Temperament and Early Communication in Premature Children.

• Main Author: King, Nina
• Format: Others
• Published: Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University 2007
• Subjects: Temperament; Prematurity; Language Acquisition; Communication Sciences and Disorders; Medicine and Health Sciences; Speech and Hearing Science
• Online Access: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2091; https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3452&context=etd

Premature children are at greater risk for developing communication delays than full-term children, although it is not inevitable. Recent research links specific temperament characteristics to early language development. Thus, temperament may provide a way to identify premature children who are at increased risk. The first purpose of this study was to determine if temperament characteristics of premature children are the same as full-term children when measured by the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. The second purpose was to determine if temperament and language acquisition, as measured by the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures, are linked in premature infants and, if so, are the relationships similar to those of full-term populations. Participants included 19 children 8-12 months, chronological age. Results indicated that they exhibited similar temperament characteristics to full-term children. Additionally, temperament was linked to vocabulary comprehension and, unlike findings for full-term children, to expressive communication as well .