Bartha-Doering Lisa, Giordano Vito, Mandl Sophie, Benavides-Varela Silvia, Weiskopf Anna, Mader Johannes, Andrejevic Julia, Adrian Nadine, Ashmawy Lisa Emilia, Appel Patrick, Seidl Rainer, Doering Stephan, Berger Angelika, Alexopoulos Johanna
Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Dev Sci. 2025 Mar;28(2):e13609. doi: 10.1111/desc.13609.
Newborns are able to neurally discriminate between speech and nonspeech right after birth. To date it remains unknown whether this early speech discrimination and the underlying neural language network is associated with later language development. Preterm-born children are an interesting cohort to investigate this relationship, as previous studies have shown that preterm-born neonates exhibit alterations of speech processing and have a greater risk of later language deficits. This investigation also holds clinical importance, as differences in neonatal speech discrimination and its functional networks may serve as predictors of later language outcomes. We therefore investigated neural speech discrimination using functional near-infrared spectroscopy in 92 preterm- and term-born neonates and its predictive value for language development in 45 of them. Three to five years later, preterm-born and term-born children did not significantly differ in language comprehension, sentence production, the use of morphological rules, or phonological short-term memory. In addition, the gestational age at birth was not a significant predictor of language development. Neural speech discrimination, in contrast, was strongly correlated with later phonological short-term memory. However, not the extent of speech discrimination, but rather its lateralization, was a predictor of language development. Children with less right hemisphere involvement-and therefore more left-lateralized speech discrimination at birth-showed better development of phonological short-term memory three to five years later. These findings suggest that the ability of fetuses to form memory traces is reflected by neonatal abilities to neurally discriminate speech, which in turn is a predictor for later phonological short-term memory.
新生儿在出生后就能通过神经机制区分语音和非语音。迄今为止，尚不清楚这种早期的语音辨别能力及潜在的神经语言网络是否与后期的语言发展有关。早产儿是研究这种关系的一个有趣群体，因为先前的研究表明，早产新生儿在语音处理方面存在改变，且后期出现语言缺陷的风险更高。这项研究也具有临床意义，因为新生儿语音辨别及其功能网络的差异可能作为后期语言发展结果的预测指标。因此，我们使用功能近红外光谱技术对92名早产和足月新生儿的神经语音辨别能力进行了研究，并对其中45名儿童的语言发展预测价值进行了探究。三到五年后，早产和足月出生的儿童在语言理解、句子生成、形态规则运用或语音短期记忆方面没有显著差异。此外，出生时的孕周并不是语言发展的显著预测指标。相比之下，神经语音辨别能力与后期的语音短期记忆密切相关。然而，预测语言发展的并非语音辨别程度，而是其偏侧化。出生时右半球参与程度较低、语音辨别更多偏向左侧化的儿童，在三到五年后语音短期记忆发展得更好。这些发现表明，胎儿形成记忆痕迹的能力通过新生儿神经辨别语音的能力得以体现，而这反过来又是后期语音短期记忆的一个预测指标。
