Prenatal Volume in the Bilateral Superior Temporal Gyrus Associates With Children's Expressive Vocabulary at 24-36 Months.

Children's language development starts in utero, with language-relevant brain areas starting to develop and differentiate during the second trimester of pregnancy. Postnatal development in language-relevant brain areas such as the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) has been shown to be related to language skills. In this study, as part of the Cambridge Human Imaging and Longitudinal Development (CHILD) project, prenatal structural characteristics of the IFG and STG (30th - 33rd GW) and their association with English children's language skills, obtained longitudinally at two postnatal assessment points (n = 24 and n = 25) was examined. Prenatal bilateral STG volume was found to be associated with expressive vocabulary 2-3 years after birth (M = 139.1 weeks), as measured by the Communicative Development Inventory (CDI). These results highlight the relevance of prenatal brain development for language acquisition after birth. SUMMARY: Postnatal structural characteristics of neural language network, including IFG and STG, are known to be related to language skills in children and adults Structural characteristics of IFG and STG were assessed prenatally in this study and related to language outcomes in early childhood Bilateral STG volume at birth predicts vocabulary scores 2-3 years later Findings support the importance of prenatal brain development for postnatal language acquisition.