Prediction and persistence of late talking: A study of Italian toddlers at 29 and 34 months.

This study analyzed the communicative, linguistic and symbolic skills in Italian Late Talking (LT) toddlers. Thirty-five participants were identified through a language-screening program at 29 months by using the Italian version of MB-CDI W&S Short Form. Cognitive, communicative and linguistic skills were evaluated 5 later, with indirect and direct tools. The MB-CDI WS Short Form revealed, in LT children, weakness in gesture production, decontextualized comprehension, verbal imitation, symbolic play, and phonological accuracy. Our results confirmed lexical size at 29 months is the predictive factor to identify language delay at 34 months. The clinical assessment at 34 months confirmed that 89% of the LT children had a vocabulary size below the 10th percentile on the MB-CDI Complete Form. On a structured task, LT children showed lexical comprehension more preserved than lexical production, and more advanced skills in nouns than in predicates. Weakness in socioconversational abilities emerged. Correlation among maternal education, expressive vocabulary and socio-conversational competence in LT children was evidenced. Strong association among cognitive, communicative and linguistic skills were documented.

Noun and predicate comprehension/production and gestures in extremely preterm children at two years of age: Are they delayed?

UNLABELLED: Extremely low gestational age (ELGA, GA<28 weeks) preterm children are at high risk for linguistic impairments; however, their lexical comprehension and production as well as lexical categories in their early language acquisition have not been specifically examined via direct tools. Our study examines lexical comprehension and production as well as gestural production in ELGA children by focusing on noun and predicate acquisition. Forty monolingual ELGA children (mean GA of 26.7 weeks) and 40 full-term (FT) children were assessed at two years of corrected chronological age (CCA) using a test of noun and predicate comprehension and production (PiNG) and the Italian MB-CDI. Noun comprehension and production were delayed in ELGA compared with FT children, as documented by the low number of correct responses and the large number of errors, i.e., incorrect responses and no-response items, and by the types of incorrect responses, i.e., fewer semantically related responses, in noun production. Regarding predicate comprehension and production, a higher frequency of no responses was reported by ELGA children and these children also presented a lower frequency of bimodal spoken-gestural responses in predicate production than FT children. A delayed vocabulary size as demonstrated by the MB-CDI, was exhibited by one-fourth of the ELGA children, who were also unable to complete the predicate subtest. These findings highlight that noun comprehension and production are delayed in ELGA children at two years of CCA and are the most important indexes for the direct evaluation of their lexical abilities and delay. The types of incorrect responses and bimodal spoken-gestural responses were proven to be useful indexes for evaluating the noun and predicate level of acquisition and to plan early focused interventions. LEARNING OUTCOMES: After reading this manuscript, the reader will understand (a) the differences in noun and predicate comprehension and production between ELGA and FT children and the indexes of lexical delays exhibited by ELGA children at 2;0 (CCA); (b) the relevance of evaluating errors (incorrect response and no response), the types of incorrect responses (semantically related and unrelated) and the modality of the responses (unimodal spoken and bimodal spoken-gestural) in noun and predicate production to understand the difficulties experienced by ELGA children in representing and expressing meanings; and (c) the need to plan specific interventions to support spoken and gestural modalities in lexical comprehension and production in ELGA children by focusing on noun and predicate acquisition.

Do healthy preterm children need neuropsychological follow-up? Preschool outcomes compared with term peers.

AIM: the aim of this study was to determine neuropsychological performance (possibly predictive of academic difficulties) and its relationship with cognitive development and maternal education in healthy preterm children of preschool age and age-matched comparison children born at term. METHOD: a total of 35 infants who were born at less than 33 weeks' gestational age and who were free from major neurosensory disability (16 males, 19 females; mean gestational age 29.4wk, SD 2.2wk; mean birthweight 1257g, SD 327g) and 50 term-born comparison children (25 males, 25 females; mean birthweight 3459g, SD 585g) were assessed at 4 years of age. Cognition was measured using the Griffiths Mental Development scales while neuropsychological abilities (language, short-term memory, visual-motor and constructive spatial abilities, and visual processing) were assessed using standardized tests. Multivariable regression analysis was used to explore the effects of preterm birth and sociodemographic factors on cognition, and to adjust neuropsychological scores for cognitive level and maternal education. RESULTS: the mean total Griffiths score was significantly lower in preterm than in term children (97.4 vs 103.4; p<0.001). Factors associated with higher Griffiths score were maternal university education (ß=6.2; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.7-11.7) and having older siblings or a twin (ß=4.0; 95% CI 0.5-7.6). At neuropsychological assessment, preterm children scored significantly lower than term comparison children in all tests except lexical production (Boston Naming Test) and visual-processing accuracy. After adjustment for cognitive level and maternal education, differences remained statistically significant for verbal fluency (p<0.05) and comprehension, short-term memory, and spatial abilities (p<0.01). INTERPRETATION: neuropsychological follow-up is also recommended for healthy very preterm children to identify strengths and challenges before school entry, and to plan interventions aimed at maximizing academic success.

Lexical and grammatical abilities in deaf Italian preschoolers: the role of duration of formal language experience.

We evaluated language development in deaf Italian preschoolers with hearing parents, taking into account the duration of formal language experience (i.e., the time elapsed since wearing a hearing aid and beginning language education) and different methods of language education. Twenty deaf children were matched with 20 hearing children for age and with another 20 hearing children for duration of experience. Deaf children showed a significant delay in both vocabulary and grammar when compared to same-age hearing children yet a similar development compared to hearing children matched for duration of formal language experience. The delay in linguistic development could be attributable to shorter formal language experience and not to deafness itself. Deaf children exposed to spoken language accompanied by signs tended to understand and produce more words than children exposed only to spoken language. We suggest that deaf children be evaluated based on their linguistic experience and cognitive and communicative potential.

Clinical markers for specific language impairment in Italian: The contribution of clitics and non-word repetition.

BACKGROUND: The discovery of clinical markers for specific language impairment (SLI) in children can assist in the accurate identification of children with this disorder, and in a description of the disorder's phenotype for genetic study. One challenge to this type of research is the fact that languages vary in the most salient symptoms of SLI. This study focuses on Italian. AIMS: To determine whether three measures--the use of third-person plural inflections, the use of direct-object clitics and non-word repetition--are successful in distinguishing Italian-speaking children with SLI from their typically developing peers. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Eleven preschool-aged children with SLI, 11 same-age typically developing peers and 11 younger typically developing children participated in the study. The third-person plural inflection and direct-object clitic tasks required the children to describe drawings in response to prompts provided by the examiner. In the non-word repetition task, the children repeated non-words ranging from one to four syllables in length. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: All three measures proved successful either singly or in combination, with direct-object clitics and non-word repetition showing the highest sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSIONS: Additional research should be pursued to replicate and extend these findings. Along with the potential clinical value of the findings, the results suggest that difficulties with non-final weak syllables--a problem that would adversely affect all three measures--may be an important part of the SLI profile in Italian.