Impact of late to moderate preterm birth on minimal pair word‐learning

Abstract

AbstractLittle is known about language development after late‐to‐moderate premature birth, the most significant part of prematurity worldwide. We examined minimal‐pair word‐learning skills in 18 eighteen‐month‐old healthy full‐term (mean gestational age [GA] at birth = 39.6 weeks; 7 males; 100% Caucasian) and 18 healthy late‐to‐moderate preterm infants (mean GA at birth 33.7 weeks; 11 males; 100% Caucasian). Data were collected in the local urban area of Barcelona city from May 2015 to August 2016. Toddlers first associated two pseudo‐words, forming a minimal pair based on a voice onset time distinction of the initial consonant, with two unfamiliar objects during a habituation phase. A visual choice test assessed their recognition of the two novel word‐object associations and some familiar word‐object pairs. While full‐terms successfully mapped the similar sounding pair of novel words (d = 1.57), preterms could not (d = 0.17). These results suggest that late to moderate preterm birth can hinder basic associative learning mechanisms relying on fine temporal speech features.