Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-7sgmh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-20T22:40:52.903Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early delayed language development in very preterm infants: Evidence from the MacArthur-Bates CDI*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2007

SUSAN FOSTER-COHEN ,
JAMIE O. EDGIN ,
PATRICIA R. CHAMPION  and
LIANNE J. WOODWARD
SUSAN FOSTER-COHEN*
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury and the Champion Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand
JAMIE O. EDGIN
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury and Van der Veer Institute for Parkinson's and Brain Research, Christchurch, New Zealand
PATRICIA R. CHAMPION
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury and the Champion Centre, Christchurch, New Zealand
LIANNE J. WOODWARD
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury and Van der Veer Institute for Parkinson's and Brain Research, Christchurch, New Zealand
*
Address for correspondence: Dr Susan Foster-Cohen, The Champion Centre, Private Bag 4708, c/-Burwood Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand. e-mail: susan.foster-cohen@canterbury.ac.nz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examined the effects of being born very preterm on children's early language development using prospective longitudinal data from a representative regional cohort of 90 children born very preterm (gestational age <33 weeks and/or birth weight <1,500 grams) and a comparison sample of 102 children born full term (gestational age 38–41 weeks). The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (CDI-WS) was used to assess children's language development at age 2 ; 0 (corrected for gestational age at birth). Clear linear relationships were found between gestational age at birth and later language outcomes, with decreasing gestational age being associated with poorer parent-reported language skills. Specifically, children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks' gestation) tended to perform less well than those born very preterm (28–32 weeks' gestation), who in turn performed worse than children born full term (38–41 weeks' gestation). This pattern of findings was evident across a range of outcomes spanning vocabulary size and quality of word use, as well as morphological and syntactic complexity. Importantly, associations between gestational age at birth and language outcomes persisted after statistical control for child and family factors correlated with both preterm birth and language development. These findings demonstrate the presence of pervasive delays in the early language development of children born very preterm. They also highlight the importance of gestational age in predicting later language risk in this population of infants.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , August 2007 , pp. 655 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anderson, P. L. Doyle & the Victorian Infant Collaborative Study Group (2003). Neurobehavioural outcomes of school-age children born extremely low birth weight or very preterm in the 1990s. Journal of the American Medical Association 289, 3264–72.Google Scholar
Aylward, G. P. (2005). Neurodevelopmental outcomes of infants born prematurely. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 26(6), 427–40.Google Scholar
Badr Zahr, L. K. (2001). Quantitative and qualitative predictors of development for low-birth weight infants of Latino background. Applied Nursing Research 14(3), 125–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bayley, N. (1993). The Bayley Scales of Infant Development – Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Briscoe, J., Gathercole, S. & Marlow, N. (1998). Short-term memory and language outcomes after extreme prematurity at birth. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 41, 654–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Censullo, M. (1994). Developmental delays in healthy premature infants at age two years: Implications for early intervention. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 15, 99–104.Google Scholar
Charman, T., Drew, A., Baird, C. & Baird, G. (2003). Measuring early language development in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder using the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory (Infant form). Journal of Child Language 30, 213–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin 112, 155–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, S., Parmalee, A., Sigman, M. & Beckwith, L. (1988). Antecedents of school problems in children born preterm. Journal of Pediatric Psychology 13, 493–507.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Craig, H., Evans, J., Meisels, S. & Plunkett, J. (1991). Linguistic production abilities of 3-year-old children born premature with low birth weight. Journal of Early Intervention 15, 326–37.Google Scholar
Crnic, K., Ragozin, A., Greenberg, M., Robinson, N. & Basham, R. (1983). Social interaction and developmental competence of preterm and full-term infants during the first year of life. Child Development 54, 1199–210.Google Scholar
Darlow, B. A., Horwood, L. J., Mogridge, N. & Clemett, S. (1997). Prospective study of New Zealand very low birthweight infants: outcome at 7–8 years. Journal of Paediatric and Child Health 33, 47–51.Google Scholar
Donahue, M. & Pearl, R. (1995). Conversational interactions of mothers and their preschool children who had been born preterm. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 38, 1117–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, L. W. (2001). Outcome at 5 years of age of children 23 to 27 weeks' gestation: refining the prognosis. Pediatrics 108, 134–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duncan, N., Schneider, P. & Robertson, C. (1996). Language abilities in five-through seven-year-old children born at or under 28 weeks gestational age. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology 4, 71–9.Google Scholar
Eilers, R., Kimbrough Oller, D., Levine, S., Basinger, D., Lynch, M. & Urbano, R. (1993). The role of prematurity and socioeconomic status in the onset of canonical babbling in infants. Infant Behavior and Development 16, 297–315.Google Scholar
Elley, W. B. & Irving, J. (2003). The Elley-Irving socioeconomic index 2001 census revision. New Zealand Journal of Education Studies 38, 3–17.Google Scholar
Fazzi, E., Orcesi, S., Telesca, C., Ometto, A., Rondini, G. & Lanzi, G. (1997). Neurodevelopmental outcome in very low birthweight infants at 24 months, and 5 to 7 years of age: Changing diagnosis. Pediatric Neurology 17, 240–8.Google Scholar
Feldman, H., Dollaghan, C., Campbell, T., Kurs-Lasky, M., Janosky, J. & Paradise, J. (2000). Measurement properties of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories at ages one and two years. Child Development 71, 310–22.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Bates, E., Dale, P., Goodman, J., Reznick, J. S. & Thal, D. (2000). Measuring variability in early child language: don't shoot the messenger. Child Development 71, 323–8.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J., Bates, E., Thal, D. & Pethick, S. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 59(5, Serial No. 242).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J., Thal, D., Bates, E., Hartung, J., Pethick, S. & Reilly, J. (1993). The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories: User's guide and technical manual. San Diego, CA: Singular Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Fewell, R., Casal, S., Glick, M., Wheeden, C. & Spiker, D. (1996). Maternal education and maternal responsiveness as predictors of play competence in low birth weight, premature infants: a preliminary report. Journal of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics 17(2), 100–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frisk, V. & Whyte, H. (1994). The long-term consequences of periventricular brain damage on language and verbal memory. Developmental Neuropsychology 10, 313–33.Google Scholar
Gallagher, T. & Watkin, K. (1998). Prematurity and language developmental risk: too young or too small? Topics in Language Disorders 18, 15–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonzalez, L. & Robison, D. (2001). A comparison of linguistic and behavioral performance of children born preterm and full term. Infant-Toddler Intervention 11, 159–79.Google Scholar
Grunau, R., Kearney, S. & Whitfield, M. (1990). Language development at 3 years in pre-term children of birth weight below 1000 g. British Journal of Disorders of Communication 25, 173–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hershberger, P. (1996). The relationship of medical and family characteristics to language development skills of low birthweight children at three years of age. Infant-Toddler Intervention 6, 75–85.Google Scholar
Horwood, L. J., Mogridge, N. & Darlow, B. A. (1998). Cognitive, educational and behavioural outcomes in a national very low birth weight cohort. Archives of Disease in Childhood: Fetal Neonatal Edition 79, F12–F20.Google Scholar
Jackson-Maldonado, D., Thal, D., Marchman, V., Bates, E. & Gutierrez-Clellan, V. (1993). Early lexical development in Spanish-speaking infants and toddlers. Journal of Child Language 20, 523–49.Google Scholar
Klebanov, P., Brookes-Gunn, J. & McCormick, M. (1994). School achievement and failure in very low birth weight children. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 15, 248–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landry, S., Smith, K. & Swank, P. (2002). Environmental effects on language development in normal and high-risk child populations. Seminars in Pediatric Neurology 9, 192–200.Google Scholar
Luciana, M. (2003). Cognitive development in children born preterm: implications for theories of brain plasticity following early injury. Developmental Psychopathology 15(4), 1017–47.Google Scholar
Magill-Evans, J. & Harrison, M. (1999). Parent-child interactions and development of toddlers born preterm. Western Journal of Nursing Research 21, 292–312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Magill-Evans, J., Harrison, M., Van der Zalm, J. & Holdgrafer, G. (2002). Cognitive and language development of healthy preterm infants at 10 years of age. Physical and Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics 22, 41–56.Google Scholar
Marlow, N. (2004). Outcome following extremely preterm birth. Current Paediatrics 14, 275–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarton, C., Brookes-Gunn, J., Wallace, I., Bauer, C., Bennett, F., Bernbaum, J., Broyles, S., Casey, P., McCormick, M., Scott, D., Tyson, J., Tonascia, J. & Meinert, C. (1997). Results at age 8 years of early intervention for low-birth-weight premature infants. Journal of the American Medical Association 277, 126–32.Google Scholar
Ment, L., Vohr, B., Allan, W., Katz, K., Shneider, K., Westerveld, M., Duncan, C. & Makuch, R. (2003). Change in cognitive function over time in very low-birth-weight infants. Journal of the American Medical Association 289, 705–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Menyuk, P., Liebergott, J. & Schultz, M. (1995). Early language development in full-term and in premature infants. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
Miller, J. & Chapman, R. (1993). SALT: Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts. Madison Wisconsin: Language Analysis Laboratory, Waisman Centre, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Nadeau, L., Boivin, M., Tessier, R., Lefebvre, F. & Robaey, P. (2001). Mediators of behavioral problems in 7 year old children born after 24 weeks to 28 weeks of gestation. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 22, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reese, E. & Read, S. (2000). Predictive validity of the New Zealand MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences. Journal of Child Language 27, 255–66.Google Scholar
Riitesuo, A. (1994). Critical factors in speech and language developments of small preterm infants. In Markku, L. (ed.) Family in focus: New perspectives on early childhood special education. Jyväskyla: University of Jyväskyla Press.Google Scholar
Rijken, M., Storlhorst, G., Martens, S., van Zwieten, P., Brand, R., Wit, J. & Veen, S. (2003). Mortality and neurological, mental, and psychomotor development at 2 years in infants born less than than 27 weeks' gestation: the Leiden follow-up project on prematurity. Pediatrics 112(2), 351–8.Google Scholar
Robison, D. & Gonzalez, L. (1999). Children born premature: a review of linguistic and behavioral outcomes. Infant-Toddler Intervention 9, 373–90.Google Scholar
Rocissano, L. & Yatchmink, Y. (1983). Language skill and interactive patterns in prematurely born toddlers. Child Development 54, 1229–41.Google Scholar
Schmidt, C. & Lawson, K. (2002). Caregiver attention-focusing and children's attention-sharing behaviours as predictors of later verbal IQ in very low birthweight children. Journal of Child Language 29, 3–22.Google Scholar
Scottish Low Birthweight Study (1992). II. Language attainment, cognitive status, and behavioural problems. Archives of Disease in Childhood 67, 682–6.Google Scholar
Seidman, S., Allen, R. & Wasserman, G. (1986). Productive language of premature and physically handicapped two-year-olds. Journal of Communication Disorders 19, 49–61.Google Scholar
Taylor, H. G., Klein, N., Minich, N. & Hack, M. (2000). Middle-school-age outcomes in children with very low birthweight. Child Development 71, 1495–511.Google Scholar
Ungerer, J. & Sigman, M. (1983). Developmental lags in preterm infants from one to three years of age. Child Development 54, 1217–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, L. J., Anderson, P., Austin, N. C., Howard, K. & Inder, T. E. (2006). Neonatal MRI to predict neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants. New England Journal of Medicine 355(7), 685–94.Google Scholar