Margareta Jennische

Linguistic skills at 6½ years of age in children who required neonatal intensive care in 1986–1989

Linguistic skills at 6½y of age, corrected for gestational age at birth, were examined in a cohort of 230 children who had required neonatal intensive care (NIC) in 1986–89, and in 71 fullterm neonatally healthy control children (C) matched to the NIC children born at <32 gestational weeks. Ten linguistic areas were assessed. The 10th percentile score of the controls was identified in each linguistic area and used for comparisons. In 77.5% of the controls and 63.5% of the NIC children, no score was lower than the 10th percentile score of the controls. Scores lower than the 10th percentile score were more common in NIC children born at term or at 23–31 wk, and within this group of children those born at 23–27 wk, than in controls.

Speech and language skills in children who required neonatal intensive care. I. Spontaneous speech at 6.5 years of age

Spontaneous speech at age 6.5 years was studied separately in a follow‐up of speech and language skills in a regional cohort of 284 children requiring neonatal intensive care and in 40 controls. Eight aspects of spontaneous speech were evaluated in a conversation: A1, information; A2, speech motor function; A3, sound pattern; A4, word finding; A5, word selection; A6, grammar; A7, interaction; and A8, motivation. The children were grouped by gestational age. Most children had well developed spontaneous speech. The different groups showed very few differences in types of deviations in spontaneous speech. All groups differed from the controls in speech motor function and formal language (A2‐A6), but only one child, born at <32 weeks, had a pronounced deviation in one of these aspects. Obvious deviations in one or more aspects of spontaneous speech were more common among children born at 28‐31 weeks and in those born fullterm (>37 weeks) than among extremely preterm children born at 23–27 weeks.

Gender differences in outcome after neonatal intensive care: speech and language skills are less influenced in boys than in girls at 6.5 years.

Aim: To study language development at age 6.5 y in 230 children who had required neonatal intensive care (NIC) and 71 full‐term neonatally healthy control children, all born in 1986–1989, with a focus on comparison between genders. Methods: Eight aspects of spontaneous speech, 3 fine motor functions, 10 linguistic areas, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and digit recall (ITPA) were assessed. Results: Achievements for gender and gestational age groups were analysed (group I, 23–31 wk; subgroup IA, 23–27 wk; IB, 28–31 wk; group II, 32–36 wk; group III, >36 wk), with children with congenital malformations as a separate group. As a group, at 6.5 y NIC girls had more developed spontaneous speech than NIC boys, and performed better than NIC boys in some linguistic areas. NIC girls of group I had lower results than control girls in spontaneous speech aspects such as speech motor function, interaction and motivation, and in many areas of linguistic skills. In contrast, NIC boys of group I had higher results than control boys in auditory memory, and only regarding information and speech motor function in spontaneous speech were their results lower. Analysis of results of matched pairs of group I NIC girls versus control girls and group I NIC boys versus control boys revealed even more marked differences between NIC girls and their matched controls than between NIC boys and their matched controls.

Spontaneous speech at 6½ years of age in children who required neonatal intensive care in 1986–1989

Spontaneous speech at 6½y of age was studied in a follow‐up of 230 children born in 1986–89 who had required neonatal intensive care (NIC) and 71 fullterm neonatally healthy control children. Eight aspects of spontaneous speech were examined: Information, speech motor function, sound pattern, word finding, word selection, grammar, interaction and motivation. The results were analysed in relation to gestational age groups (group I, 23–31 wk; subgroup IA, 23–27 wk; IB, 28–31 wk; group II, 32–36 wk; group III, >36 wk) and a separate group of children with congenital malformations (IWCM). Between 66.7% (group IA) and 55.7% (group III) had no obvious deviations in any aspect of spontaneous speech compared with 80.3% of controls. Children born at <32 wk of gestation (group I) had few pronounced deviations in speech motor function or formal aspects of spontaneous speech. No ability, or hardly any ability, in an aspect of spontaneous speech was only found in children born at >32 wk. Deviations in prosody and poor facial expressions accompanying spontaneous speech were more common in group I than in controls.

Comorbidity in severe developmental language disorders: Neuropediatric and psychological considerations: Comorbidity in severe developmental language disorders

Aim: To explore possible patterns of comorbidity in children with severe developmental language disorders (DLD). Methods: A retrospective investigation of the clinical records of 28 children relating to oral motor and language problems, psychological profiles, medical history and EEG findings. Results: 36% of all the children had pure expressive language problems, 64% had combined expressive‐receptive language problems and 57% had additional oral motor problems. Girls predominated in expressive‐receptive problems, while boys predominated in oral motor problems. Children with expressive‐receptive disorders were over‐represented at the lower end of normal full‐scale IQ (p=0.015). Lower verbal than non‐verbal IQ levels were almost as common as equal levels, but a lower non‐verbal IQ than verbal IQ was also found. Pre/perinatal problems were found in 21%, and heredity for developmental language problems or dyslexia in 39%. There was a higher proportion of attention and motor problems, EEG abnormalities, and epileptic syndromes than in the general population (p<0.001).

School level at 10 years of age in children who required neonatal intensive care in 1980-1989.

School level at age 10 was studied in two cohorts of children who had required neonatal intensive care (NIC): cohort 1, children born 1980–1985 (n=310); and cohort 2, children born 1986–1989 (n=245); and two control groups. More than 80% of all NIC children of both cohorts attended the appropriate mainstream grade 3 or 4; 12.9% of cohort 1 and 6.8% of cohort 2 were in mainstream grade 2. Six per cent of both cohorts received special education. Among very preterm children (23–31 gestational weeks), 73.5% of cohort 1 and 80.3% of cohort 2 attended grades 3 and 4, while 22.9% and 12.1%, respectively, were in grade 2. Assistance (remedial teaching, personal assistant or special teaching group) was given to 42.4% of cohort 1 in the mainstream (grades 2, 3 and 4) and to 38.2% of cohort 2 in the mainstream. In cohort 2, more very preterm girls than matched controls received assistance (p<0.05); no corresponding difference was found in very preterm boys. Most children with congenital malformations received assistance in mainstream education or received special education.

NEONATAL FACTORS AND LINGUISTIC SKILLS IN CHILDREN, 6|[frac12]| YEARS, WHO REQUIRED NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE (NIC)

NEONATAL FACTORS AND LINGUISTIC SKILLS IN CHILDREN, 6½ YEARS, WHO REQUIRED NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE (NIC)

Evaluation of Spontaneous Speech At 6½ Years of Age in Children Who Required Neonatal Intensive Care (Nic). A Second Cohort. 33

Evaluation of Spontaneous Speech At 6½ Years of Age in Children Who Required Neonatal Intensive Care (Nic). A Second Cohort. 33

Prediction of Linguistic Skills from Spontaneous Speech. 120

Aim: Is it possible to characterise specific linguistic weaknesses from the spontaneous speech of a child during a 15 min conversation at an age of 6½ years.