Atypical Language Development and Psychopathological Risk: A Typical Neuropsychiatric Problem?

摘要

Cohen and coworkers were the first to demonstrate the presence of significant difficulties in language development and/or of the evolutive trajectory of this function in subjects evaluated in their adolescence for serious psychopathology. Subsequent longitudinal studies showed that children with language and communication disorders are at risk of having social, behavioral and emotional difficulties in adolescence and adult age. A number of different mechanisms can be invoked to explain this association. First, language is a powerful tool for processing difficulties both in the relational contest and related to the so-called "social problem solving". Others believe that the defect in mentalization associated with a frailty of executive functions might produce a decline of language skills in individuals predisposed to develop a psychopathological disorder. Still others point out that it is possible that the deficits in language make psychopathological problems that otherwise would have remained sub-threshold more evident and serious, as they reduce the relational exchanges. Finally, it has been hypothesized that there may be other mechanisms common to both the difficulty of the language and the psychopathological disorders, in terms of both genetic aspects and neurocognitive functions (eg. working memory deficits). In any case, it is evident that an atypical functioning of a given subject in the field of language is a relevant factor for the treatment, especially when the treatment method largely uses the word to induce a change in mental functioning (as in most psychotherapies).