ABSTRACT
Purpose
To examine the maturation of the auditory pathway of children who were born at term and preterm, during 2 years and 6 months. Moreover, we tried to compare this maturation to the development of language skills of these children.
Methods
It is a longitudinal and comparative study, which presents a clinical outcome related to the observation and analysis of auditory electrophysiological responses at the first month of life and 2 years and at 6 months old. The sample consisted of eight children, of both genders, being five born at term and three at preterm. Cortical Auditory Evoked Potential and the language evaluation were carried out through the Behavioral Observation Protocol.
Results
Both term and premature babies passed through a period of maturation of the auditory pathway. In the correlation of gestation and maturation of the auditory pathway, we observed that the higher gestational age, the higher was the maturation of P1 wave. There was no correlation between language evaluation results and the maturation of the auditory pathway.
Conclusion
Based on the results of this study, we concluded that there was maturation of the auditory pathway in the two-year period in both groups. A correlation between gestational age and maturation of P1 was observed, which shows that the higher is the gestational age, the greater is the maturity of this component. Regarding the language skills, no correlation with the maturation of this sample was noticed.
Hearing; Evoked potentials, Auditory; Infant, Premature; Child language; Gestational age