Cortical Auditory Neural Responses to Speech and Communicative Functioning in Normocephalic Children With Prenatal Exposure to the Zika Virus.

The exposed and non-exposed groups were not balanced on age, socioeconomic status, and maternal education, and statistical adjustment does not remove all confounding. More exposed children had already received speech and language therapy or physical therapy, and more had prior professional evaluations, so postnatal experiences may have shaped the outcomes. CAEP analyses used 108 of 117 exposed children and 80 of 90 controls, so the neural sample was smaller than the behavioral sample. The CAEP recording used a single scalp location, so hemisphere or topographic differences could not be evaluated. Brain-behavior correlations were exploratory and not corrected for multiple comparisons. In one site, Zika exposure was determined by symptoms and epidemiologic criteria when RT-PCR testing was unavailable, so exposure status may be less certain. All outcomes were measured at one testing session, so the study cannot show how abilities changed over time.

The authors reported no conflict of interest. The supplied text did not state a funding source.

Do not read the caregiver-report difference as proof that prenatal Zika exposure causes communication disorder. The groups were observational, not balanced on age, socioeconomic status, and maternal education, and exposed children had more prior speech and language therapy and developmental evaluations.