A Survey on Low Birth Weight Infants Given Follow-up by Speech-Language-Hearing Therapists at Shizuoka Children's Hospital

• Published in: THE JAPANESE JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS Vol. 24; no. 3; pp. 181 - 186
• Main Authors: KITANO, Ichiko, KURITA, Chizu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japanese Association of Communication Disorders 31.12.2007
• Subjects: language development; low birth weight infant; speech therapy
• ISSN: 1347-8451; 1884-7048
• DOI: 10.11219/jjcomdis2003.24.181

The authors have been following 124 low birth weight infants referred by the Department of Newborn Infants and Premature Babies for the past 10 years. The purpose of this study was to investigate 1) the language development of these infants, 2) the characteristics of the patients year by year, and 3) the speech-language therapy services. The results were as follows: 1) Most of these infants started to speak one word and two word utterances later than normally developing children. Even most of those patients showing normal developmental or intelligence quotient were retarded in their early language development. There was no significant relationship between the birth weight and the language development. 2) The number of the patients referred by the Department of Newborn Infants and Premature Babies has been increasing. Furthermore, the rates of extremely low and very low birth weight infants have recently been rising. There has also been an increase in the rate of extremely premature infants. 3) Most of those patients have continuously been followed. In our conclusion, it seems to be very important for speech-language-hearing therapists not only to do speech therapy for children directly but also to give support and counseling to the mother with a premature infant.