الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 138 |  |  |
| | | from | 138 | | |
Abstract
Low birthweight thus defines a heterogeneous group of infants, some are born early, some are born growth restricted, and others are born both early and growth restricted. It is generally recognized that being born with low birthweight is a disadvantage for the baby. Short gestation (preterm birth) is the main cause of death, morbidity and disability. The shorter the gestation, the smaller the baby and the higher the risk of death, morbidity and disability. It has been shown that the mortality range can vary 100-fold across the spectrum of birthweight and rises continuously with decreasing weight (Wilcox,2001).
There is an increasing worldwide survival rate of children who are born very preterm, and this outcome is an emerging public health problem because specialized outpatients clinics to follow up these infants are not fully available, at least in developing countries. The higher survival rates create a population with exceptional needs; numerous studies of the follow up of preterm and very low birth weight infants have demonstrated that these infants have an increased risk for BDMH, cognitive and language delays and emotional/behavioral adjustment problems (Allen,2008).
Several studies of the developmental outcome of premature low-birth-weight infants have highlighted a series of persistent deficits in cognitive ability across the life span (Bhutta;et al,2002). children born preterm seem to be at increased risk for atypical trajectories of cognitive development and are over represented among those with attention problems, language difficulties, and poor school performance (Cherkes- Julkowski ,1998).
The aim of this work was to determine the size and distribution of language disorders among low birth weight children in order to put a plan of early detection, proper assessment, intervention and prevention of these problems if possible.
Eighty of children were included in this study. Fifty of them were with history of LBW (31 males and 19 females) and thirty of the children were with history of normal birth weight (13 males and 17 females). The mean age for the LBW children was 4.3±1.6 year and months and the mean age for the normal birthweight children was 5.1±1.3 year and months. The children in the two groups were matched in their age and sex distribution as much as possible in.