Children born prematurely are at risk for perinatal brain injuries (PBI). Both prematurity and PBI confer risk for neurodevelopmental disabilities. We investigated the linguistic and behavioral characteristics of children born prematurely, with and without perinatal brain injuries, at ages 10-15. In total, 16 children born preterm participated. Eight were born at 30-37 weeks and eight were born earlier than 30 weeks gestation. Six children reportedly had PBI and ten children reported no PBI. Clinical tools were used to measure global language skills, vocabulary, reading and comprehension and grammar. Parent questionnaires were used to assess behavior. Children born after 29 weeks of age scored significantly higher on tests for receptive vocabulary, language memory, reading and passage comprehension than children born before 30 weeks gestation (p is less than or equal to 0.05). Scores reported for anxiety and depression symptoms were higher for the children born before 30 weeks than scores reported for the children born after 29 weeks. The mean scores of children with no PBI were significantly higher for expressive language and passage compehension than the mean scores of children with PBI. There were no significant behavior differences between the children with and without PBI. There were no differences between the children with and without PBI. There were no differences measured between groups, by PBI or gestational age, for tests of grammar and sentence comprehension, accuracy and reaction time. The results suggest that children with PBI may have difficulty with reading comprehension and expressive language and that gestational age and not PBI specifically, may have a greater effect on linguistics and behavior. Identifying long-term consequences of prematurity is relevant to public health because it will help a growing population of children at risk for neurodeveloopmental disabilities benefit from early intervention.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04122007-180755 |
| Date | 26 June 2007 |
| Creators | Beck, Megahn Marie |
| Contributors | Eleanor Feingold, Elizabeth Gettig, Heidi M. Feldman |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04122007-180755/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0023 seconds