Comparison of the Effects of Beckman Oral Stimulation

Canonical babbling is a crucial stage in speech and language development. Researchers have suggested that preterm infants show delay in canonical babbling plus speech and language development in future. Beckman Oral Stimulation is a sensory non-speech oral approach. Gender is one of the risk factors for delay and language impairment in preterm infants. In the present study we made an attept to investigate the effects of Beckman Oral Stimulation approach on the frequency of canonical babbling in preterm infants after six months.
Material and

A randomized clinical trial was performed on preterm infants with 28-34 weeks gestational ages in "Imam Reza" and "17th of Shahrivar" NICU hospitals in two groups. After visiting the inclusion-exclusion criteria, the recruited infants were randomly assigned to Beckman oral stimulation (n=13) and control (n=13 per group) groups. We compared and studied the infant's sensory stimulation and the effects of gender and canonical babbling between the two groups.

The findings revealed that the babbling frequency was more in girls (p : 0.021) than in boys (p: 0.029).

It seems that Beckman sensory stimulation has more effects on canonical babbling in preterm girls than in preterm boys.