Speech production in very preterm children (van Noort-van der Spek et al., 2022)

<b>Purpose: </b>Very preterm (VPT) children are at risk for speech and language problems throughout school age. However, little is known about early speech sound production in these children. This study aims to present a detailed description of early speech sound production and its trajectories in VPT children from 2 to 4 years of age. In addition, this study aimed to determine if early speech sound production is associated with speech production and expressive language function at 4 years of age.<b>Method:</b> In 63 VPT children (&lt; 32 weeks of gestation, 41 boys, mean gestational age = 28.8 weeks, mean birth weight = 1,135 g), speech sound production was assessed by naturalistic speech analysis at 2 years of corrected age and speech and language function by standardized tests at 4 years of age. <b>Results: </b>Speech sound production was found to be abnormal in 49% of the VPT children at 2 years of age and in 19% at 4 years of age. Four different speech production trajectories from 2 to 4 years of age could be identified: a normal trajectory, an abnormal trajectory, a catch-up trajectory, and a growing-into-deficit trajectory. Early speech production, defined by the number of acquired consonants at 2 years of age, significantly predicted the word production score at 4 years of age and the sentence production score at 4 years of age. <b>Conclusions:</b> Compared to the general population, an alarmingly high proportion of VPT children showed speech production problems at 2 years of age. About half of these children showed persistent speech problems at 4 years of age. Moreover, these problems were associated with expressive language problems at the age of 4 years.<br><b>Supplemental Material S1.</b> Baseline characteristics of the group of participating VPT children and the group of nonparticipating VPT children in baseline assessment at age 2 years CA.<b><br></b><b>Supplemental Material S2. </b>Baseline characteristics of the group of participating VPT children and the group of nonparticipating VPT children in follow up assessment at age 4 years.<br>van Noort-van der Spek, I., Dudink, J., Reiss, I. K., &amp; Franken, M.-C. J. P. (2022). Early speech sound production and its trajectories in very preterm children from 2 to 4 years of age. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research</i>. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00388

<b>目的：</b>极早产儿（Very preterm, VPT）在整个学龄期均存在言语和语言问题的风险。然而，关于这些儿童早期语音产生的研究尚少。本研究旨在详细描述VPT儿童2至4岁期间的早期语音产生及其发展轨迹，并探究早期语音产生是否与4岁时的言语产生及表达性语言功能相关。<b>方法：</b>纳入63名VPT儿童（孕周<32周，男童41名，平均孕周=28.8周，平均出生体重=1135g）。在2岁矫正年龄时，通过自然言语分析评估其语音产生；在4岁时，通过标准化测试评估其言语和语言功能。<b>结果：</b>2岁时49%的VPT儿童存在语音产生异常，4岁时这一比例为19%。研究识别出2至4岁期间四种不同的言语产生轨迹：正常轨迹、异常轨迹、追赶轨迹及发展为缺陷的轨迹。以2岁时习得辅音数量定义的早期语音产生，可显著预测4岁时的词汇产出得分和句子产出得分。<b>补充材料S1：</b>2岁矫正年龄基线评估中，参与和未参与VPT儿童组的基线特征。<b>补充材料S2：</b>4岁随访评估中，参与和未参与VPT儿童组的基线特征。van Noort-van der Spek, I., Dudink, J., Reiss, I. K., & Franken, M.-C. J. P. (2022). Early speech sound production and its trajectories in very preterm children from 2 to 4 years of age. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research</i>. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00388