Speech and language development of children born following assisted reproductive technologies

Studies which targeted communication skills of children born following assisted reproductive technologies have reported contradictory results. Concerning the increasing rates of children born in these technologies and the importance of some factors as risk factors like birth weight, gestational age, and the number of children per birth in these procedures, studying speech and language skills is critical. So, the current study aimed to investigate the speech and language capabilities of Persian speaking children born following these procedures.

A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out in Babol city in 2016-2017 to investigate the receptive and expressive language and speech of Persian speaking children born in assisted reproductive technologies in the age range of 6-72 months. Parents of 78 children completed the Newsha Developmental Scale to assess language and speech skills. Then, the language and speech performance of the participants were compared in terms of gestational age, birth weight, number of children per birth, and sex in the current research and they are categorized as normal or having delay in language and speech development.

The participants had statistically significant difference for the receptive language in terms of gestational age (χ² (1) = 5.76, p = 0.01) and birth weight (χ² (1) = 8.22, p = 0.004) but in terms of the number of children per birth (χ² (1) = 7.11, p = 0.009) and sex (χ² (1) = 0.037, p = 0.84) did not have statistically significant difference. The children did not show significant difference for the expressive language in terms of gestational age (χ² (1) = 1.09, p = 0.29), birth weight (χ² (1) = 0.34, p = 0.55), the number of children per birth (χ² (1) = 1.58, p = 0.2), and sex (χ2 (1) = 0.037, p = 0.84). The participants of the present study did not have statistically significant difference in speech in terms of gestational age (χ² (1) = 2.82, p = 0.09), the number of children per birth (χ² (1) = 3.57, p = 0.06), and sex (χ2 (1) = 0.06, p = 0.79). They had significant difference in speech only in terms of birth weight (χ² (1) = 4.13, p = 0.04).

Based on the results of the administration of the Newsha Developmental Scale as a screening tool, it seems that some factors like sex and number of children per birth do not affect speech and language performance of children born following ART. Another factor including gestational age and birth weight had effects on some domains. It is essential to design longitudinal studies to follow the speech and language performance of this population.