Early Indicators of Language Delay in Preterm Infants Molina Onario, Glenda creator 2014 17, 191 p. born digital Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2014) Morgan, James Director Blumstein, Sheila Reader Amso, Dima Reader Brown University. Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences: Cognitive Sciences sponsor theses Preterm children are at risk for language delays and deficits. By 2 years, very preterm/low birthweight children tend to have smaller vocabularies and use less complex grammatical structures than do their full-term counterparts. Yet, little is known about whether variations in skills in preverbal stages of development predict later delays. Reduced vocabularies, however, suggest that preterm children have difficulty with word-learning, which depends on receptive language abilities developed early in life. The present longitudinal study addresses this premise in two parts. First, it compares infant sound-structure sensitivities (i.e., preferences for trochaic versus iambic lexical stress at 4 and 6 months and for high versus low phonotactic probabilities at 6 and 9 months) and toddler word form representations (i.e., detection of mispronunciations at 19 months and speed and accuracy of word recognition at 26 months) in full-term and preterm English-learning subjects using the video Head-Turn Preference Procedure (v-HPP) and the Intermodal Preferential Looking Paradigm (IPLP), respectively. Second, this study explores the predictive value of sound-structure sensitivities and word form representations on language outcomes at 14.5 and 26 months using structural equation modeling (SEM). The effects of gestational age (GA), cognitive skill (i.e., MVRS Score), and maternal education (MaEd) on measures of receptive language skills and language outcomes are also examined using covariance analyses. V-HPP and IPLP results indicate that, compared to their full-term counterparts, preterm participants show atypical sound-structure sensitivities and word form representations. Specifically, preterm infants have opposite preference patterns for lexical stress and phonotactic probabilities than full-term infants. Furthermore, preterm toddlers are not as sensitive to mispronunciations and do not always use context cues as efficiently during word recognition tasks as full-term toddlers. Despite these differences in infant and toddler receptive language abilities, SEM analyses show that neither sound-structure sensitivities nor word form representations are linked to language outcomes, even though sound-structure sensitivities are highly predictive of word form representations. Lastly, GA and MaEd significantly co-vary with sound-structure sensitivities, and MVRS Score with language outcomes. Longitudinal Study Preterm Birth Receptive Language Skills Language Outcomes Structural equation modeling RPB 20141006 engEnglish10.7301/Z0125R1HIn CopyrightCollection is open for research.dissertations