Preterm birth and risk for language delays before school entry: A sibling-control study

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Developmental Psychology
• Public Health

Background:

• Preterm birth is a significant global health concern.
• Language delay in early childhood can impact long-term academic and social outcomes.
• Sibling-control designs are valuable for disentangling genetic and environmental factors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between preterm birth and language delay.
• To control for familial risk factors using a sibling-control design.
• To assess language development at multiple time points in early childhood.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).
• Included 26,769 siblings born between 23 and 42 gestational weeks.
• Assessed language delay at 1.5, 3, and 5 years, comparing preterm and full-term siblings.

Main Results:

• Preterm birth before 37 weeks increased language delay risk at 1.5 years.
• Birth before 34 weeks significantly elevated language delay risk at 3 and 5 years.
• Very preterm infants (before 33 weeks) showed substantially higher risks across all assessed ages.

Conclusions:

• Children born preterm are at increased risk for language delays.
• Familial factors explain only a moderate portion of this association.
• Suggests a potential causal relationship between early preterm birth and preschool language delay.