How biological risk factors of infants born extremely preterm affect their reading skill at school age

Abstract

Extreme premature infants, born with lower gestastional age (AG) and low birth weight , may be at a high neurological risk in early childhood and preschool, with may lead to learning difficulties. This case study evaluates de effect of biological risk factors of extremely preterm children at age 6 on the onset of the reading process. Mental language functions in reding adquistion werw analyzed using the event-related pontentials tecnique (ERPs). N1, N400 and LPC components, as well as brain localization structures were evaluated by low Resolution Electromagnetic Imaging (MRI). The brain MRI revealed no morphological or signal alterations in the brain parenchyma. Finfings obtained by the ERP tecnique suggest that participants present greater sensitivity to spelling (N1), semantic (N400) and ortographic regularities (LPC) when they have higther weight and gestational age. The present finding suggest that gestational age and birth weigth influence learning to read in extremely preterm children.