d = 0.40), and an alpha of 0.05. The result showed that a total sample of approximately n = 110 is acceptable for the study, to achieve a power of 0.80. Our total sample consists of 103 children, who participated in this study.

2.3.3. Main Analysis

Furthermore, to study whether the relation between our participants is explained by group differences, or if there are differences within the groups of participants, we decided to proceed to a linear mixed model (LMM) analysis [ 120 ]. LMM technique provides the researcher with the opportunity to simultaneously study both within person (intra-individual) systematic change (level 1) and also between-person (inter-individual) differences (level 2) of the participants in different measures [ 121 ].

Undoubtedly, participants’ performance differs significantly and heterogeneity is observed among their responses on several tasks. Via this technique we can examine the total between- and within-person variance in the dependent variables. We adopted this analytic strategy to provide answers to the amount of outcome variation located in intra- and inter-individual levels. The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) provides the opportunity to examine to what extent the total outcome variation is related to inter-individual differences. Technically speaking, ICC refers to the proportion of the total variation of the dependent variable that can be attributed to between-person differences. The ratio of the between-cluster variance to the total variance is what is called the Intraclass Correlation and provides information of the proportion of the total variation that is accounted by the clustering.

A high ICC (>0.10) implies that the between-group variability dominates the within-group variance, meaning that, most of the differences that we observe across individuals on a variable are stemming from group differences [ 122 ]. On the contrary, a low ICC indicates that the variation seen in a variable is the result of individual differences within groups.

Participants IQ total score and age (in months) were treated as covariates, as one-way ANOVA revealed significant group differences of the two variables. Specifically, there appears to be a statistically significant effect of group on the dependent variables of IQ total variable, F (3,99) = 6.3, p < 0.001 (between groups DLD and TD children, and ASD-LI and TD children. Age variable was significantly differed as well [F (3,99) = 11.21, p < 0.001]. ASD group differed from ASD-LI group, DLD group form the group ASD-LI and ASD-LI from TD children’s group. The means and standard deviation scores are presented in Table 2 . Sex was not treated as a covariate as there was no effect of sex or interaction between group and sex. In addition, the educational level of the parents (mothers, fathers) of the participants was also examined and did not produced significant differences between groups, p = 0.962 and p = 0.298, respectively. Similarly, the socioeconomic status of the family, was also not significantly different among groups, p = 0.975. Descriptive statistics of participants’ characteristics are presented in Table 3 .

Descriptive statistics of group formation.

Note: CFD = Concept and Following Directions; WS = Word Structure; RS = Recalling Sentences; FS = Formulated Sentences; WC = Word Classes.

Participants’ Characteristics.

Note: SES = Socio-Economic Status, EducM = Mothers’ Educational Level, EducF = Fathers’ Educational Level. * Age is presented in months.

Our concern was that any group of differences may not be due to the group factor, but instead may simply reflect differences in total IQ score and/or age. To address this concern, we performed two LMM analyses for each of the dependent variables (language measures and the composites scores of the CCC-2). In all models A we included measures of total IQ and age as covariates, so that any fixed effect of group then reflects differences due to group membership above and beyond any individual differences in IQ score or age. In all models B we included only the factor of the group. Additionally, in all analyses we considered subjects as random effects. All models A showed that total IQ score and age are not significant predictors of the slope. In other words, the effect of factor group on the dependent variable was constant across the values of total IQ and age.

In this study, the measures used to answer the research questions were the EREL, the Non-Words Repetition task (NWR), and also the Children’s Communication Checklist- Second edition (CCC-2). The Non-Words Repetition task (NWR) data was treated as raw scores because we wanted to include in our methodological design the factor of age. However, we were not able to manipulate all data in this way, since there are measures that provide their diagnostic algorithms, and transformation to z scores is already constructed by the manual provided, as in the case of WASI, and CCC-2. For these instruments, the manual’s diagnostic instructions were followed.

The administration of EREL language assessment revealed a language-impaired subgroup of children within the ASD group. The ASD group was then sub-divided upon participants’ performance on the EREL instrument. A group of children with language impairment (ASD-LI), and a group of children with normal language (ALN) were identified; ASD participants whose scores were −1.25 SD or more below the normative mean on two out of four Core Language scores [ 20 ] formed the ASD-LI group. The means and standard deviations of groups’ performance on EREL are provided in Table 2 .

These results transformed the experimental groups and an additional group emerged by the analysis. Especially, the final groups were formed as follows: 16 children consisted the ASD group (without additional language impairment) (16 males, 0 females), 28 children the DLD group (17 males, 11 females), 24 children consisted the ASD-LI group (22 males, 2 females), and 35 children (24 males, 11 females) the TD group. Four children from the general population were also found to meet the DLD diagnostic criteria. The group descriptions that emerged by the language ability analysis are presented in Table 2 .

In addition, the multilevel model was preferred for the analysis, as we assumed the existence of heterogeneity between individuals. The results are presented in Table 4 . In addition, boxplots upon all the language measures, support this assumption (see Figure 3 ). Specifically, boxplots indicate important differences between the different groups and, in addition, provide a significant picture of important individuals differences in each group. The results are further supported by the model ICC.

Boxplots for all language measures. CFD = Concept and following directions; WS = Word structure; RS = Recalling sentences; FS = Formulated sentences, WC = Word classes; NWR = Non-word repetition task.

Intra-class correlation and confidence intervals (CI) for Language Measures and CCC-2 Composites.

Note: ICC = Intra-Class Correlation Coefficient, CI = 95% Confidence Interval. NWR = Non-Word Repetition task; CFD = Concept and Following Directions; WS = Word Structure; RS = Recalling Sentences; FS = Formulated Sentences, WC = Word Classes; GCC = General Communication Composite Children’s Communication Checklist-2; SIDC = Social-Interaction Deviance Composite Children’s Communication Checklist-2.

The model ICC was also significant for all the language measures (see Table 3 ), as the ICC percentages ranged between 23% and 57% on different language tasks, supporting that an important amount of the total variance, can be explained by inter-individual differences. Important differences have been noted between groups at all language measures as well.

For the Concept and Following Directions (CFD) subscale of EREL, results revealed important group differences, p < 0.001. Specifically, the ALN group scored significantly higher ( p < 0.01) from ASD-LI, p < 0.001, and DLD children, p < 0.001. Interestingly, there were not any important differences between ALN and TD groups of children ( p = 0.33). No important differences were also observed between participants in the ASD-LI and DLD groups p = 0.90, while ASD-LI and also DLD groups, scored significantly lower than the TD groups, p < 0.001. The ICC model for CFD measure was large (57%), further supporting the existence of important inter-individual differences among the participants.

Similarly, important group differences were found for the Word Structure (WS) subscale of EREL, p < 0.001. Important differences were found between the ASD-LI group, which scored significantly lower ( p < 0.01) than the TD group, and also the DLD group scored significantly lower than the TD group, p < 0.001. No important differences were found among ALN and TD groups ( p = 0.07), DLD group ( p = 0.89), nor ASD-LI group ( p = 1.0). Similarly, no important differences were observed between ASD-LI and DLD participants ( p = 0.78). In addition, the ICC model for the WS measure was high (24%), further supporting the existence of important inter-individual differences among the participants.

As it concerns the Recalling Sentences (RS or SRT) subscale, important group differences were also found, p < 0.001. As in the case of the WS subscale, important differences were located in the groups of ASD-LI group which scored significantly lower ( p < 0.001) than the TD group, and also DLD group scored significantly lower than the TD group, p = 0.02. No important differences were found among ALN and TD groups ( p = 0.50), DLD group ( p = 0.66), nor ASD-LI group ( p = 0.07). Similarly, no important differences were observed between ASD-LI and DLD participants ( p = 0.29). Even not all significantly important, differences revealed for all groups, boxplots presented, indicate for different performances between groups.

This finding is moreover sustained by the ICC model, which declares a high percentage for RS measure (34%) and outbids the existence of important inter-individual differences in groups. Formulating Sentences (FS) EREL measure has also provided important group differences on language domain, p < 0.001. Specifically, important differences were found between the ASD-LI group which scored significantly lower ( p < 0.01) than the TD group, and also the DLD group (M = 16.61, SD = 8.74) scored significantly lower than the TD group, p < 0.001. Important differences were also found between the ALN and TD groups, p < 0.01., DLD group ( p = 0.66), nor ASD-LI group ( p = 0.07). However, no important differences were observed between ASD-LI and DLD participants ( p = 0.99), ALN and DLD groups ( p = 0.97), nor ASD-LI and ALN participants ( p = 0.98). The ICC model for the subscale of FS was large enough (37%), further supporting the existence of important inter-individual differences among the participants.

The last subscale of EREL measure, Word Classes (WC) also showed important differences between groups, p < 0.01. Important differences came up between DLD children, which scored significantly lower ( p < 0.01) than TD children. No important differences emerged between ALN and DLD, p = 0.34, or TD group, p = 0.19. Importantly, not an ASD-LI group was formed in this subscale of EREL. WC is a subscale administered only in children between the ages of 9 and 12 years old. None of our participants were found to belong in the ASD-LI group in this age range. Our sample consists of 36 children (from 103) belonging to that age range, of which 19 children are TD participants. The variability of participant’s responses in each group is demonstrated, and it is further supported by a high ICC model for this variable (23%) and indicates important inter-individual differences.

Important differences between groups on language domain are also found on the NWR task, p < 0.001. Specifically, differences are observed in ASD-LI children (M = 2.16, SD = 2.73), who scored significantly worse than TD children (M = 10.2, SD = 4.71), p < 0.001. Likewise, DLD children (M = 3.79, SD = 3.45), also performed worse than TD children on the same task, p < 0.001, and controversially, no significantly different from the ASD-LI group, p = 0.99. No differences were also found in the ALN group (M = 6.88, SD = 4.54), related to the ASD-LI ( p = 0.53), DLD ( p = 0.30), and TD ( p = 0.05) group, respectively. The ICC model for NWR is also high (36%), informing once again for inter-individual differences among participants.

As it concerns the two composite scores of CCC-2 important findings emerged. GCC subscale (see Figure 4 ) significantly differentiated between groups, p < 0.001. ALN group (M = 37.5, SD = 30.64), the score was significantly lower than TD group (M = 72.06, SD = 17.60), p < 0.001, indicating increased deficits in the communication domain. In addition, the ASD-LI group (M = 41.91, SD = 15.74), also obtained significantly elevated communication deficits in comparison to the TD group of children, p < 0.001. Finally, important differences were found for DLD children (M = 48.41, SD = 21.8), who demonstrate more impairments in communication in comparison to TD children, p < 0.001. No important differences are observed among participants on ASD-LI and DLD groups ( p = 0.16), who scored similarly on this subscale. No important differences are also found between ALN and ASD-LI ( p = 0.87), or ALN and DLD ( p = 0.67) participants.

Boxplots for Children’s Communication Checklist-2 composites. GCC = General Communication Composite Children’s Communication Checklist-2; SIDC = Social-Interaction Deviance Composite Children’s Communication Checklist-2.

SIDC subscale of CCC-2 (see Figure 4 ), also produces important differences among groups, p < 0.01. ALL children (M = 1.47, SD = 11.58) differ significantly from DLD (M = 13.44, SD = 12.06), p < 0.01, and also TD (M = 9.97, SD = 9.61) children, p = 0.03. No important group differences were found between ASD-LI (M = 6.73, SD = 7.96) and ALN, DLD, or TD groups. DLD group also is not importantly different from the TD group ( p = 0.75).

Related to the two composites of CCC-2, the model ICC was significant for the variable GCC (27%), indicating that the General Communication Composite contributes to the group differences, while the SIDC’s contribution is also important, even if not that large (11%). In sum, the ICC model showed that there are important between-group differences, explain a significant proportion of the observed variance ( Table 3 ).

4. Discussion

The results from this study are important and thought-provoking. We had investigated a potential relationship between ASD and DLD, and our findings are indicative of its existence. Specifically, we had expected that an ASD-LI subgroup would have derived from the general ASD group, indicating for language impairments within the ASD population, resembling a language profile similar to DLD children. We had also hypothesized that ASD (ASD-LI and ALN) and DLD groups of children would have scored lower than the TD group on language measures, and also that ASD-LI and DLD groups would demonstrate poorer performance than ALN and TD groups on EREL measures. In addition, we have predicted that the ALN group would have scored poorer than the TD group. We also hypothesized that both the ASD-LI and DLD groups would have performed significantly worse on NWR and SRT tasks.

Most of these hypotheses have been met. Specifically, as it concerns language tasks, a common profile of ASD and DLD is supported by our results, indicating the presence of a language phenotype in ASD similar to that of DLD. Additionally, ASD-LI and DLD groups scored worse than ALN and TD groups on language measures. However, despite our projections, ALN and TD groups revealed no important differences in language tasks. Controversially, ASD-LI and DLD groups produced significantly more deficits than TD groups. Concerning NWR and SRT tasks, our findings on both tasks showed that ASD-LI so as in the DLD group, produced more deficits than the TD group. Nonetheless, despite our expectations, there were not found any important differences between ALN and ASD-LI or DLD groups, or between ALN and TD groups.

Our results are strongly supported by previous studies. Specifically, there is a common profile of ASD and DLD, which indicates a possible common feature between the two developmental disorders, namely, ASD-LI. These findings are in line with previous studies, reporting that a statistically important number of children with ASD, score similarly to DLD children on different language tasks [ 15 ], and also that an ASD-LI group exists within the ASD population, which has found to be more impaired on language tasks than ALN children [ 14 , 68 ]. Our results further support the presence of a language phenotype in ASD similar to that of DLD, that is, presenting numerous and serious dysfunctions in several aspects of language [ 15 , 68 , 123 ].

Moreover, not that surprisingly, ALN and TD groups revealed no important differences on language tasks, providing further support at the assumption of the existence of a subtype inside the ASD population, referred to as the “ASD-LI individuals”. This finding is further supported by De Fossé and colleagues’ [ 124 ] study, who found similar asymmetry of frontal language cortex between the ALN and TD control group, indicating that the Broca’s area asymmetry reversal, is stronger connected with language impairment than autism itself.

In the majority of language tasks administered, the ASD-LI group scored lower than the DLD group. This finding could be explained by the fact that ASD-LI children except for the language impairment presented, have additional deficits to manage (e.g., social deficits). This complexity of symptoms with additional impairments in different fields constitutes an additional obstacle in their effort for success on different tasks.

A special reference is worth making on the RS (SRT) subscale of the EREL instrument. The group differences showed that ASD-LI as well as the DLD group produced more deficits than the TD group. The finding that the clinical groups with LI perform worse than the typical groups is in line with other studies (e.g., [ 27 , 32 ]). Surprisingly, though, there were not found to be any important differences between the ALN and ASD-LI or DLD groups, or between the ALN and TD groups. The means and standard deviations of the task show differences between the groups, whereas the ALN group scores were higher than both the language-impaired groups, though not statistically important. However, our results are in line with Conti-Ramsden et al.’s [ 27 ] statements, who argue that sentence repetition could be the strongest clinical marker for the identification of DLD, and can significantly differentiate language-impaired groups from typical language ability, as did in our study. A repetition task considers contributing to the identification of children’s weaknesses and strengths in the language domain [ 37 ]. Indeed, in our study SRT managed to reveal differences in both language-impaired groups in comparison to the TD group.

Similarly, the NWR task produced important differences among participants in different groups. Both the language-impaired groups demonstrated worse performance than the TD group. The results of the present study are consistent with several previous studies, supporting that children with ASD-LI and those with DLD have similarly poor performance on the NWR task. Evidence supporting NWR deficits in ASD-LI is compelling and the results of this study confirmed previous findings in the area [ 13 , 15 , 18 , 125 ].

Furthermore, the ICC model for all language tasks showed that there are important between-group differences, explaining a significant proportion of the observed variance. This finding provides additional support to the assumption that DLD and ASD constitute points on a continuum of the same disorder instead of separate conditions [ 19 ]. Indeed, the experimental groups present great inter-participants’ heterogeneity, as the ICC model shows for all language tasks, suggesting that they do not constitute separate solid groups with distinct traits and symptomatology, but rather are highlighting substantial overlap amongst groups with “distinct” diagnoses [ 117 ].

Especially, our results support the existence of an intermediate case of shared symptoms, namely ASD-LI, which indicates an important connection between ASD and DLD. Interestingly, a great number of our participants fell in this intermediate category, not only about the language domain. This finding significantly supports the assumption of existing comorbidity between ASD and DLD. Important relations have been also found to exist between the clinical groups, as revealed by the majority of the tasks and measures employed. These relations, further support an overlapping situation between ASD and DLD. For instance, ASD-LI and DLD groups were found to have similar performance in all tasks of the language domain. This finding points to a comorbid relation in linguistics. Our results allow us to argue in favor of ASD and DLD as disorders lying on a continuum of symptoms, supporting the second theory presented in Figure 2 , that the two disorders consist of different manifestations of the same pathology, and lie on the same continuum.

As illustrated in Figure 5 , the group of children with ASD with high language ability (ALN) resides at the one end of the line while, DLD and ASD-LI groups are located in proximity at the other end of the line of the continuum (low language ability). It is important to mention, that the points on the continuum are not related to our numeric data. The clinical groups are only visually illustrated in this figure to facilitate the overall understanding of this theory. We further expected DLD children to present difficulties primarily on their general communication ability as it is tested by the CCC-2, while ASD children would have demonstrated additional impairments in the social interaction subscale (SIDC) of CCC-2 [ 108 ], based on the primary deficits of each disorder. Both of our hypotheses have been met.

An iconic representation of language ability of children with ASD and DLD.

The CCC-2 instrument identifies children with disproportionate pragmatic and social impairments. In this study this assumption is confirmed, as the ASD group of children were more deficit in this composite, proposing increased pragmatic impairments, unrelated to one’s structural language ability. It is of great importance the finding of different impairments characterized by the fundamental deficits presented by each group, based on CCC-2 composites. The DLD group presented deficits on the General Communication Composite (GCC), and fewer deficits on the SIDC subscale confirming DLD’s children diagnosis, and also the ASD group has demonstrated impairments in GCC and SIDC simultaneously, as it is expected for individuals in the autistic spectrum. The results on GCC show that no important differences are observed in the three clinical groups related to their GCC symptoms. This result was expected, as both developmental conditions are proposed to score similarly on GCC (scores below 55), significantly lower than TD groups [ 117 , 118 ]. The findings for SIDC were partially expected. Specifically, the ALN group of children presented more social deviance deficits, which was excepted and our hypothesis was met. Still, no other experimental group did, either ASD-LI group, which was assumed to present significantly important deficits in the social deviance domain, as ALN did.

Nevertheless, our results are confirmed from previous studies supporting that the SIDC score is expected to be eight or less in children with ASD [ 117 , 118 ]. Importantly, the ASD-LI group also scored below eight on the SIDC composite. At the other end of the distribution, children with DLD usually score above eight, as in our study [ 117 , 118 ]. Our findings gain support from a validation study [ 117 ], in which the GCC was effective in distinguishing between children with communication impairments (including both DLD and autism) and typically developing children. The SIDC was usually less than eight in children with ASD.

Nevertheless, these findings raise questions about the extent to which pragmatic impairments are a secondary consequence of speech and language disorder. For instance, a large proportion of cognitively able children with ASD experience additional language impairments [ 15 , 126 ]. On the other hand, non-autistic children with LI are not only characterized by structural language deficits, but many also experience difficulties with pragmatic aspects of language [ 117 ]. In this study DLD group of children was found free of social- pragmatics deficits as it was captured by the SIDC composite of CCC-2.

It is apparent that language impairment adversely affects social interaction. However, the present data show that some children have pragmatic impairments out of keeping with their structural language skills. This is in line with previous studies showing that children with good structural language can nevertheless have pragmatic difficulties [ 127 ]. At a theoretical level, to further investigate these language—and consequently—communicative abilities is critical as communication deficits have been related to difficulties in understanding other’s minds and in social functioning [ 128 , 129 , 130 ].

4.1. Limitations

It is, finally, important to acknowledge some methodological limitations. Evidence supporting NWR deficits in ASD-LI are numerous and the results of this study are consistent with several previous studies in the area [ 13 , 15 , 18 , 125 ]. In more recent studies that have compared individuals with ASD-LI and those with DLD on NWR tasks, results provided evidence for significant differences in the error patterns between these two groups. We did not directly compare the error patterns in the ASD-LI and DLD groups of children. In addition, we did not measure articulation or oro-motor skills in the ASD and DLD children. Therefore, the NWR deficits could be attributed to oro-motor deficits in the ASD-LI or DLD children, rather than explained by cognitive deficits.

Nevertheless, a study comparing NWR performance in ASD and DLD [ 125 ] included only DLD children with no referral of articulation impairments and still found poor NWR in these children. Therefore, impairments related to the NWR in DLD may not solely be explained by concurrent articulation deficits. Nevertheless, future research should continue to attempt to illustrate the specific cognitive and linguistic relation to poor NWR and SNR in ASD-LI and DLD children, to further inform the debate on etiological overlap in these two developmental conditions.

Bias can be introduced at any phase of a research process. We tried to prevent systematic errors and bias during designing, conducting, and reporting the results of our study. However, we believe some selection bias was inserted in the study due to the fact that participants, especially children in pediatric groups, were recruited through a call from speech pathologists and special educators who knew children.

4.2. Strengths of the Study

This is the first study, to our knowledge, conducted in Cyprus investigating the ASD and DLD population directly. The prevalence of ASD and DLD individuals in Cyprus is still not determined even if Special Education Services needs are elevated. This study succeeded to locate and examine an important number of ASD and DLD individuals all over the country, given the small numbers of the population in Cyprus. This study could be considered as attaining numbers of participants similar to what we could find in an epidemiological study in Cyprus, by addressing these two developmental conditions in a wide range of childhood ages.

In addition, our results are also significant, as they confirm the existence of this intermediate set of symptoms that consists of the ASD-LI group, in a different language such as the Greek language. Greek, is a language with significant peculiarities and complexity in expression. The view that this middle ground exists is further reinforced by our data. This category of mixed symptoms deserves to be investigated closely, to obtain optimal results, both in research and clinical practice. The assumption that this intermediate group does, indeed, exist will no longer cause stress to specialists working with clinical groups about what is the most appropriate intervention plan to follow. Instead, they will be provided with the necessary support and guidance to work in the light of this middle cluster of symptoms.

To further investigate the existence and relation of the two disorders will provide important and valuable information scientifically and clinically. The need for the development of effective intervention programs for both developmental conditions is highlighted by the specialists of all fields working with these populations, as the number of the affected children increases daily.

5. Conclusions

In conclusion, our results further support the assumption of common symptomatology of the two disorders and are in line with the suggestion of moving beyond the “labels” and start subgrouping individuals in response to their characteristics, instead of trying to detect the symptoms following an already given diagnosis. The apparent need to divide the ASD group into two different categories based on the divergence of symptoms presented, namely ASD children with additional language impairment and ASD children without, is an indicative starting point of the need to change our perspectives and methodologies. Beyond that, if we accept that this category exists, it is important to provide answers to consequent questions. For instance, at what point in the continuum can we place this “shared” category of social symptoms? Can anyone argue that it is placed exactly in the middle of the two predominant disorders? Is it possibly closer to autism disorder, or perhaps to language disorder? With all this in mind, unquestionably, the research community has still a lot to discover and many challenges to overcome concerning this particular category.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all children and families who participated in this study.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, N.G. and G.S.; methodology, N.G. and G.S.; formal analysis, G.S.; investigation, N.G.; resources, G.S.; data curation, N.G.; writing—original draft preparation, N.G.; writing—review and editing, N.G. and G.S.; visualization, G.S.; supervision, G.S.; project administration, G.S.; funding acquisition, G.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee) (EEBK/EP/2018/16; 28/06/2018).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 113 great research paper topics.

General Education

One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

• Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
• Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
• How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
• How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
• How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
• How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

• What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
• How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
• How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
• Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
• What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
• What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
• How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
• How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
• How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
• What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
• What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
• What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
• Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies  (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
• Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
• Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
• Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
• Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
• Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
• How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
• Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
• What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
• How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
• What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
• Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
• Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
• Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
• How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
• Should graduate students be able to form unions?

• What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
• How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
• Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
• Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
• How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
• How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
• Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
• Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
• Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
• Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
• Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
• Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
• Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
• Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
• Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
• How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
• How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
• What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
• What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
• Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
• What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
• What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
• Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
• Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
• How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
• Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
• What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
• How does stress affect the body?
• Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
• What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
• Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
• How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
• What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
• What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
• Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
• What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
• What were the causes of the Civil War?
• How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
• Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
• What caused Hitler's rise to power?
• Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
• What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
• How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
• What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

• Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
• Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
• How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
• How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
• What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
• What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
• How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

• How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
• How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
• Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
• Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
• How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
• How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
• What are the pros and cons of fracking?
• What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
• What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
• How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
• Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
• Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
• What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
• What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
• How are black holes created?
• Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
• How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
• Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
• How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
• Has social media made people more or less connected?
• What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
• Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
• What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
• How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
• When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
• Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

Are you also learning about dynamic equilibrium in your science class? We break this sometimes tricky concept down so it's easy to understand in our complete guide to dynamic equilibrium .

Thinking about becoming a nurse practitioner? Nurse practitioners have one of the fastest growing careers in the country, and we have all the information you need to know about what to expect from nurse practitioner school .

Want to know the fastest and easiest ways to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best ways to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa).

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

Student and Parent Forum

Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub.PrepScholar.com , allow you to interact with your peers and the PrepScholar staff. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers.

Ask a Question Below

Have any questions about this article or other topics? Ask below and we'll reply!

Improve With Our Famous Guides

• For All Students

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 160+ SAT Points

How to Get a Perfect 1600, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 800 on Each SAT Section:

Score 800 on SAT Math

Score 800 on SAT Reading

Score 800 on SAT Writing

Series: How to Get to 600 on Each SAT Section:

Score 600 on SAT Math

Score 600 on SAT Reading

Score 600 on SAT Writing

Free Complete Official SAT Practice Tests

What SAT Target Score Should You Be Aiming For?

15 Strategies to Improve Your SAT Essay

The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points

How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer

Series: How to Get 36 on Each ACT Section:

36 on ACT English

36 on ACT Math

36 on ACT Reading

36 on ACT Science

Series: How to Get to 24 on Each ACT Section:

24 on ACT English

24 on ACT Math

24 on ACT Reading

24 on ACT Science

What ACT target score should you be aiming for?

ACT Vocabulary You Must Know

ACT Writing: 15 Tips to Raise Your Essay Score

How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

How to Get a Perfect 4.0 GPA

How to Write an Amazing College Essay

What Exactly Are Colleges Looking For?

Is the ACT easier than the SAT? A Comprehensive Guide

Should you retake your SAT or ACT?

When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Stay Informed

Get the latest articles and test prep tips!

Looking for Graduate School Test Prep?

Check out our top-rated graduate blogs here:

GRE Online Prep Blog

GMAT Online Prep Blog

TOEFL Online Prep Blog

Holly R. "I am absolutely overjoyed and cannot thank you enough for helping me!”

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Social justice
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

Engineering household robots to have a little common sense

Press contact :, media download.

*Terms of Use:

Images for download on the MIT News office website are made available to non-commercial entities, press and the general public under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license . You may not alter the images provided, other than to crop them to size. A credit line must be used when reproducing images; if one is not provided below, credit the images to "MIT."

Previous image Next image

From wiping up spills to serving up food, robots are being taught to carry out increasingly complicated household tasks. Many such home-bot trainees are learning through imitation; they are programmed to copy the motions that a human physically guides them through.

It turns out that robots are excellent mimics. But unless engineers also program them to adjust to every possible bump and nudge, robots don’t necessarily know how to handle these situations, short of starting their task from the top.

Now MIT engineers are aiming to give robots a bit of common sense when faced with situations that push them off their trained path. They’ve developed a method that connects robot motion data with the “common sense knowledge” of large language models, or LLMs.

Their approach enables a robot to logically parse many given household task into subtasks, and to physically adjust to disruptions within a subtask so that the robot can move on without having to go back and start a task from scratch — and without engineers having to explicitly program fixes for every possible failure along the way.   

“Imitation learning is a mainstream approach enabling household robots. But if a robot is blindly mimicking a human’s motion trajectories, tiny errors can accumulate and eventually derail the rest of the execution,” says Yanwei Wang, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). “With our method, a robot can self-correct execution errors and improve overall task success.”

Wang and his colleagues detail their new approach in a study they will present at the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) in May. The study’s co-authors include EECS graduate students Tsun-Hsuan Wang and Jiayuan Mao, Michael Hagenow, a postdoc in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), and Julie Shah, the H.N. Slater Professor in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT.

Language task

The researchers illustrate their new approach with a simple chore: scooping marbles from one bowl and pouring them into another. To accomplish this task, engineers would typically move a robot through the motions of scooping and pouring — all in one fluid trajectory. They might do this multiple times, to give the robot a number of human demonstrations to mimic.

“But the human demonstration is one long, continuous trajectory,” Wang says.

The team realized that, while a human might demonstrate a single task in one go, that task depends on a sequence of subtasks, or trajectories. For instance, the robot has to first reach into a bowl before it can scoop, and it must scoop up marbles before moving to the empty bowl, and so forth. If a robot is pushed or nudged to make a mistake during any of these subtasks, its only recourse is to stop and start from the beginning, unless engineers were to explicitly label each subtask and program or collect new demonstrations for the robot to recover from the said failure, to enable a robot to self-correct in the moment.

“That level of planning is very tedious,” Wang says.

Instead, he and his colleagues found some of this work could be done automatically by LLMs. These deep learning models process immense libraries of text, which they use to establish connections between words, sentences, and paragraphs. Through these connections, an LLM can then generate new sentences based on what it has learned about the kind of word that is likely to follow the last.

For their part, the researchers found that in addition to sentences and paragraphs, an LLM can be prompted to produce a logical list of subtasks that would be involved in a given task. For instance, if queried to list the actions involved in scooping marbles from one bowl into another, an LLM might produce a sequence of verbs such as “reach,” “scoop,” “transport,” and “pour.”

“LLMs have a way to tell you how to do each step of a task, in natural language. A human’s continuous demonstration is the embodiment of those steps, in physical space,” Wang says. “And we wanted to connect the two, so that a robot would automatically know what stage it is in a task, and be able to replan and recover on its own.”

Mapping marbles

For their new approach, the team developed an algorithm to automatically connect an LLM’s natural language label for a particular subtask with a robot’s position in physical space or an image that encodes the robot state. Mapping a robot’s physical coordinates, or an image of the robot state, to a natural language label is known as “grounding.” The team’s new algorithm is designed to learn a grounding “classifier,” meaning that it learns to automatically identify what semantic subtask a robot is in — for example, “reach” versus “scoop” — given its physical coordinates or an image view.

“The grounding classifier facilitates this dialogue between what the robot is doing in the physical space and what the LLM knows about the subtasks, and the constraints you have to pay attention to within each subtask,” Wang explains.

The team demonstrated the approach in experiments with a robotic arm that they trained on a marble-scooping task. Experimenters trained the robot by physically guiding it through the task of first reaching into a bowl, scooping up marbles, transporting them over an empty bowl, and pouring them in. After a few demonstrations, the team then used a pretrained LLM and asked the model to list the steps involved in scooping marbles from one bowl to another. The researchers then used their new algorithm to connect the LLM’s defined subtasks with the robot’s motion trajectory data. The algorithm automatically learned to map the robot’s physical coordinates in the trajectories and the corresponding image view to a given subtask.

The team then let the robot carry out the scooping task on its own, using the newly learned grounding classifiers. As the robot moved through the steps of the task, the experimenters pushed and nudged the bot off its path, and knocked marbles off its spoon at various points. Rather than stop and start from the beginning again, or continue blindly with no marbles on its spoon, the bot was able to self-correct, and completed each subtask before moving on to the next. (For instance, it would make sure that it successfully scooped marbles before transporting them to the empty bowl.)

“With our method, when the robot is making mistakes, we don’t need to ask humans to program or give extra demonstrations of how to recover from failures,” Wang says. “That’s super exciting because there’s a huge effort now toward training household robots with data collected on teleoperation systems. Our algorithm can now convert that training data into robust robot behavior that can do complex tasks, despite external perturbations.”

Share this news article on:

Press mentions.

MIT researchers  have developed a new technique that uses a large language model to allow robots to self-correct after making a mistake, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch . “Researchers behind the study note that while imitation learning (learning to do a task through observation) is popular in the world of home robotics, it often can’t account for the countless small environmental variations that can interfere with regular operation, thus requiring a system to restart from square one,” writes Heater. “The new research addresses this, in part, by breaking demonstrations into smaller subsets." 

Previous item Next item

Related Links

• Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Related Topics

• Aeronautical and astronautical engineering
• Assistive technology
• Artificial intelligence
• Computer modeling
• Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
• Computer science and technology
• Human-computer interaction

Related Articles

A faster way to teach a robot

Speedy robo-gripper reflexively organizes cluttered spaces

Robots play with play dough

A robot that finds lost items

More mit news.

Does technology help or hurt employment?

Read full story →

Most work is new work, long-term study of U.S. census data shows

A first-ever complete map for elastic strain engineering

Shining a light on oil fields to make them more sustainable

“Life is short, so aim high”

MIT launches Working Group on Generative AI and the Work of the Future

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram