Association between motor skills and language development in very preterm and extremely preterm children in Chile.

Children born preterm present a high incidence of language development delay and motor difficulties. However, the association between these two developmental dimensions has been scarcely studied. Thus, the aim of this study was to determine the association between motor abilities (gross and fine) and language development (vocabulary size), in a sample of children born very preterm and extremely preterm in Chile. We conducted a comparative cross-sectional study in a sample of 38 very preterm and extremely preterm children from a pediatric hospital in Chile, compared with 42 term-born children from a kindergarten. Children were evaluated at 2 years of corrected age (preterm) or 2 years of chronological age (term-born), using standardized instruments. The association between language development and motor development was evaluated using generalized additive models. Our results show that there is a significant positive association between vocabulary size and gross motor development in preterm children up to a vocabulary size 200 words, but no association in term-born children. These results provide preliminary evidence for a relationship between motor skill scores and language development at small vocabulary sizes in very preterm and extremely preterm children, which future studies should expand into a multi-center design.