
Suvi StoltUniversity of Helsinki | HY · Faculty of Medicine, Dept. of Psychology and Logopedics (Speech and Language Pathology)
Suvi Stolt
Associate Professor in Speech-Language Pathology
About
67
Publications
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Introduction
Prof. Stolt's main research topics are language acquisition process during the childhood years in different populations such as preterm children, and early identification and intervention of early weak language ability. She has also adapted, validated and collected a norming sample for the Finnish versions of two language assessment methods (the Finnish short form versions of Communicative Development Inventories, CDI; The Finnish version of the CDI III).
Publications
Publications (67)
Background: Many factors may influence early language development, but the precise impact of cognitive
development remains unclear.
Aims: This study aims to explore how cognitive development contributes to language ability and to compare
the explanatory value of early cognitive and language ability at 2;0 (years;months) on the language ability at...
Children born very preterm (<32 gestational weeks and/or birth weight ≤1500 g) are at elevated risk for reading difficulties. This study aimed to investigate reading fluency and reading comprehension at 11 and to analyze the associations between literacy skills at 7 and reading skills at 11 in 134 Finnish-speaking very preterm children. At 11, read...
Background
The parents’ presence and involvement in neonatal care is a promising approach to improve preterm infants’ neurodevelopmental outcomes. We examined whether exposure to the parents’ speech is associated with the preterm infant’s social-cognitive development.
Methods
The study included infants born before 32 gestational weeks in two neona...
Aim
In today's increasingly digitalised society, there is a growing need for information on how parents can support their children's language development at home. We investigated the associations between three types of parental linguistic support and children's language skills in different domains.
Methods
Between April 2019 and March 2020, 164 ch...
Background:
Preterm infants have a risk of health and developmental problems emerging after discharge. This indicates the need for a comprehensive follow-up to enable early identification of these problems. In this paper, we introduce a follow-up tool "ePIPARI - web-based follow-up for preterm infants". Our future aim is to investigate whether ePI...
Introduction
Various parental report instruments are available for assessing children’s language skills at the end of the second year. However, comparison studies on their usability are lacking, and it is also open to question what kind of information the instruments provide when used in a parallel manner. This longitudinal study investigated which...
Background:
At the end of the second year, children's lexical compositions (LexC) differ significantly in terms of variety of lexical categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, closed-class words). The aim of this study was to investigate whether this variation is associated with acquisition of pre-reading skills (PreRS) at 5;0.
Aims:
To study the as...
Few studies provide information on the reliability and validity of parental report instruments when assessing the language skills of pre-school–aged children. This study investigates the internal consistency and concurrent validity of the parental report instrument, the Finnish version of the Communicative Development Inventory III (FinCDI III), in...
Aim:
This longitudinal study investigated associations between language environment and parent-infant close contact in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and preterm children's lexical abilities.
Methods:
NICU language environment of 43 very preterm infants (born< 32 gestational weeks) was measured with the Language Environment Analysis sy...
The association between pre-reading skills and phonological production skills has been shown at school age, but less is known about how these skills interact at an earlier age when they are just developing. The focus was to investigate whether a connection between pre-reading skills (letter naming, rapid automatised naming; RAN) and phonological pr...
Although children’s increased screen time has been found to associate with poorer language development, it is open to question which part of language ability screen time specifically associates with. Our aim was to examine the association between children’s screen time (alone and together with a parent), mothers’ screen time, and the different doma...
Background
Associations between lexical processing and lexical development during the second year of life have been little studied in preterm children.
Aims
To evaluate associations between lexical processing at 18 months and lexical development between 12 and 18 months in very preterm children.
Study design
Correlational study.
Subjects
25 Finn...
Background:
Diffusion tensor imaging is a widely used imaging method of brain white matter, but it is prone to imaging artifacts. The data corrections can affect the measured values.
Objective:
To explore the impact of susceptibility correction on diffusion metrics.
Materials and methods:
A cohort of 27 healthy adolescents (18 boys, 9 girls, m...
Objective
Fine motor and coordination problems are frequently reported among adolescents born preterm. We aimed to assess performance in hand coordination tasks and to compare concurrent brain activation between adolescents born very preterm and full-term at 13 years.
Method
34 right-handed adolescents born very preterm (gestational age <32 weeks/...
Preterm children (born <37 gestational weeks) who are born at very early gestational age (<32 weeks, very preterm, VP) and/or with very low birth weight (≤1500 g, VLBW) are at increased risk for language and literacy deficits. The continuum between very early language development and literacy skills among these children is not clear. Our objective...
Background & aims:
Difficulties understanding spoken language are associated with several social and academic risks in school-age children and adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD). Still, interventions for this group have received little attention, and there are no reviews focusing on oral language comprehension interventions in...
Cross-linguistic studies can provide information about general and language specific features of language development, but relatively few such studies are available in the literature. The main aim of the present study was to investigate, from a cross-linguistic perspective, the roles of the internal factor of gender and the external factors of birt...
Background
The long-term associations between early receptive/expressive lexical skills and later language/pre-literacy skills require clarification.
Aims
To study the association between and predictive values of early receptive/expressive lexical skills and language/pre-literacy skills at 5;0 years, and to examine the language profiles at 5;0 yea...
Aim:
To evaluate the validity of the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system's automatic measures in two neonatal intensive care units supporting parent-infant closeness, and in two Finno-Ugric languages: Finnish and Estonian.
Methods:
The sound environment of 70 very preterm infants was recorded for 16 hours in the neonatal intensive care u...
Background and aims
The most severe problems in language manifest as difficulties in comprehending oral language. These difficulties are persistent and expose individuals to several risk factors. There is a lack of intervention research in the area of oral language comprehension, and no reviews have focused solely on oral language comprehension int...
Aim:
To study whether auditory function measured with brainstem auditory evoked potential and brainstem audiometry recordings in the neonatal period associates with language development one year later in preterm infants.
Methods:
This retrospective study included 155 preterm infants (birth weight ≤1500 g and/or birth ≤32 gestational weeks) born...
Previous studies of Finnish children’s phonological development focus mainly on children under 2;0. Earlier findings have suggested that phonological and lexical development are strongly associated at an early age. However, less is known about the longitudinal association. This study describes the phonological skills of Finnish-speaking children at...
Previous studies have shown that early lexical development is associated with later language development. It is less clear which language domains early receptive/expressive lexicons are associated with. This study analyses these associations. The study also investigates whether children with slow/typical/fast developing early receptive/expressive l...
It is well-known that very preterm children perform at lower levels than full-term children in reading and arithmetic at school. Whether the lower performance levels of preterm children in these two separate domains have the same or different origins, however, is not clear. The present study examined the extent to which prematurity is associated wi...
Pikkukeskosena (syntymäpaino < 1500 g ja/tai syntynyt < 32 raskausviikolla) syntyneiden lasten varhaisen ymmärretyn sanaston kehitystä on tutkittu vähän, ja ymmärretyn sanaston ja myöhemmän kognitiivisen kehityksen välistä mahdollista yhteyttä ei tietääksemme ollenkaan. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli saada lisää tietoa pikkukeskosena syntyneiden...
Pikkukeskosena syntyneiden (syntynyt < 32 raskausviikkoa ja/tai syntymäpaino ≤ 1500 grammaa) lasten varhaista eleiden ja esinetoimintojen kehitystä on tutkittu vähän ja sen yhteyttä myöhempään kognitiiviseen kehitykseen ei ole tutkittu lainkaan, vaikka mahdollinen yhteys antaisi tärkeää erotusdiagnostistatietoa kliiniseen työhön. Tämän tutkimuksen...
Scientific poster predented at the 6th International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR6), 8-12 July 2018, Montreal, Canada.
Early lexical development begins at the end of the first year by the acquisition of receptive lexicon, and it continues roughly at the age of one year by the development of expressive lexicon. By the end of the second year children have usually acquired the first, basic lexicon of their native language. The development of language is a complex proc...
Abstract
Aim: To study whether auditory function measured with brainstem auditory evoked potential and brainstem audiometry recordings in the neonatal period associates with language development 1 year later in preterm infants.
Methods: This retrospective study included 155 preterm infants (birthweight ≤1500 g and/or birth ≤32 gestational weeks) bo...
The manual of the Sanaseula method includes norms for the Finnish short form versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories for children between 9 and 24 months of age. Also validation information is provided.
Scientific poster presented at the National Symposium of Speech and Language Research, 5-6 April 2018, Helsinki, Finland.
Early screening of children at risk for language difficulties is challenging. This study aimed to analyze the specificity and sensitivity of two screening methods at 2;0 years of age. In addition, the matter of what kind of information the use of word combinations and parental concern provide for screening was analyzed. The subjects were 78 childre...
Poster presented in the 2nd Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, in Lancaster, United Kingdom, 23-25.8.2017.
This cross-linguistic study investigated whether the native language has any influence on lexical composition among Italian (N = 125) and Finnish (N = 116) very preterm (born at <32 gestational weeks) children at 24 months (controls: 125 Italian and 146 Finnish full-term children). The investigation also covered the effect of maternal education (ME...
In early language development accurate auditory discrimination is necessary for building phonological representations to mental lexicon. However, little is known about the connections between phonological development and auditory discrimination in noise in children at the age of 3;6 years. The aim of this study is to clarify the associations betwee...
Poster presented in the 30rd World Congress of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, in Dublin, Ireland, 21.-25.8.2016
Poster presented in the 30th World Congress of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, in Dublin, Ireland, 21.-25.8.2016
Background
It is not clearly understood how the quality of early mother–child interaction influences language development in very-low-birth-weight children (VLBW).
Aims
We aim to analyze associations between early language and the quality of mother–child interaction, and, the predictive value of the features of early mother–child interaction on la...
AimPrevious findings regarding the prevalence and predictive value of weak language skills in preterm children with very low birth weight (VLBW) are unclear. This study analysed the prevalence of weak language skills, the predictive value of early weak language skills on later weak language skills, and the sensitivity and specificity of cognitive s...
The present study analysed the development of gestures between 0;9 – 1;3 years, and the predictive value of this development for language skills at 2;0 in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children. Participants were 32 VLBW children and their 35 controls.The data on gestures was gathered using the Finnish version of the Communicative Development Invent...
The acquisition of early grammar by Finnish children has been analysed moderately. The
present literature review has the following goals. Firstly, the aim is to present different
views regarding the emergence of early grammar, and morphology and syntax specifically.
The other goal is to provide a short description of what it is known on the acquisi...
Hyvin ennenaikaisena/pienipainoisena (syntynyt <32 raskausviikkoa ja/tai syntymäpaino ≤1500g) syntyneillä lapsilla on täysiaikaisina syntyneitä lapsia korkeampi riski erityyppisiin kielen kehityksen ongelmiin. Tieto
tähän ryhmään kuuluvien lasten varhaisen sanaston kehityksestä on ollut niukkaa ja sirpaleista. Tutkittua tietoa näiden lasten varhais...
Poster presented in the 3rd Conference on Early Language Acquisition (ELA) in Lyon, France, 5.-7.12. 2012
The aim of the present study was to analyze early vocalization development, the predictive value of this development in terms of later language skills, and possible gender difference in early vocalization development in a selected cohort of 32 very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children and 35 full-term controls. The data on early vocalization developmen...
ABSTRACTIt is not well understood how grammar emerges in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children. The main aim of the present study was to gain information on the emergence of grammar in this group at 2 ; 0. The Finnish version of the Communicative Development Inventory was used to collect data from VLBW children (N=156) and full-term controls (N=146...
Resumen El objetivo de este estudio es analizar el lenguaje utilizado en las interacciones
tempranas entre madre e hijo en una cohorte seleccionada de niños con muy bajo peso al nacer (MBPN). Se analizaron los tipos de palabras y los tipos fl exivos del fi nlandés utilizados a la edad de 1;6 y 2;0 años en interacciones madre-hijo y se compararon co...
The aim of the present study was to analyse the language used in early mother-child
interactions by a selected cohort of 32 very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children. The word types
and inflectional types of Finnish used at 1;6 and 2;0 in mother-child interactions were analysed
and compared to those of 35 full-term controls. Information concerning earl...
The aim of the study was to assess the relationship between maternal representations and the quality of mother-infant interaction in a group of preterm and full-term infants. The study groups consisted of 38 mothers and their preterm infants (</=1500g or<32 gestational weeks) and 45 mothers and their full-term infants. Maternal representations were...
The emergence of grammar in relation to lexical growth was analyzed in a sample of Finnish children (N=181) at 2 ; 0. The Finnish version of the Communicative Development Inventory was used to gather information on both language domains. The onset of grammar occurred in close association with vocabulary growth. The acquisition of the nominal and ve...
Unlabelled:
The aim of this longitudinal study was to obtain information on the early lexical development and its predictive value to language skills in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory was used to collect data of the early receptive and expressive lexicon of the 32 VLBW children. This inform...
The growth rate and the development of the composition of the receptive
and expressive lexicon were studied in a longitudinal sample of 35 Finnish
children. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory was used
to gather data of the receptive lexicon at 0;9, 1;0 and 1;3, and the expressive
lexicon at 0;9, 1;0, 1;3, 1;6 and 2;0. The receptive l...
The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and the background factors of maternal depressive symptoms and their relation to the quality of mother-infant interaction in a group of preterm infants and their mothers.
The signs of maternal depression were evaluated in 125 mothers of very preterm infants (birth weight < or = 1500 g or < 32 g...
This paper focuses on the aspects of the lexicon in 66 prematurely born very-low-birth-weight and 87 full-term Finnish children at 2;0, studied using the Finnish version of the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory. The groups did not differ in vocabulary size. Furthermore, the female advantage in vocabulary size was not seen in preterm c...
The aim was to analyse the growth and compositional development of the receptive and expressive lexicons between the ages 0,9 and 2;0 in the full-term (FT) and the very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) children who are acquiring Finnish. The associations between the expressive lexicon and grammar at 1;6 and 2;0 in the FT children were also studied. In addit...