Language acquisition in premature and full-term infants.
We tested healthy preterm (born near 28 +/- 2 weeks of gestational age) and full-term infants at various different ages. We compared the two populations on the development of a language acquisition landmark, namely, the ability to distinguish the native language from a rhythmically similar one. This ability is attained 4 months after birth in healthy full-term infants. We measured the induced gamma-band power associated with passive listening to (i) the infants' native language (Spanish), (ii) a rhythmically close language (Italian), and (iii) a rhythmically distant language (Japanese) as a marker of gains in language discrimination. Preterm and full-term infants were matched for neural maturation and duration of exposure to broadcast speech. We found that both full-term and preterm infants only display a response to native speech near 6 months after their term age. Neural maturation seems to constrain advances in speech discrimination at early stages of language acquisition.
Peña
Marcela
M
Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste 34014, Italy. pena@sissa.it
Pittaluga
Enrica
E
Mehler
Jacques
J
D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature / Q000523:psychology*; D007804:Language Development