Lexicon and gestures development in Italian very preterm infants in the first two years of life.

Background Several studies have revealed that preterm children may have difficulties in language development starting from the age of 2 years and during preschool and school age. However, rare are the studies that have investigated longitudinally earlier preterms’ communicative and linguistic abilities. Aims of the study. First, to examine longitudinally the development of lexical and gestural abilities in the first two years of life in an Italian sample of very preterm infants. Second, to investigate whether the abilities observed at the end of the first year are related to lexicon at the age of 2 years. Methods One hundred monolingual Italian preterms, born in the Unit of Neonatology of Bologna University, with a gestational age 33 weeks and no major cerebral damage, were longitudinally followed at 12, 18 and 24 months (corrected age) by administering to parents the Italian short form of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. A comparison group of 45 monolingual healthy Italian fullterms was recruited at each age. Results The results showed that preterms, compared to fullterms, had a slower acquisition in lexical comprehension and gestures at 18 months, while no significant differences emerged in lexical production, except for a higher percentage of preterms with a lexical production at risk (< 10th percentile) at 24 months with respect to fullterms. In addition, preterms’ lexical and gestural abilities at 12 months resulted related to lexical production at 24 months. Conclusion Our findings highlight that both lexical comprehension and production and gestural abilities are relevant measures to be monitored in the first two years of life in order to understand preterms’ language developmental trajectory and early identify infants at risk for language development.