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.
Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Trieste 34014, Italy. pena@sissa.it
Marcela
M
Peña
Enrica
E
Pittaluga
Jacques
J
Mehler
D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature / Q000523:psychology*; D007804:Language Development