Clinical assessment of language development in children at age 3 years that were born preterm.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the influence of gestational age and birth weight on language development and neurodevelopmental outcome at age 3 years in children born preterm.

METHOD: Cross sectional study including 69 children followed in our developmental outpatient clinic. Patients were consecutively included at the time of the 3 years of age appointment and stratified for birth weight (<1500 grams and between 1500-2500 grams). All patients were assessed for receptive and expressive language , Denver II and Bayley II tests and clinical neurological examination. For analysis patients were divided in two groups normal language acquisition (NLA) and delay in language acquisition (DLA).

RESULTS

NLA children had higher scores on mental and psychomotor (p=<0.01, p=0.012) indexes of Bayley II. Newborns with less than 1500 grams had lower scores on all Bayley scale at age 36 months (p=0.002, p=0.007 and p<0.001). Multivariate analysis suggests an association between gestational age (p=0.032), abnormal behavior (p<0.001) and delay in language acquisition. Denver test at 12 and 24 months of age was a good predictor of delayed receptive and expressive language at three years of age (p=<0.01 and p=<0.01).

CONCLUSION

Children born prematurely with low birth weight had an increased risk of language acquisition delay, and those had also lower cognitive and behavior scores when compared to NLA.