The Genetics of Speech and Language Impairments
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMe0807813v1

...Without instruction, most children master the complexities of spoken language by the age of 6 or 7 years. About 5% of apparently healthy children, however, struggle to acquire basic competence in one or more aspects of spoken language and are classified as having specific language impairment.

Genetic factors have an important role in many such cases.^1,2 Children with specific language impairment are four times as likely to have a family history of the disorder as are children who do not have such an impairment,³ and the concordance rate for the disorder is almost twice as great for monozygotic twins as for dizygotic twins.⁴ More than 10 susceptibility loci have been identified. More often than not, loci that are robustly linked to specific language impairment in one study show no linkage in other studies, and all these loci have been linked to other neurodevelopmental disorders.⁵ Are these reported associations real? If so, which genes underlie these linkages, and what is their mechanistic effect?...

Staff fears in toddler exclusions (BBC)

...Head teachers' leaders say that teachers' fears about restraining violent pupils is behind the suspension of three and four-year-olds.

The Conservatives revealed figures showing 1,500 suspensions of children aged four and under in the past year...

Unusual use of toys in infancy a clue to later autism
'Atypical object exploration' seen at 12 months in children later diagnosed with autism
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/newsroom/newsdetail.html?key=1344&svr=http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu&expired=no&table=drafted

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/uoc--uuo110608.php

...

The study involved 66 one-year-old infants. Nine of the children were later diagnosed with autism. Seven of the nine children displayed significantly more spinning, rotating and unusual visual exploration of objects than typically developing children.

"We found that these behaviors were relatively rare in the contrast group, but very high in the group who later developed autism," Ozonoff said....