Morphosyntactic Skills Among Preterm Children Speaking an Inflectionally Rich Indian Language -Tamil

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

Background: The estimated global preterm (births before 37 weeks of gestation age [WHO, 2010]) birth rate in the year 2014 was 10·6% of livebirths equating to 14·84 million. About 54% of the preterm births occurred in Asia, with India contributing to about 23.4% of global preterm births (Chawanpaiboon et al., 2019). Preterm born infants are at an increased risk for delays in neurodevelopmental outcomes, including cognition, language and behaviour throughout childhood and adulthood (Sumanasena et al., 2017; Blencowe et al., 2013). Any delay in speech-language skills in the preschool years places children at continued risk for literacy difficulties during school (e.g., Wellman et al., 2012). Exploring specific aspects of language development among preterm children would help monitor language better and plan intervention strategies early for this ‘at-risk’ cohort. Morphosyntax has been identified as a sensitive marker to identify language delays among children speaking English. Typological differences among languages limit generalizations of findings from English to other languages (Nemeth, Janacsek, Turi, Lukacs, & Peckham, 2015). The proposed study explores morphosyntactic skills among 3-year-old preterm children speaking Tamil - an inflectionally rich Dravidian language, spoken in several South Asian countries by nearly 81 million people. Method: A group of 60 three-year old children (34-38 months) including preterm (gestation age [GA] ≤ 34 weeks) cohort and term (≥38 weeks GA) cohort participated in the study. All children underwent comprehensive developmental and speech-language assessments using the 3rd Ed. Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III, Bayley., 2006) and Language Development Scale for Preschool Children (Vaidyanathan, 1995). Children with significant disabilities were excluded and all children demonstrated at least two 2-word combinations in expressive language. Picture-based expressive morphology tasks for a range of noun and verb inflections were developed and piloted with 15 children was used for the current study. Spontaneous connected language samples were collected from children during free-play and picture description tasks with the examiner. The entire session was audio/video recorded for offline scoring and analyses. Data analysis: Data collected from the expressive morphology tasks have been analysed for 30 children and need to be completed for another 30 children. Connected speech samples will be transcribed and analysed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT - research version; Miller & Iglesias, 2010) software. Microstructure analyses specific to Tamil will be identified. The proposed research will be the first to examine the development of morphosyntax among Tamil-speaking children. Typical and atypical patterns of development in expressive morphology will be identified. This study will contribute to the evidence base for identification of language delays among children speaking inflectionally-rich languages.

Authors

• Adhirai Garibaldi, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to be University)
  Presenting Author

• Lakshmi Venkatesh, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jayashree Bhat, Manipal College of Health Professions
  Non-Presenting Author

• Prakash Boominathan, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research (Deemed to be University)
  Non-Presenting Author