早產兒之詞彙能力發展

Vocabulary Development in Pre-term Toddlers

研究目的：本研究的目的主要在比較18至24個月大的足月產兒、低出生體重早產兒和極低出生體重早產兒的詞彙發展能力。研究方法：本研究先以貝萊氏嬰幼兒發展測驗（Bayley Scales of Infant Development, BSID）來瞭解三組兒童的動作發展指標與心智發展指標，再進一步以詞彙發展問卷比較三組兒童詞彙發展的差異。研究結果：結果顯示，在BSID中極低出生體重早產兒在心智發展指標、通過的認知題數和通過的語言題數皆顯著低於足月產兒童，而低出生體重早產兒僅在通過認知的題數上顯著低於足月產兒童。在詞彙發展問卷的分析比較中可知，三組兒童在總詞彙量上未有顯著性差異，但足月產兒童在動物類別中的詞彙量顯著多於極低出生體重早產兒。以心智發展年齡當共變，進行共變數分析，發現心智發展年齡對總詞彙的解釋力會高於早產與否和出生體重。研究結論：本研究主要發現：（1）早產與否與出生時的體重對詞彙量的多寡並不構成影響，主要的影響因素是當心智發展落後時其詞彙量才會受影響。（2）早產兒童與足月產兒童有相似的主要類別詞彙發展軌跡。本研究並進一步討論這項發現在理論上與臨床上的意義。

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare vocabulary development of lowbirth- weight (LBW), very low-birth-weigh (VLBW) pre-term and full-term toddlers at 18 to 24 months. Methods: The Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID, Bayley, 1993) was used to assess toddlers’ mental ability and motor skill, and the vocabulary development inventory (VDI) which translated from MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories--Words and Sentences (Fenson, et al., 1993) was used to examine the vocabulary development. Results: The results on BSID showed that VLBW toddlers performed poor mental development than full-term toddlers, with lower mental development index (MDI) and fewer passing items in cognitive and language subscales. However, the LBW toddlers only performed fewer passing items in cognitive subscale than the full-term group. Results on VDI showed that the vocabulary size was not different in three groups, but VLBW toddlers have smaller vocabulary size on animal category than the full-term toddlers. Using the mental-age as a covariate, the results revealed that vocabulary development in the three groups was influenced by the variance of mental age instead of premature and the kinds of birth weight. Conclusions: Findings of these data demonstrated that the development of mental functioning is related to vocabulary development but not the kinds of maturity and birth weight in the toddlers with either full-term or not. This study showed that the birth status and weight were not predicative of vocabulary size in toddlers and the vocabulary development was associated with the general mental development. The overall shapes of the trajectories for the main lexical categories were highly similar between premature toddlers and full-term toddlers. The theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.