Do Infants Born Very Premature and Who Have Very Low Birth Weight Catch Up With Their Full Term Peers in Their Language Abilities by Early School Age?

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Do Infants Born Very Premature and Who Have Very Low Birth Weight Catch Up With Their Full Term Peers in Their Language Abilities by Early School Age?
Authors:	Zimmerman, Emily¹ e.zimmerman@neu.edu
Source:	Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research. Jan2018, Vol. 61 Issue 1, p53-65. 13p. 1 Diagram, 1 Chart, 5 Graphs, 1 Map.
Subject Terms:	Child development research, Language ability testing, Speech-language pathology, Child development, Comparative grammar, Language acquisition, Development of premature infants, Low birth weight, Physiology, Confidence intervals, Premature infants, Meta-analysis, Phonetics, Probability theory, Systematic reviews, Data analysis software, Descriptive statistics
Abstract:	Purpose: This study examined the extent to which children born preterm (< 37 weeks) and/or who have low birth weight (< 2,500 g) catch up with their full term peers in terms of their language abilities at early school age (= 5 to < 9 years). Method: A systematic literature search identified empirical studies that fit the inclusion criteria. Data from the tests/questionnaires used for meta-analysis spanned the following language categories: total language score, expressive language, receptive language, pragmatics, phonological awareness, and grammar. The means (standard deviations) were extracted from the studies and were converted to mean difference and 95% confidence intervals to test for overall effect. Results: Sixteen studies met the inclusionary criteria, for a total of 2,739 participants, of which 1,224 were born full term and 1,515 were born preterm. It is important to note that the preterm cohort represented very preterm infants who have a very low birth weight. The meta-analysis found that preterm infants scored significantly worse on total language (p < .001), receptive language (p < .001), expressive language (p < .001), phonological awareness (p < .001), and grammar (p = .03) than their full term peers. However, preterm infants did not score significantly worse than their peers on their pragmatics (p = .19). Conclusions: Children born VPT and who have VLBW perform worse than their peers on their total language, receptive language, expressive language, phonological awareness, and grammar abilities by early school age. This information is important for speech-language pathologists to consider as children born prematurely reach school age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

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Abstract:	Purpose: This study examined the extent to which children born preterm (< 37 weeks) and/or who have low birth weight (< 2,500 g) catch up with their full term peers in terms of their language abilities at early school age (= 5 to < 9 years). Method: A systematic literature search identified empirical studies that fit the inclusion criteria. Data from the tests/questionnaires used for meta-analysis spanned the following language categories: total language score, expressive language, receptive language, pragmatics, phonological awareness, and grammar. The means (standard deviations) were extracted from the studies and were converted to mean difference and 95% confidence intervals to test for overall effect. Results: Sixteen studies met the inclusionary criteria, for a total of 2,739 participants, of which 1,224 were born full term and 1,515 were born preterm. It is important to note that the preterm cohort represented very preterm infants who have a very low birth weight. The meta-analysis found that preterm infants scored significantly worse on total language (p < .001), receptive language (p < .001), expressive language (p < .001), phonological awareness (p < .001), and grammar (p = .03) than their full term peers. However, preterm infants did not score significantly worse than their peers on their pragmatics (p = .19). Conclusions: Children born VPT and who have VLBW perform worse than their peers on their total language, receptive language, expressive language, phonological awareness, and grammar abilities by early school age. This information is important for speech-language pathologists to consider as children born prematurely reach school age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	10924388
DOI:	10.1044/2017_JSLHR-L-16-0150