PRENATAL AND PERINATAL HAZARDS AND FAMILY BACKGROUND IN CHILDREN WITHSPECIFIC LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENTS - A STUDY OF TWINS

A clinical group composed of 84 twin pairs where one or both twins met stringent psychometric criteria for specific speech-language impairme nt was compared with 36 twin pairs with no history of speech-language difficulties. Twins with speech-language impairment tended to have mor e siblings than control twins and were significantly more likely to ha ve an affected parent. Groups were closely similar in terms of length of gestation and mother's antenatal condition, except that maternal to xemia was unusually frequent in the clinical group. Children from the two groups did not differ in terms of Apgar scores or on a composite m easure of perinatal hazards. Within the clinical group, MZ pairs with substantial differences in neonatal status did not differ in language outcome. It is suggested that if an association with toxemia can be re plicated, this might reflect a common genetic basis for immune disorde rs and developmental language delay. Perinatal hazard was unrelated to subtype of speech-language impairment. (C) 1997 Academic Press, Inc.