Early lexical processes in extremely preterm infants.

Recent studies have shown that lexical development can be affected by preterm birth with delays with respect to typically developing children. However, preterm children’s early lexical processes have not been specifically investigated. We addressed this issue by examining infant’s verbal and non verbal strategies during standardized test evaluating lexical comprehension and production of nouns and predicates (PinG). Children’s lexical production was also evaluated using the MacArthur-Bates CDI. Twenty-five monolingual Italian children born preterm with an extremely low gestational age (≤ 28 weeks) and no major cerebral damage, and a comparison group of 25 monolingual healthy Italian full-terms were assessed and videotaped at 24 months (corrected age for preterm children). Compared to full-terms, preterm children produced significantly fewer correct responses in the PinG test in comprehension as well as in production of nouns and predicates (p values