Researchers at Stanford University have found that how a child talks about stressful or difficult experiences may be a better predictor of future mental health risks than the content of their story itself.
Exposure to stress early in life is a major public health challenge. The authors note that it may account for up to one-third of psychiatric diagnoses among adults worldwide, while current tools for identifying those most vulnerable remain limited.
“This study provides compelling evidence that scalable tools could be developed to identify risk markers before a diagnosis is made,” said lead author Chase Antonacci of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, Euronews reports.
According to Antonacci, depression and anxiety disorders most commonly emerge during adolescence, and once they become established, they can be extremely difficult to treat.
The authors emphasize that not every child who experiences adversity early in life will go on to develop mental or behavioral disorders. Many children, by contrast, demonstrate considerable resilience to stress.
This variability creates a significant “prognostic gap” and makes it difficult to identify children whose development may be heading toward a maladaptive trajectory, the researchers write.
The researchers interviewed more than 200 children between the ages of 9 and 13 about their experiences with stress. Using AI-based language analysis tools, they were able to predict which children would later develop problems such as anxiety disorders and depression based solely on the words and expressions they used.
The study identified several distinctive speech patterns associated with an increased risk of mental health difficulties later in life.
One of the strongest predictors of future internalizing problems was the more frequent use of prepositions, which indicated a more complex narrative structure.
Another speech pattern associated with increased risk involved “certainty,” or the use of categorical language, with frequent words such as “always” or “never.”
By contrast, a style characterized by more frequent use of third-person pronouns—she, her, he, him, and they—which suggested a greater focus on other people and the external world rather than solely on oneself, was associated with a lower risk.
The researchers also analyzed the content of the children’s stories. Although content was less effective than speech style at predicting the emergence of clinical disorders, it could still provide a relatively accurate indication of symptom severity.
Stories focused on conflict, suffering, and fear, with frequent words such as “fight,” “scared,” or “attacked,” were associated with higher risk. They included direct descriptions of physical violence, pronounced social isolation, and intense emotional arousal, such as screaming.
By contrast, stories centered on positive activities and hobbies, including references to “games,” “soccer,” or “dogs,” were associated with lower risk. The same was true of emotionally neutral descriptions of orderly, routine situations and direct references to receiving mental health support.
The authors concluded that what children talk about reveals specific details about the stressor or the child’s life, while how they talk about it—their speech style—shows how they organize and interpret those experiences.
Speech is an inexpensive and easily scalable tool, noted senior author Ian Gotlib. “It’s simple, accessible, and may be a stronger predictor of the development of problems than any other factor on its own.”
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