Social orienting in prematurely born preschoolers: a case control study showing altered neural tuning towards voices, not faces.
Rowena Van den Broeck, Lisa Gistelinck, Sofie Vettori and 6 others
PMID 40739277WHAT IT FOUND
5.5-year-old preterm children showed weaker brain responses to voices than full-term children.
Their responses to faces were similar. Voice responses were related to verbal comprehension across groups.
Key findings
01Preterm children showed reduced neural responses to voices compared with full-term children, and the group difference was significant at 3.70 Hz but not at 3.45 Hz.
02Neural responses to faces did not differ between preterm and full-term children.
03Across both groups, stronger neural responses to voices at 3.70 Hz were related to better verbal comprehension, and this relation remained after controlling for gestational age and socioeconomic status.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study included mostly healthy preterm children without severe brain injury or neurological disorders, so it may not apply to more medically complex preterm children. The preterm group was very heterogeneous, ranging from extremely preterm to late preterm, and voice responses were not correlated with gestational age, birth weight, or NICU stay. The full-term group had higher monthly family income than the preterm group, so socioeconomic differences may influence the language results. The EEG tasks were artificial, with voices and object sounds presented simultaneously at the same intensity, so they may not reflect real conversation. The key voice finding was frequency-specific and not predicted in advance, and some language and autism-trait associations changed after controls. The visual task did not include eye-tracking, so similar neural responses to faces cannot be confirmed as matching gaze behaviour.
Declared interests
The supplied publication types list research support from non-U.S. government sources. No author conflict-of-interest declaration is provided in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that preterm children have a general social cue deficit or that voice tuning causes language problems. The faces result showed no group difference, the voice result was frequency-specific, and the language link was an association rather than a tested intervention.