ABSTRACT
Language processing efficiency-that is, the skill at processing language in real time-assessed in toddlerhood is associated with later language outcomes in children born full term (FT) and preterm (PT) during school age. No studies to date have assessed patterns of relations between early language processing efficiency and pre-literacy skills, such as print knowledge and phonological awareness, and whether relations are similar in FT and PT children. In this study, participants (N = 94, 49 FT and 45PT) were assessed in the looking-while-listening (LWL) task at 18 months of age (corrected for degree of prematurity), deriving measures of processing speed and accuracy. At 4½ years of age, children were assessed on standardized tests of print knowledge, phonological awareness, and expressive language. Processing speed and accuracy predicted both pre-literacy outcomes (r2 change = 7.8%-19.5%, p < .01); birth group did not moderate these effects. Relations were significantly reduced when controlling for expressive language. Thus, early language processing efficiency supports later expressive language abilities, which in turn supports developing pre-literacy skills. Processing speed and phonological awareness were also directly related, indicating an independent role for processing speed in literacy development. Mediation effects were not moderated by birth group, suggesting a similar developmental pathway in FT and PT children.
ABSTRACT
Associations between children's early language processing efficiency and later verbal and non-verbal outcomes shed light on the extent to which early information processing skills support later learning across different domains of function. Examining whether the strengths of associations are similar in typically developing and at-risk populations provides an additional lens into the varying routes to learning that children may take across development. In this follow-up study, children born full-term (FT, n = 49) and preterm (PT, n = 45, ≤32 weeks gestational age, birth weight <1800 g) were assessed in the Looking While Listening (LWL) task at 18 months (corrected for degree of prematurity in PT group). This eye-tracking task assesses efficiency of real-time spoken language comprehension as accuracy and speed (RT) of processing. At 4 ½ years, children were assessed on standardized tests of receptive vocabulary, expressive language, and non-verbal IQ. Language processing efficiency was associated with both language outcomes (r2-change: 7.0-19.7%, p < 0.01), after covariates. Birth group did not moderate these effects, suggesting similar mechanisms of learning in these domains for PT and FT children. However, birth group moderated the association between speed and non-verbal IQ (r2-change: 4.5%, p < 0.05), such that an association was found in the PT but not the FT group. This finding suggests that information processing skills reflected in efficiency of real-time language processing may be recruited to support learning in a broader range of verbal and non-verbal domains in the PT compared to the FT group.
Subject(s)
Infant, Premature , Language , Infant, Newborn , Humans , Child , Follow-Up Studies , Infant, Premature/psychology , Vocabulary , Language Development , Cognition , Language TestsABSTRACT
La infección del sitio de operación es una de las causas más importantes de morbimortalidad de infección hospitalaria y del incremento de los costos en salud. Es también un factor pronóstico de la calidad de la atención en salud. En los Estados Unidos, hacia la década de los noventa, se logró un sistema de estratificación del riesgo conocido como el índice de riesgo del National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance System (NNIS) que no sólo involucra el tipo de herida quirúrgica sino, además, las condiciones inherentes al paciente, que se han considerado puede ser factores de riesgo para el desarrollo de infección del sitio de la operación. En Colombia se han adelantado pocos estudios aplicando este índice. El presente corresponde a uno de los primeros y consiste en el análisis retrospectivo de los procedimientos quirúrgicos realizados en una institución hospitalaria universitaria de tercer nivel durante los meses de junio a agosto de 2002, basado en el NNIS y que evalúa el desenlace, es decir, la aparición de infección del sitio operatorio o su ausencia.
