Language outcomes at 4 years of linguistically diverse children born very preterm: an Australian retrospective single-centre study

Abstract

Background Very preterm children are at increased risk of language delays. Concerns have been raised about the utility of standardised English language tools to diagnose language delay in linguistically diverse children. Our study investigated the incidence of language delay at 4 years in linguistically diverse very preterm children.

Methods Very preterm children born in South Western Sydney, Australia, between 2012 and 2016, were assessed with the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-2 (CELF-P2) tool at 4 years of age. We sought to determine the incidence of language delay in this cohort using language scores from the CELF-P2 assessment tool, and explore potential predictors associated with language delay.

Results One hundred and sixty very preterm children attended the 4-year assessment out of the included 270 long-term survivors. At 4 years, 76 (52%) very preterm children had language delay diagnosed using the CELF-P2 assessment tool. Children who preferred a language other than English had lower average core language scores on the CELF-P2 assessment tool (75.1±14.4) compared with children that preferred English (86.5±17.9); p=0.002. Very preterm children growing up in households that preferenced a language other than English and those who were born from multiple births had higher odds of language delay at 4 years (AOR 10.30 (95% CI 2.82 to 38.28); p<0.001 and AOR 2.93 (95% CI 1.20 to 7.14); p=0.018, respectively). Assessing these children using an English language tool may have affected language scores at 4 years.

Conclusions In this metropolitan setting, very preterm children from linguistically diverse backgrounds were found to be vulnerable to language delays at 4 years. Further large-scale studies evaluating the language outcomes of linguistically diverse preterm children with more culturally appropriate tools are warranted. We question the utility of standardised English language tools to assess language outcomes of linguistically diverse populations.