The current investigation examined whether inter-generational transfer of risk could be revealed through mothers' and preschool-aged children's expressive language, and whether continuity of risk persisted in these children's academic abilities, 3 years later. Participating families were drawn from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, a prospective, longitudinal investigation of French-speaking families from low-SES Montreal neighbourhoods. At Time 1, mothers' history of childhood social withdrawal was shown to predict mothers' child-directed language. Mothers' language complexity was also shown to be predictive of preschoolers' expressive language and was found to mediate the relationship between maternal social withdrawal and child language. At Time 2, children's language-related academic abilities were predicted by their expressive language at preschool age. The findings support an inter-generational continuity of risk operating through language complexity and extending to children's performance in language-related academic abilities at school age. (Contains 4 tables.)