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Access Type
WSU Access
Date of Award
January 2024
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Sarah Raz
Abstract
The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of respiratory dysfunction in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) on language outcome in preterm-born preschool-age children. Respiratory dysfunction was indexed by both a ranking based on type of respiratory complication (respiratory distress syndrome [RDS] or bronchopulmonary dysplasia [BPD]) and type of respiratory support and by length of respiratory support. Furthermore, the effect of sex on the relationship between respiratory dysfunction and language outcome was examined. Preterm children were assessed at 3-4 years of age. Respiratory diagnosis and support data were collected retrospectively from birth medical records. Analyses were performed first on a sample of 224 cases and then on a subsample of 211 cases following exclusion of cases with severe neurological complications. Language measures included global, expressive, receptive, semantic, syntactic, and morphological language scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals – Preschool (CELF-P2) and oromotor functioning scores from the NEPSY-II. Separate analyses were conducted using respiratory dysfunction ranking, supplemental oxygen duration, and ventilation duration as predictors of interest and language measures as dependent variables. Covariates included socioeconomic status, sex, birth weight, standardized birth weight, and sum of non-respiratory perinatal complications. Results showed that longer requirement for oxygen was associated with lower total (p = .021) and receptive (p = .044) semantic language. This association remained significant after removing cases with neurological complications for total semantic language (p = .040) only. The interactions between sex and both respiratory dysfunction ranking (p = .046) and time on oxygen support (p = .045) on syntactic language were significant after removing cases with neurological complications. Specifically, females with higher degrees of respiratory dysfunction (p = .080) and longer time on oxygen support (p = .100) trended towards exhibiting significantly lower syntactic language scores, while these relationships were nonsignificant for males. Overall, the findings of the current study suggest that semantic and possibly syntactic (in females) language skills appear to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of increasing degrees of respiratory dysfunction in a preterm sample, even when excluding cases with neurological injury.
Recommended Citation
Degeorge, Emma Gimenez, "Neonatal Respiratory Dysfunction And Language Outcome In Preterm Preschoolers" (2024). Wayne State University Theses. 957.
https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/oa_theses/957