Language and motor development in pre-term children: some questions.

A cohort of 37 pre-term children was assessed for both morphosyntactical and for vocabulary skills at the age of 2 and again at the age of 3 years and 6 months. They were compared with two comparison groups of full-term children (adjusted age and chronological age). The results indicated (1) a clear asynchrony between the two components of language production assessed at both ages, (2) an accurate prediction of language delay at age 2 for pre-term children (35% of pre-term children were detected for morphosyntax as measured by Mean Length of Utterance and 27% of pre-term children were detected for vocabulary as measured by the number of different words) and, (3) no evidence on the relationship of language and motor development as measured by formal tests. Such findings strongly challenge the validity of standardized developmental tests and support to a certain extent the hypothesis that language development is independent of motor skills. A neurodevelopmental assessment is suggested.