title: Precocity of the acquisition of language and type II spinal muscular atrophy in 3-4-year-old children: a study of 12 cases.
abstract: We studied the development of language in 3-4-year-old children with type II spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) (10 boys and two girls), aged 36-47 months (mean age 39.83+/-4.68 months) and compared our findings to a control group of 26 healthy children (mean age 40.00+/-4.43 months, 22 boys and four girls). We carried out a lexicogrammatical analysis of the data and we observed significant differences in the "vocabulary", "nouns", "verbs", "words" and "adverbs" variables between the children with SMA and the controls. Three- to four-year-old children suffering from type II spinal muscular atrophy, an autosomal genetic disease causing severe physical handicap (motor, functional, respiratory), presented a higher level of lexical and semantic development than the controls, demonstrating the precocity of development of morphosyntax in these children.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Clinical and Social Psychology (LPCS), University of Burgundy, Pôle AAFE, Esplanade Erasme, BP 26513-21065 Dijon cedex, France.
authors.forename: Christelle
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bénony
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bénony
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D010988:Play and Playthings; D014897:Spinal Muscular Atrophies of Childhood / Q000523:psychology*; D014741:Video Recording; D014825:Vocabulary