Department of Speech and Language Pathology, Abo Akademi University, 20500 Turku, Finland.
Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, 20521 Turku, Finland.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Nov 23;19(23):15560. doi: 10.3390/ijerph192315560.
Common health issues have been less examined in studies of early language development, particularly in relation to the child's sex. Respiratory tract infections, often complicated by acute otitis media, are common in children during the first years of life, when early vocabulary development takes place. The present study, conducted in Finland, aimed to investigate whether possible associations between recurrent respiratory tract infections, background factors, and vocabulary growth differ in boys and girls aged 13 to 24 months. The participants ( = 462, 248 boys and 214 girls) were followed for respiratory tract infections and acute otitis media from 0 to 23 months of age. The parents completed daily symptom diaries of respiratory symptoms, physician visits, and diagnoses. The expressive vocabulary was measured with parental reports. We found that recurrent respiratory tract infections were not associated with slower vocabulary development in boys or girls. In fact, boys with recurrent respiratory tract infections had more vocabulary growth during the second year than boys who were less sick. We found that vocabulary growth was associated differently with respiratory tract infections and background factors as a function of the child's sex. The vocabulary growth of boys seems to be more influenced by environmental factors than that of girls.
常见的健康问题在早期语言发展的研究中较少被研究，特别是与儿童的性别有关。呼吸道感染，常伴有急性中耳炎，在儿童生命的头几年很常见，而早期词汇发展就在这个时期发生。本研究在芬兰进行，旨在调查 13 至 24 个月大的男孩和女孩之间，反复呼吸道感染、背景因素和词汇增长之间是否存在关联。参与者（=462 名，248 名男孩和 214 名女孩）从 0 到 23 个月大时被跟踪记录呼吸道感染和急性中耳炎的情况。父母完成了每日呼吸症状、医生就诊和诊断的症状日记。表达词汇通过父母报告进行测量。我们发现，反复呼吸道感染与男孩或女孩的词汇发展较慢无关。事实上，患有反复呼吸道感染的男孩在第二年的词汇增长比患病较少的男孩更多。我们发现，词汇增长与呼吸道感染和背景因素的关联因儿童的性别而异。男孩的词汇增长似乎比女孩更受环境因素的影响。
