PhD defence L.W. (Lottie) Stipdonk

More than 1% of all births occurs very preterm (before 32 weeks of pregnancy). These very preterm born children experience language problems at school age significantly more often than their term born peers. These language problems often increase between the age of 2 to 10 years, which may be a consequence of the increasing complexity of language use in that period. In this period it is expected form children to use longer and more complex sentences, which also requires increased level of sustained attention. Very preterm children, especially girls, often cannot catch up with these expectations and experience problems at school-age. The vocabulary knowledge of the parents appear to be associated with the language level of their child at the age of 10 years. Therefore, adequate parent counselling is important for this group.

Very preterm born children were born before or during the third trimester of pregnancy, which is an extremely important trimester for the maturation of the brain. MRI scans of the brains of the children at age 10 showed associations between certain brain structures and their language performance. Specific small structures of the Cerebellum, for example, appeared to be smaller in children with weaker language levels. Besides, their language organization in their brain appeared to be different. Very preterm children have a less dominant left hemisphere than their term born peers. These results deserve more attention in the follow-up care for these children, since language is crucial to academic and social skills.

Due to corona, the PhD defences do not take place publicly in the usual way in the Senate Hall or in the Professor Andries Querido Room. The candidates will defend their dissertation either in a small group or online.