'Developmental delay' reconsidered: The critical role of age-dependent, co-variant development

Yonata Levy*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

In memory of Annette Karmiloff-Smith. This paper reviews recent neurobiological research reporting structural co-variance and temporal dependencies in age-dependent gene expression, parameters of cortical maturation, long range connectivity and interaction of the biological network with the environment. This research suggests that age by size trajectories of brain structures relate to functional properties more than absolute sizes. In line with these findings, recent behavioral studies of typically developing children whose language development was delayed reported long term consequences of such delays. As for neurodevelopmental disorders, disrupted developmental timing and slow acquisitional pace are hallmarks of these populations. It is argued that these behavioral and neuro-biological results highlight the need to commit to a developmental model which will reflect the fact that temporal dependencies overseeing structural co-variance among developmental components are major regulatory factors of typical development of the brain/mind network. Consequently, the concept of 'developmental delay' in developmental theorizing needs to be reconsidered.

Original languageEnglish
Article number503
JournalFrontiers in Psychology
Volume9
Issue numberAPR
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Apr 2018

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Levy.

Keywords

  • Cortical maturation
  • Developmental co-variance
  • Gene expression
  • Language delay
  • Temporal dependency

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