NIH Study Finds AI-Powered Language Analysis Predicts Depression and Anxiety in Children
A study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to analyze children's language to predict the onset of depression and anxiety disorders years before they manifest. Researchers at Stanford University, led by Ian H. Gotlib, Ph.D., applied AI techniques to interviews with children aged 9 to 13, identifying linguistic features that could predict future mental health issues. The study involved 204 children who participated in the NIH-supported Early Life Stress Study. The AI tools analyzed sentence structure, grammar, semantics, and word categories in the children's speech, finding that certain linguistic styles, such as elevated narrative complexity and self-referential speech, were strong indicators of risk. The predictive models developed in this study outperformed traditional methods based on demographic information and expert stress severity scores. 
