The development of language and communication (L&C)skills in young children is important. When children start school at the age of 4 to 5 years, they need to be able to understand what is said to them, be able to talk and express themselves and to be able to communicate and interact with other children and adults. If a child has these skills, they will be successful in learning to read and write and in their subsequent educational progress and attainment during their school careers. As teenagers and adults, the ability to communicate effectively is essential to their life chances in terms of securing employment, living independently and maintaining relationships and wellbeing. Children who are slower to develop their L&C skills or have specific difficulties with this are known to have particular life-long difficulties, not just in their educational attainment but in other areas of their lives. In adolescence and adult life, this includes poor educational attainment, limited life chances in terms of employment prospects and independence and their wellbeing and quality of life including a higher chance of experiencing mental health difficulties and being at risk of offending behaviour. This evidence between psychosocial outcomes and L&C development is limited as it comes from very small studies of children with identified impairments. It is not known whether these impacts on psychosocial outcomes are more widespread and evident in children whose L&C development is below average and therefore less advanced than their peers, but who would not be described as language impaired per se. Understanding the relationship between childhood L&C development and psychosocial outcomes in adulthood will help determine the potential costs involved with suboptimal L&C development and the potential benefits to life chances of interventions which promote childhood L&C development.

This study will consider the L&C development and abilities of individuals through childhood, adolescence and adult life and find out how their competence in these impact on their psychosocial outcomes, as indicated by measures of quality of life and wellbeing. This study will collect new data and also use existing data from ALSPAC. This study will collect new data about the L&C, using innovative technology to collect samples via computers and phones, and use this to explore the range of L&C skills in the adult population. Using existing data within the dataset, this study will explore the range of psychosocial outcomes that are evident within the sample and consider these in relation to childhood and adult L&C abilities alongside other known risk factors. Finally, we will consider the costs associated with varying levels of L&C abilities in childhood and adulthood and the potential benefits for individuals and society of interventions to promote L&C skills.