Differences in neural activation between preterm and full term born adolescents on a sentence comprehension task: implications for educational accommodations.

ABSTRACT: Adolescent survivors of preterm birth experience persistent functional problems that negatively impact academic outcomes, even when standardized measures of cognition and language suggest normal ability. In this fMRI study, we compared the neural activation supporting auditory sentence comprehension in two groups of adolescents (ages 9-16 years); sentences varied in length and syntactic difficulty. Preterms (n=18, mean gestational age 28.8 weeks) and full terms (n=14) had scores on verbal IQ, receptive vocabulary, and receptive language tests that were within or above normal limits and similar between groups. In early and late phases of the trial, we found interactions by group and length; in the late phase, we also found a group by syntactic difficulty interaction. Post hoc tests revealed

SUBMITTER: Barde LH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3501002 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature