Timing and chronicity of maternal depression symptoms and children's verbal abilities

Abstract

ObjectiveTo test the associations between the timing and chronicity of maternal depression symptoms (MDS)and children’s long-term verbal abilities.Study designParticipants were 1073 mother-child pairs from a population-based birth cohort in Canada. MDSwere assessed at ages 5 months, 1.5, 3.5, and 5 years using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies DepressionScale. Verbal abilities were measured at 5, 6, and 10 years using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised(PPVT-R). Multiple linear regression models were used to estimate the association between timing (early: 5 monthsand/or 1.5 years vs late 3.5 and/or 5 years) and chronicity (5 months, 1.5, 3.5, and 5 years) of exposure to el-evated MDS and children’s mean PPVT-R scores.ResultsChildren exposed to chronic MDS had lower PPVT-R scores than children never exposed (mean differ-ence=9.04 [95% CI=2.28-15.80]), exposed early (10.08 [3.33-16.86]) and exposed late (8.69 [1.85-15.53]). Therewere no significant differences between scores of children in the early compared with the late exposure group. Weadjusted for mother-child interactions, family functioning, socioeconomic status, PPVT-R administration language,child’s birth order, and maternal IQ, psychopathology, education, native language, age at birth of child, and par-enting practices. Maternal IQ, (h2=0.028), native language (h2=0.009), and MDS (h2=0.007) were the main pre-dictors of children’s verbal abilities.ConclusionsExposure to chronic MDS in early childhood is associated with lower levels of verbal abilities inmiddle childhood. Further research is needed in larger community samples to test the association between MDSand children’s long-term language skills.