| Summary: | <h4>Background</h4> <p>HIV infection has been associated with impaired language development in prenatally exposed children. Although most of the burden of HIV occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, there have not been any comprehensive studies of HIV exposure on multiple aspects of language development using instruments appropriate for the population.</p> <h4>Methods</h4> <p>We compared language development in children exposed to HIV in utero to community controls (N = 262, 8–30 months) in rural Kenya, using locally adapted and validated communicative development inventories.</p> <h4>Results</h4> <p>The mean score of the younger HIV-exposed uninfected infants (8–15 months) was not significantly below that of the controls; however older HIV-exposed uninfected children had significantly poorer language scores, with HIV positive children scoring more poorly than community controls, on several measures.</p> <h4>Conclusions</h4> <p>Our preliminary data indicates that HIV infection is associated with impaired early language development, and that the methodology developed would be responsive to a more detailed investigation of the variability in outcome amongst children exposed to HIV, irrespective of their infection status.</p>
|
|---|