title: Speech and oromotor outcome in adolescents born preterm: relationship to motor tract integrity.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess speech abilities in adolescents born preterm and investigate whether there is an association between specific speech deficits and brain abnormalities.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty adolescents born prematurely (<33 weeks' gestation) with a spectrum of brain injuries were recruited (mean age, 16 years). Speech examination included tests of speech-sound processing and production and speech and oromotor control. Conventional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion-weighted imaging was acquired in all adolescents born preterm and 30 term-born control subjects. Radiological ratings of brain injury were recorded and the integrity of the primary motor projections was measured (corticospinal tract and speech-motor corticobulbar tract [CST/CBT]).
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were no clinical diagnoses of developmental dysarthria, dyspraxia, or a speech-sound disorder, but difficulties in speech and oromotor control were common. A regression analysis revealed that presence of a neurologic impairment, and diffusion-weighted imaging abnormalities in the left CST/CBT were significant independent predictors of poor speech and oromotor outcome. These left-lateralized abnormalities were most evident at the level of the posterior limb of the internal capsule.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Difficulties in speech and oromotor control are common in adolescents born preterm, and adolescents with injury to the CST/CBT pathways in the left-hemisphere may be most at risk.
authors: UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK. g.northam@ich.ucl.ac.uk
authors: Gemma B
authors: GB
authors: Northam
authors: Frédérique
authors: F
authors: Liégeois
authors: Wui K
authors: WK
authors: Chong
authors: Kate
authors: K
authors: Baker
authors: Jacques-Donald
authors: JD
authors: Tournier
authors: John S
authors: JS
authors: Wyatt
authors: Torsten
authors: T
authors: Baldeweg
authors: Angela
authors: A
authors: Morgan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D020208:Brain Injury, Chronic / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D047928:Premature Birth; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011712:Pyramidal Tracts / Q000473:pathology*; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement