A large number of studies have reported developmental characteristics of low birth weight (LBW) children, but little is known about the language skills of young LBW children acquiring Japanese. This study investigated the language skills of full-term, normally developing (N) children and very LBW children (<1, 500g) at 12, 24, and 36 months of age, using a language development questionnaire. The 12-, 24-, and 36-month age groups consisted of 39, 31, and 30 N children, and 38, 30, and 34 LBW children at corrected ages, respectively. The language comprehension domain in the questionnaire included 4 sub-areas (response to sounds, comprehension of communicative situations, comprehension of directions, and receptive vocabulary), and the language production domain, 6 sub-areas (response, vocal/verbal imitation, spontaneous communication, expressive vocabulary, part of speech, and word combinations/discourse) . The LBW group exhibited a significant delay in nearly all sub-areas. More specifically, the LBW group was typically delayed in response to sounds, comprehension of directions, and spontaneous communication at 12 months, and in comprehension of directions, vocal/verbal imitation, spontaneous communication, expressive vocabulary, and word combinations at 24 months. The results also revealed the general order of lexical acquisition for such parts of speech as demonstratives, interrogative pronouns and conjunctions. The findings were consistent with past reports that LBW children exhibit general intellectual delays.
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