Determinants of early language and communication in preterm and full term infants: a comparative study

The aims are to compare the early linguistic and communicative development of a group of 150 low risk preterm infants (PR) to a group of 49 full-term infants (FT), and to identify the factors that affect language and communication abilities at 10 months of age. All participants were assessed when they were 15 days old using the NBAS, and when they were 10 months of age with the Galician CDI (IDHC), the CES-D (maternal depression), and the IBQ-R (child's temperament). Biomedical and environmental measures were also taken into account. No significant differences were found between the PR and the FT groups in language and communication measures. Comparisons between the PR children and two different groups of children from the normative sample of the IDHC (similar corrected age and similar civil age) indicate the effect of age correction for prematurity. Step-wise regression analyses indicate that biomedical variables (Apgar score), socio-environmental variables (maternal education) and children's temperamental characteristics (introversion/extroversion, and orientation/regulation) had a significant effect on several IDHC measures for the PR children, while the predictive variables for the FT group were not biomedical or environmental. The PR children seem to be highly vulnerable to biomedical and environmental factors.