@article{BarthaDoeringAlexopoulosGiordanoetal.2019,
  author    = {Bartha-Doering, Lisa and Alexopoulos, Johanna and Giordano, Vito and Stelzer, Lisa and Kainz, Theresa and Benavides-Varela, Silvia and Wartenburger, Isabell and Klebermass-Schrehof, Katrin and Olischar, Monika and Seidl, Rainer Otis and Berger, Angelika},
  title     = {Absence of neural speech discrimination in preterm infants at term-equivalent age},
  series = {Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience},
  volume    = {39},
  journal   = {Developmental cognitive neuroscience : a journal for cognitive, affective and social developmental neuroscience},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {1878-9293},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100679},
  pages     = {8},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Children born preterm are at higher risk to develop language deficits. Auditory speech discrimination deficits may be early signs for language developmental problems. The present study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate neural speech discrimination in 15 preterm infants at term-equivalent age compared to 15 full term neonates. The full term group revealed a significantly greater hemodynamic response to forward compared to backward speech within the left hemisphere extending from superior temporal to inferior parietal and middle and inferior frontal areas. In contrast, the preterm group did not show differences in their hemodynamic responses during forward versus backward speech, thus, they did not discriminate speech from nonspeech. Groups differed significantly in their responses to forward speech, whereas they did not differ in their responses to backward speech. The significant differences between groups point to an altered development of the functional network underlying language acquisition in preterm infants as early as in term-equivalent age.},
  language  = {en}
}