Assessment of receptive and expressive auditory and visual functions in pre-term children.

Background: prematurity as a risk factor for delay in language development.

Aim: to verify the performance of premature children regarding their receptive and expressive auditory and visual abilities.

Method: participants were 40 children with chronological ages between 12 and 24 months. The experimental group (G1) was composed by 20 children who presented report of prematurity and low or very low weight. The birth age varied from 22 to 34 weeks and weight was below 2500 gr. This group was divided according to weight, i.e. children with low and very low weight. The control group (G2) was composed by 20 children born at term, with weight above 2500 gr and with no report of development delay. The procedures consisted of an interview with the parents and the application of the Early Language Milestone Scale--ELM.

Results: when comparing the groups, the results indicate statistically significant differences. Children of G1 presented a poorer performance in the Expressive Hearing (EH), Receptive Hearing (RH) and Visual (V) areas, although a few children of this group presented the expected results for their age group in some of the tested abilities. The expressive auditory ability was the most affected.

Conclusion: children of G1 presented deficits in the expressive and receptive auditory and visual functions. Premature children with very low weight presented higher deficits in the tested abilities.