Transitions to Early Communication in Children with Perinatal Brain Lesions

The available research concerning early communication development has thus far placed a large emphasis on language development, whereas the period of prelinguistic communication has been systematically neglected. The aim of this research was thus to analyse features of intentional prelinguistic communication in children with perinatal brain lesions (clinical group) compared with children without neurodevolopmental risk factors in approximately the same communication development phase (6 months before achieving an expressive vocabulary over 50 words). The research is part of the longitudinal study "Cognitive & linguistic development in children at neurodevelopmnental risk." The participants were 21 children: 11 children with pre/perinatal brain lesions & typical cognitive development, 5 children with perinatal brain lesions & delayed cognitive development, & 5 children without any known neurodevelopment risk factors. Children were assessed on variables including mental age, language comprehension, language expression, communicative functions, & communicative forms. The results showed that the three groups had the same communication development phase at different chronological ages which were preceded by a similar level of language comprehension. Furthermore, those in the clinical groups in comparison to the control group communicated in simpler forms & exhibited fewer communicative functions. The results indicate the need to change the focus of future research to include attention to prelinguistic development. Adapted from the source document