Need a Good Reason to Enroll Your Patients Born Very Preterm in Early Intervention?

Long-term outcomes of prematurity is an important topic because of the greater likelihood of survival, even when there are many complications in early life. One area we have not learned a lot about is whether or not language development, which we know may be delayed in infancy catches up as these children move through their school age period into their teen years. Nguyen et al. (10.1542/peds.2017-2831) elected to look at language trajectory in 224 children born very preterm compared to 77 controls using performance-based testing of these children plus parent reports gathered when these children were 2, 5, 7, and 13 years of age.  A variety of language skills were studied from verbal memory to grammar skills.  The results reveal that the desired catch-up, that may be seen in some other developmental areas, do not catch up when it comes to overcoming language difficulties even at 13 years.  Less than half the children in this study received much if any early intervention to strengthen language skills, reminding us of the importance of proactively initiating speech and language therapy in your patients who are born very early.  If you want more specifics as to how various aspects of language developments were delayed compared to children not born preterm, then this study will speak to you, and in turn, the families of your youngest patients born very preterm.  With this information, they’ll have more opportunity to develop the language skills they need to succeed in life.  Check out this study and learn more.