Psychosocial factors’ predictive value for children’s language and socioemotional development: A prospective observational study in Denmark

Background: Early childhood is important for child development, and family psychosocial factors during childhood are associated with later developmental outcomes. In preventive child healthcare, it may be useful to prioritise risk factors for adverse outcomes. Objectives: This study aims to examine which psychosocial factors are the most important in predicting problems in children’s expressive language performance and socioemotional functioning. Method: This Danish prospective observational study used questionnaires, medical records, and register data of mothers from the cohort of the Family Well-being Trial. Several psychosocial predictors’ relative importance to expressive language (measured by the 100-item Communicative Development Inventory (CDI)) and socioemotional functioning (measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)) were assessed in a dominance analysis. The strongest three predictors for each outcome were assessed in a multivariable linear regression model to evaluate the size of the association and its direction. Results: Parental education is a key predictor, with higher education linked to better child vocabulary. Living in urban areas correlates with higher CDI scores than in large rural towns. Psychosocial factors such as limited social support, parental separation, first-time mothers, and maternal psychiatric diagnosis were associated with slightly more socioemotional difficulties. Conclusions: This study highlights the importance of psychosocial factors for early child development. The findings support prioritising targeted language support in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and focusing developmental monitoring on families affected by social isolation, parental separation, first-time parenthood, and maternal psychiatric conditions, alongside broader structural and policy-level interventions. Registration: The participants were part of the cohort from the Family Well-being Trial (FamilieTrivsel), registered October 16th, 2019, with trial registry number: NCT04129359.