Early language development in 40 uninfected children born to HIV-positive mothers

The aim on this paper is to better assess specific areas of risk in children's early development closely linked to their mother's HIV-1 infection. Forty non infected children born to HIV-1 infected mothers were compared to 47 normal children of the same age (12-36 months) sex and SES. All children were given a battery of linguistic tasks involving both production and comprehension shills: (First Language Test, standardized for the Italian population). Several ANOVAS were separately carried out on the data. Significant differences were found between normal and at risk children in both receptive and expressive language. The effects were especially evident from 18 to 30 months of age. The above results show that mother's infection impairs uninfected children's first language acquisition during the second and the third year of life.