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Growth status related to brain responses, nutrition, home environment, and behavior in infants and toddlers

Roscoe A Dykman1, Joanne S Szabo, Patrick Casey

  • 1Birth Defect Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA. radykmn01@Louisville.edu

Developmental Neuropsychology
|June 15, 2007
PubMed

Insights

Infant growth status impacts speech perception. Low growth status babies showed deficits in phonetic discrimination, unrelated to diet, highlighting a link between physical and cognitive development.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental neuroscience
  • Speech and hearing science
  • Pediatric nutrition

Background:

  • Infant growth status is a key indicator of overall health.
  • Subtle growth deficiencies may impact cognitive development, including speech processing.
  • Previous research has not fully explored the link between early growth and auditory perception.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To determine if growth status in infants and toddlers influences speech perception and discrimination.
  • To investigate the neural correlates of speech processing in relation to growth status using event-related potentials (ERPs).

Main Methods:

  • Cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 48 healthy infants (26 low growth status, 22 normal growth status) exposed to consonant-vowel syllables (/pa/ or /ba/).
  • Nutrient intake was assessed via food records.
  • Principal components analysis was used to analyze ERP components and identify differences between groups.

Main Results:

  • Infants with low growth status (LGS) exhibited differences in ERP amplitude and latency compared to normal growth status (NGS) infants.
  • The LGS group demonstrated a deficit in the phonetic discrimination of speech sounds.
  • No significant differences in nutrient consumption were found between groups, suggesting growth deficiency is not due to inadequate diet.

Conclusions:

  • Growth status in infants and toddlers is associated with differences in speech perception neural processing.
  • Phonetic discrimination abilities are impaired in infants with low growth status, even when generally considered healthy.
  • These findings underscore the need for further research into the relationship between physical growth and cognitive development in early childhood.

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