Predicting language outcome at birth

TL;DR

This study shows that brain activity in newborns can predict future language abilities, potentially helping identify language disorders early.

Contribution

The novel finding is that theta band neural activity at birth predicts later language comprehension abilities.

Findings

Theta band activation differences in newborns correlate with language comprehension at 12 and 18 months.

Early neural responses to language may help identify infants at risk for language disorders.

Abstract

Even though most children acquire language effortlessly, not all do. Nowadays, language disorders are difficult to diagnose before 3–4 years of age, because diagnosis relies on behavioral criteria difficult to obtain early in life. Using electroencephalography, I investigated whether differences in newborns’ neural activity when listening to sentences in their native language (French) and a rhythmically different unfamiliar language (English) relate to measures of later language development at 12 and 18 months. Here I show that activation differences in the theta band at birth predict language comprehension abilities at 12 and 18 months. These findings suggest that a neural measure of language discrimination at birth could be used in the early identification of infants at risk of developmental language disorders.

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