Prime abilità comunicativo-linguistiche in bambini con sviuppo tipico e in condizioni di rischio: confronto tra gemelli, pretermine e singoli nati

This study aims at analysing early communicative and language abilities in a group of 30 Italian children, 5 dizygotic full-term twins sets, 10 preterm infants (without central nervous system insults) and 10 Italian full-term infants. They have been assessed at a chronological age of 17 months through the Italian Questionnaire “Il Primo Vocabolario del Bambino” (PVB), in the “Gesti e Parole” form that was administered to the children’s mothers. The study explores possible differences and similarities between the three groups compared to the normative values of children of the same age included in the Questionnaire, concerning verbal and non verbal different measures that seem to be significant predictors of the early language development (gestures production, word comprehension and production). The twins and preterm infants show significant lower scores on all assessed measures compared to full-term singletons of the same age, although they fall within the 1° standard deviation on the mean. The lower scores concern word production, where twins and preterms differ significantly also from the 17-month-old normative group of children. Finally, results support the hypothesis that the biological factor (in particular gestational age) seems to play an important role on the infant’s development, since full-term twins show higher scores on word comprehension and production than preterms