An interdisciplinary research project on language acquisition during the first 3 years of life.

The authors report their preliminary findings in a prospective study on the possible effects of different risk conditions present at birth on language acquisition and cognition. A multifactorial test was used to test normal children for normative values. This test was then administered to 186 at-risk babies and controls at 18 months of age. A noticeable difference in overall performance was observed only for preterm babies having an appropriate weight for their gestational age. However, significant results will only be available after evaluations are repeated when the children are 36 months old.