Despite advances in neonatal care, neonatal jaundice remains a common problem in maternity wards. The present retrospective epidemiological study collected data on a sample of 710 newborns and compared the incidence of neonatal jaundice in infants born to Rh (D) negative and 0 Rh (D) positive mothers. The primary aim was to determine whether the higher incidence of maternal alloimmunisation in newborns was causally related to a potentially higher incidence of neonatal jaundice in newborns of 0 Rh (D) positive mothers. To the end, we investigated a possible association between the incidence of neonatal jaundice in 0 Rh (D) positive mothers and the neonatal blood group. The incidence of neonatal jaundice was not found to differ between maternal blood groups. We discuss new preventive measures that may reduce the incidence of neonatal jaundice and thereby reduce the length of hospital stay.
- MeSH
- incidence MeSH
- krevní skupiny - systém Rh-Hr MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- novorozenec MeSH
- novorozenecká žloutenka * epidemiologie etiologie MeSH
- retrospektivní studie MeSH
- Rh izoimunizace epidemiologie MeSH
- těhotenství MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- novorozenec MeSH
- těhotenství MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
Prenatal listening experience reportedly modulates how humans process speech at birth, but little is known about how speech perception develops throughout the perinatal period. The present experiment assessed the neural event-related potentials (ERP) and mismatch responses (MMR) to native vowels in 99 neonates born between 32 and 42 weeks of gestation. The vowels elicited reliable ERPs in newborns whose gestational age at time of experiment was at least 36 weeks and 1 day (36 + 1). The ERPs reflected spectral distinctions between vowel onsets from age 36 weeks + 6 days and durational distinctions at vowel offsets from age 37 weeks + 6 days. Starting at age 40 + 4, there was evidence of neural discrimination of vowel length, indexed by a negative MMR response. The present findings extend our understanding of the earliest stages of speech perception development in that they pinpoint the ages at which the cortex reliably responds to the phonetic characteristics of individual speech sounds and discriminates a native phoneme contrast. The age at which the brain reliably differentiates vowel onsets coincides with what is considered term age in many countries (37 weeks + 0 days of gestational age). Future studies should investigate to what extent the perinatal maturation of the cortical responses to speech sounds is modulated by the ambient language.
- MeSH
- akustická stimulace * metody MeSH
- elektroencefalografie * MeSH
- evokované potenciály fyziologie MeSH
- fonetika * MeSH
- gestační stáří * MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- novorozenec nedonošený fyziologie MeSH
- novorozenec MeSH
- percepce řeči * fyziologie MeSH
- sluchové evokované potenciály fyziologie MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- novorozenec MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
This article reviews empirical methods and findings on early language discrimination, questioning rhythm-class based hypotheses on language discrimination in infancy, as well as the assumption that early language discrimination is driven primarily (or solely) by temporal prosodic cues. The present work argues that within-rhythm class discrimination which - according to the rhythmic hypothesis - is not applicable very early in life, has not been sufficiently tested with infants under 4 months of age, that familiarity with a language is not a prerequisite for its discrimination from another rhythmically similar language, and that the temporal rhythm properties may not universally be the primary cues to language discrimination. Although rhythm taxonomy is now by many understood as outdated, some developmental literature still draws on the assumption that rhythm classification determines infants' language discrimination; other studies consider rhythm along a continuous scale and only a few account for cues to language discrimination other than temporal ones. It is proposed that studies on early language discrimination systematically test the contribution of other than temporal rhythm cues, similarly to recent work on multidimensional psychoacoustic salience in the acquisition of segmental categories.
- MeSH
- jazyk (prostředek komunikace) MeSH
- kojenec MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- percepce řeči fyziologie MeSH
- periodicita MeSH
- podněty * MeSH
- vývoj řeči * MeSH
- Check Tag
- kojenec MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- přehledy MeSH
Objectives. This article reports on the adaptation procedure of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MB-CDI): Words & Gestures into Czech. The parental-report questionnaire screens communicative development in infants aged 8 to 18 months and focuses on general communicative skills, active and passive vocabulary, and communicative gestures. The content of the Czech adaptation needs to reflect the communicative practices specific to the Czech language and cultural environment. Methods. The final item list for the questionnaire was developed by combining a variety of methods including translations, parental diaries from 44 caregivers, an expert focus group, and a corpus survey. The preliminary questionnaire was piloted in two rounds, altogether in 95 Czech caregivers and 100 children. Preliminary content was drawn from translations and parental diaries. These items were reduced based on assessment of child-development experts and frequency in four Czech-language corpora. Item analysis was conducted after each of the pilot rounds to remove from the final content words or gestures which were infrequently checked. Conclusions. This process assured that the Czech CDI screens communicative development on items relevant to the Czech linguistic and social landscape. As such, Dovyko I offers a powerful tool to measure communicative development in local children and may also find use in research of children with different developmental and linguistic characteristics. Limitations. The questionnaire is designed as a complement to other existing methods of communicative screening. The tool thus does not serve for final diagnosis but may help indicate an area problematic for the child or motivate further medical, cognitive, or linguistic assessment. The norming, validity, and reliability studies, which have been completed with Czech-speaking families, are not described in this article but separately in the tool’s manual.
- MeSH
- iluze psychologie MeSH
- jazyk (prostředek komunikace) * MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- percepce řeči * fyziologie MeSH
- sluchová percepce fyziologie MeSH
- vývoj řeči MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- přehledy MeSH
- MeSH
- dítě MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mnohojazyčnost * MeSH
- výchova dítěte * MeSH
- vývoj dítěte MeSH
- vývoj řeči MeSH
- Check Tag
- dítě MeSH
- lidé MeSH
Cíl. Experiment zkoumal, zda jsou sociální preference dětí předškolního a mladšího školního věku ovlivněny regionálním dialektem mluvčího a zda mohou být potenciální preference pro lokální/vlastní dialekt tlumeny bohatší jazykovou zkušeností dítěte. Metody. V percepčním online experimentu byla zkoumána dialektově podmíněná volba kamaráda. Každá z 12 experimentálních položek obsahovala dvojici vět, které byly nahrány dvěma různými mluvčími stejného pohlaví: jeden mluvil středočeskou varietou češtiny a druhý mluvil foneticky odlišným moravskoslezským dialektem. Formou nuceného výběru měli participanti v každém pokusu rozhodnout, se kterým ze dvou dětí by si chtěli raději hrát. Data byla sebrána od 81 participantů ve věku 5 až 8 let, kteří si poslechli obě nahrávky a následně se rozhodli, se kterým ze dvou mluvčích by si raději hráli. Výsledky. Smíšený model logistické regrese odhalil významnou interakci věku a lokality participanta (průměrná modelovaná velikost efektu = 16,4 %, SE = 8,1 %, z = 2,031, p = 0,042). Párová srovnání ukázala, že mladší (věk 4 a 5 let) moravskoslezské děti měly silnější preferenci pro svůj lokální dialekt než mladší středočeské děti a okrajově také než starší (věk 6 a 7 let) moravskoslezské děti. Závěry. Výsledky naznačují, že jazykově podmíněné sociální preference mohou být ovlivněny variovaností jazykového prostředí, ve kterém se dítě nachází. Slabší preference pro rodný dialekt u mladších dětí ve Středočeském kraji než v Moravskoslezském kraji mohou být výsledkem variovanějšího jazykového prostředí středočeského regionu (včetně Prahy). Stejně tak může být (okrajově významné) slábnutí preference pro rodný dialekt u starších dětí v rámci Moravskoslezského kraje spjato s nástupem do školy, jež dítěti taktéž poskytuje variovanější jazykové prostředí. Limity. Relativně malý vzorek mladší skupiny moravskoslezských dětí, který ovšem reflektuje demografickou situaci: způsob náboru participantů do experimentu byl pro oba regiony stejný, aby participanti v obou regionech pocházeli ze srovnatelně motivovaných částí populace, což je ke sběru spolehlivých dat prostřednictvím online experimentu klíčové. Autorky navrhují provést navazující výzkum, ideálně v laboratoři, který ověří replikovatelnost výsledků a bude sbírat více podrobných údajů ohledně jazykového a dialektového pozadí dítěte.
Objectives: This study investigated whether preschool and early school age children's friendship choices are modulated by a talker's regional dialect, and whether the potential preference for local/native dialect would be attenuated by a child's more diverse language experience. Methods: An online forced-choice experiment was administered. Each of 12 trials contained a pair of sentences recorded by two different same-sex speakers: one was a speaking the Central Bohemian variety of Czech and the other speaking a phonetically distinct Nothern Moravian-Silesian dialect. Data were collected from a total 81 participants, aged 5 to 8 years from both regions, who, upon listening to both sentences in each trial, indicated which of the two children they would like to play with. Results: A generalized linear mixed-effects model revealed a statistically significant interaction of age and participant location (average estimated effect size = 16.4 %, SE = 8.1 %, z = 2.031, p = .042). Pairwise comparisons showed that younger Moravian-Silesian children had a stronger preference for their own local dialect than younger Central Bohemian children, and marginally also than the older Moravian-Silesian children. Conclusions: The results can be explained by considering that older Moravian-Silesian children have a more diverse language experience (associated with starting school), similarly to Central Bohemian children of any age who have a more diverse language experience due to a greater linguistic variation in their region. Such richer, more varied, language experience might then attenuate children's preferences for their own dialect. Limitations: The recruitment procedures for both regions were kept identical in order to recruit comparably motivated participants' parents, which is crucial to collect comparably reliable data using an online experiment administered by the children's parents. This however resulted in a relatively small sample of the younger group of Moravian-Silesian children. Follow-up research, ideally lab-based, is needed to test the replicability of the present findings and to collect more detailed information on children's language, dialectal, and education background.
This review article introduces the basic principles of infants' neurophysiology, while summarizing the core knowledge of the anatomical structure of the auditory pathway, and presents previous findings on newborns' neural speech processing and suggests their possible applications for clinical practice. In order to tap into the functioning of the auditory pathway in newborns, recent approaches have employed electrophysiological techniques that measure electrical activity of the brain. The neural processing of an incoming auditory stimulus is objectively reflected by means of auditory event-related potentials. The newborn's nervous system processes the incoming sound, and the associated electrical activity of the brain is measured and extracted as components characterized by amplitude, latency, and polarity. Based on the parameters of event-related potentials, it is possible to assess the maturity of a child's brain, or to identify a pathology that needs to be treated or mitigated. For instance, in children with a cochlear implant, auditory event-related potentials are employed to evaluate an outcome of the implantation procedure and to monitor the development of hearing. Event-related potentials turn out to be an irreplaceable part of neurodevelopmental care for high-risk children e.g., preterm babies, children with learning disabilities, autism and many other risk factors.
Prenatal learning of speech rhythm and melody is well documented. Much less is known about the earliest acquisition of segmental speech categories. We tested whether newborn infants perceive native vowels, but not nonspeech sounds, through some existing (proto-)categories, and whether they do so more robustly for some vowels than for others. Sensory event-related potentials (ERP), and mismatch responses (MMR), were obtained from 104 neonates acquiring Czech. The ERPs elicited by vowels were larger than the ERPs to nonspeech sounds, and reflected the differences between the individual vowel categories. The MMRs to changes in vowels but not in nonspeech sounds revealed left-lateralized asymmetrical processing patterns: a change from a focal [a] to a nonfocal [ɛ], and the change from short [ɛ] to long [ɛ:] elicited more negative MMR responses than reverse changes. Contrary to predictions, we did not find evidence of a developmental advantage for vowel length contrasts (supposedly most readily available in utero) over vowel quality contrasts (supposedly less salient in utero). An explanation for these asymmetries in terms of differential degree of prior phonetic warping of speech sounds is proposed. Future studies with newborns with different language backgrounds should test whether the prenatal learning scenario proposed here is plausible.
- MeSH
- elektroencefalografie MeSH
- evokované potenciály MeSH
- fonetika MeSH
- kojenec MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- novorozenec MeSH
- percepce řeči * fyziologie MeSH
- řeč MeSH
- těhotenství MeSH
- Check Tag
- kojenec MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- novorozenec MeSH
- těhotenství MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
Neural discrimination of auditory contrasts is usually studied via the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potentials (ERPs). In the processing of speech contrasts, the magnitude of MMN is determined by both the acoustic as well as the phonological distance between stimuli. Also, the MMN can be modulated by the order in which the stimuli are presented, thus indexing perceptual asymmetries in speech sound processing. Here we assessed the MMN elicited by two types of phonological contrasts, namely vowel quality and vowel length, assuming that both will elicit a comparably strong MMN as both are phonemic in the listeners' native language (Czech) and perceptually salient. Furthermore, we tested whether these phonemic contrasts are processed asymmetrically, and whether the asymmetries are acoustically or linguistically conditioned. The MMN elicited by the spectral change between /a/ and /ε/ was comparable to the MMN elicited by the durational change between /ε/ and /ε:/, suggesting that both types of contrasts are perceptually important for Czech listeners. The spectral change in vowels yielded an asymmetrical pattern manifested by a larger MMN response to the change from /ε/ to /a/ than from /a/ to /ε/. The lack of such an asymmetry in the MMN to the same spectral change in comparable non-speech stimuli spoke against an acoustically-based explanation, indicating that it may instead have been the phonological properties of the vowels that triggered the asymmetry. The potential phonological origins of the asymmetry are discussed within the featurally underspecified lexicon (FUL) framework, and conclusions are drawn about the perceptual relevance of the place and height features for the Czech /ε/-/a/ contrast.
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
