DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATIVE BEHAVIORS IN PRETERM INFANTS - THE EFFECTS OF BIRTH-WEIGHT STATUS AND GESTATIONAL-AGE

This study concerns the development of looking, facial expressions, an d nondistress vocalizations from 6 to 18 weeks of corrected age. Compa risons were made between full-term infants (n = 15) and three groups o f healthy preterm infants: small-for-gestational age (n = 10), and app ropriate-for-gestational age, the latter being born after a pregnancy duration of less than 32 weeks (n = 8), or between 32 to 34 weeks (n = 11). Using multilevel analyses, group comparisons involved not only t he developmental course of each behavior separately but also the devel oping association between the expressive behaviors and looking at moth er's face. The small-for-gestational age preterm infants were most dif ferent from the full-term group indicating an additional risk to prema turity especially for the development of smiling. Birth before 32 week s was related to a delay in looking behaviors but seemed to accelerate the development of vocalizations as compared to the older preterm inf ants. Such findings suggest that the development of communicative beha viors may be differentially associated with being ''born too soon'' or ''born too small.''