[Middle-Finland public health nurses participate in a large-sized longitudinal studies. Language development and its relation to reading ability].

Dyslexia, specific reading disability, which seriously impairs school achievement and interferes with the acquisition of information, is estimated to affect about 3-15% of the population. In a longitudinal study started in the University of Jyväskylä researchers will follow the development of language and other cognitive skills of babies of 160 families from birth to about 10 years' age in search for early precursors of dyslexia. Trough screening parents for dyslexia we hope to obtain new information about specific features of reading and writing problems in adulthood, which helps us to focus our search for important features of early language problems linked to development of dyslexia. Finnish public health nurses are involved the study in the field.