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Disrupted or delayed? Stress discrimination among preterm as compared to full-term infants during the first year of

Zsuzsanna Varga1, Anett Ragó2, Ferenc Honbolygó3

  • 1Division of Neonatology, Semmelweis University 1st Department of Pediatrics, Bókay János utca 53-54., H-1083, Budapest, Hungary; Doctoral School of Psychology, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Egry József utca 1., H-1111, Budapest, Hungary.

Infant Behavior & Development
|December 28, 2020
PubMed

Insights

Preterm infants

Area of Science:

  • Developmental neuroscience
  • Pediatric audiology
  • Cognitive science

Background:

  • Language disorders are common in preterm infants, but their nature (disrupted vs. delayed) and perinatal risk factors remain unclear.
  • Understanding early language development in preterm infants is crucial for timely intervention.
  • Cognitive deficits in preterm infants often manifest as language disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if prosodic processing in preterm infants is disrupted or delayed within the first year.
  • To examine the influence of Birth Weight (BW) and Gestational Age (GA) on preterm and full-term infants' language perception.
  • To clarify the developmental trajectory of stress perception in preterm infants.

Main Methods:

  • Mismatch responses (MMR) were recorded in 34 preterm and 33 full-term infants at various ages (4-12 months).
  • Infants were presented with bisyllabic pseudo-words in oddball paradigms to assess auditory processing.
  • The study analyzed stress perception abilities in relation to perinatal factors.

Main Results:

  • Preterm infants showed sensitivity only to legal stress forms, unlike full-term peers.
  • A positive MMR for legal form discrimination was observed only in preterm infants at 12 months.
  • Preterm infants exhibited a lack of sensitivity to standard vs. deviant sound differences, with BW explaining 21% of P-MMR variance.

Conclusions:

  • Preterm infants' stress sensitivity appears unimpaired, but stress processing is disrupted from 6 months onward.
  • Birth Weight is a significant factor influencing the Mismatch Response (MMR) in preterm infants.
  • Future research should incorporate Birth Weight when using MMR paradigms for preterm infant studies.
Abstract

Keywords:
Birth weightMismatch responsePerinatal risk factorsPreterm infantsWord stress perception

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