Childhood Language Disorder and Social Anxiety in Early Adulthood
Abstract
Language disorder is associated with anxiety and with social problems in childhood and adolescence. However, the relation between language disorder and adult social anxiety is not well known. This study examines social anxiety in early adulthood in a 26-year prospective longitudinal study following individuals identified with a communication disorder at age 5 and a control group. Social anxiety diagnoses and subthreshold symptoms were examined at ages 19, 25, and 31 using a structured diagnostic interview; social anxiety symptoms related to social interaction and social performance were also assessed dimensionally at age 31. Multiple imputation was used to address attrition. Compared to controls, participants with childhood language disorder had higher rates of subthreshold social phobia at ages 19 and 25 and endorsed higher levels of social interaction anxiety symptoms at age 31, with particular difficulty talking to others and asserting their perspectives. Childhood language disorder is a specific risk factor for a circumscribed set of social anxiety symptoms in adulthood, which are likely associated with communication challenges.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Children with language difficulties are more likely to experience other socio-emotional and behavioral difficulties, even in adolescence and adulthood.
“Children with language difficulties are more likely to experience other socio-emotional and behavioral difficulties, even in adolescence and adulthood.”
These difficulties include anxiety, social phobia, ADHD, and depression.
“These include anxiety, social phobia, ADHD, and depression [68–71]”
Cites
How social contexts support and shape language development☆
HOFF, E. (2006) · Developmental Review · doi:10.1016/j.dr.2005.11.002 · Cited by 1,853 · cited 3× · see citing works
“clusion, can compound functional communication difficulties by limiting opportunities to practice communication and social skills (Hoff 2006).”
BackgroundThe etiology of social phobia: empirical evidence and an initial model
Rapee, R. M., & Spence, S. H. (2004) · Clinical Psychology Review · doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2004.06.004 · Cited by 693 · see citing works
Kessler, R. C., Wittchen, H., Abelson, J. M., Mcgonagle, K., Schwarz, N., Kendler, K. S., Knäuper, B., & Zhao, S. (1998) · International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research · doi:10.1002/mpr.33 · Cited by 483 · see citing works
Young, A. R., Beitchman, J. H., Johnson, C., Douglas, L., Atkinson, L., Escobar, M., & Wilson, B. (2002) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/1469-7610.00052 · Cited by 362 · see citing works
Self-citationFehm, L., Beesdo, K., Jacobi, F., & Fiedler, A. (2008) · Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology · doi:10.1007/s00127-007-0299-4 · Cited by 338 · see citing works
Social anxiety disorder and stuttering: current status and future directions.
Iverach, L., & Rapee, R. M. (2014) · Journal of Fluency Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jfludis.2013.08.003 · Cited by 337 · see citing works
Peer victimization among school-aged children with chronic conditions
Sentenac, M., Arnaud, C., Gavin, A., Molcho, M., Gabhainn, S. N., & Godeau, E. (2012) · Epidemiologic Reviews · doi:10.1093/epirev/mxr024 · Cited by 134 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Armstrong, R., Arnott, W., Copland, D. A., McMahon, K., Khan, A., Najman, J. M., & Scott, J. G. (2017) · International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders · doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12301 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Goble, G., Hennessy, V., Cheng, T.-H. Z., Rodda, A., Taulu, S., Gordon, R. L., & Zhao, T. C. (2026) · PLOS One · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0335596
- Authors
- Brownlie, E. B., Bao, L., & Beitchman, J.
- Affiliations
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Brownlie, E. B.
- Venue
- Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
- Published
- 2015-11-03
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1061-1070
- ISSN
- 0091-0627 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-2835
- OpenAlex
- W1899321300
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 5.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP 84421)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- language disorders in children, social anxiety, early adulthood, social interaction anxiety, communication disorders, risk factors, social performance, longitudinal follow-up
- MeSH terms
- Phobia, Social, Adult, Female, Humans, Language Development Disorders, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Prospective Studies, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
