BACKGROUND Term infants learn word-object relations in their first year during multisensory interactions with caregivers. Although preterm infants often experience language delays, little is known about how caregivers contribute to their early word-object learning. The present longitudinal study compared maternal naming and word learning in these infant groups. METHODS Forty moderately preterm and 40 term infants participated at 6-9 and 12 months with their mothers. At each visit, mothers named two novel objects during play, and infants' learning was assessed using dynamic displays of the familiar and novel (mismatched) word-object relations. Infants' general cognitive, language, and motoric abilities were evaluated. Maternal multisensory naming was coded for synchrony between the target words and object motions and other naming styles. RESULTS During play, although overall maternal naming-style was similar across infant groups within visits, naming frequency increased to term but not preterm infants, from visit 1 to 2. On the test at visit 1, although the term infants' looked equally to novel and familiar word-object relations, their looking to the novel relations correlated positively with maternal synchrony use but inversely with naming frequency. At visit 2, term infants looked longer to the novel relations. In contrast, preterm infants showed no looking preference at either visit. Neither was their word-object learning correlated with maternal naming. Their cognition, language, and motor scores were attenuated when compared to term infants on the Bayley-III but not their MCDI vocabulary. CONCLUSIONS Less adaptive maternal naming and delayed word mapping in moderately preterm infants underscore a critical need for multisensory language intervention prior to first-word onset to alleviate its cascading effects on later language.

中文翻译：

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与足月婴儿的词映射相比，母体命名不太适合早产儿。

背景 足月婴儿在第一年与照顾者进行多感官互动时学习词-客体关系。尽管早产儿经常会出现语言发育迟缓，但人们对看护者如何促进他们早期的词-客体学习知之甚少。本纵向研究比较了这些婴儿组的母亲命名和单词学习。方法 40 名中等早产儿和 40 名足月婴儿在 6-9 个月和 12 个月时与母亲一起参与。在每次访问中，母亲在玩耍时命名两个新对象，并使用熟悉的和新的（不匹配的）词-对象关系的动态显示来评估婴儿的学习。评估了婴儿的一般认知、语言和运动能力。母体多感官命名被编码为目标词和物体运动以及其他命名风格之间的同步。结果 在游戏过程中，尽管访视中婴儿组的总体母亲命名风格相似，但从访视 1 到访视 2，命名频率增加到足月婴儿而非早产儿。和熟悉的词-客体关系，他们对新关系的期待与母系同步使用呈正相关，但与命名频率呈负相关。在第 2 次访问时，足月婴儿对新关系的看法更长。相比之下，早产儿在两次访问中都没有表现出偏好。他们的词-客体学习也与母亲的命名无关。与使用 Bayley-III 的足月婴儿相比，他们的认知、语言和运动得分有所减弱，但他们的 MCDI 词汇却没有。