Language and cognitive outcome for high-risk neonates at the age of 2-3 years - experience from an Arab Country

Abstract

AIMTo investigate the effect of different neonatal risk factors on different language parameters as well as cognitive abilities among Arabic speaking Egyptian children at the age of two to three years of life and to find out which risk factor(s) had the greatest impact on language and cognitive abilities.METHODSThis retrospective cohort study was conducted on 103 children with age range of 2-3 years (median age 31 mo). They were 62 males and 41 females who were exposed to different high-risk factors in the perinatal period, with exclusion of metabolic disorders, sepsis/meningitis, congenital anomalies and chromosomal aberrations. The studied children were subjected to a protocol of language assessment that included history taking, clinical and neurological examination, audiological evaluation, assessment of language using modified preschool language scale-4, IQ and mental age assessment and assessment of social age.RESULTSThe studied children had a median gestational age of 37 wk, median birth weight of 2.5 kg. The distribution of the high-risk factors in the affected children were prematurity in 25 children, respiratory distress syndrome in 25 children, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy in 15 children, hyperbilirubinemia in 10 children, hypoglycemia in 13 children, mixed risk factors in 15 children. The results revealed that high-risk neonatal complications were associated with impairment of different language parameters and cognitive abilities (P < 0.05). The presence of prematurity, in relation to other risk factors, increases the risk of language and cognitive delay significantly by 3.9 fold.CONCLUSIONArabic-speaking children aged 2-3 years who were exposed to high-risk conditions in the perinatal period are likely to exhibit delays in the development of language and impairments in cognitive abilities. The most significant risk factor associated with language and cognitive impairments was prematurity.

Documentation of delayed language development in Upper Egypt

“…A closer look to the distribution of different types of DLD reveals that delayed language due to mental retardation or intellectual disability (ID) was the most common clinical diagnosis encountered in the current cases in agreement with the recent study by Abou-Elsaad et al [24] . In fact, it is an important issue for services to estimate the severity of ID cases.…”

“…Among the 800 cases of DLD presented through a year, 533 cases (66.6 %) were boys to be more prone to language disorders and to different language delayed subtypes, in agreement with both national and international literature [6,17,[19][20][21][22][23][24] .…”

“…BIF is a controversial and a marginal clinical entity that remains to be clearly defined and for that targeted diagnostics and therapeutic approaches do not exist [28,29] . Abou-Elsaad et al reported that below average DLD subtype was the third commonest cause of DLD among studied children and their study is considered one of the very few papers used the term below average mentality language delayed as a separate entity [24] .…”

Polyunsaturated fatty acids supplementation can improve specific language impairment in preschool children: a pilot study

“…Speech and language are one of the higher cognitive brain functions [1]. There is a great socioeconomic impact for cognitive disability.…”

“…During this period, the human brain is maturing, which makes it the most critical period for developing language skills. Several factors pose a risk of language and cognitive delays via the impairments of brain development [1,5]. Nutritional deficiencies are among those risk factors especially in developing countries [6].…”