Journal article
Sex-specific associations between umbilical cord blood testosterone levels and language delay in early childhood
AJO Whitehouse, E Mattes, MT Maybery, MG Sawyer, P Jacoby, JA Keelan, M Hickey
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines | Published : 2012
Abstract
Background: Preliminary evidence suggests that prenatal testosterone exposure may be associated with language delay. However, no study has examined a large sample of children at multiple time-points. Methods: Umbilical cord blood samples were obtained at 861 births and analysed for bioavailable testosterone (BioT) concentrations. When participating offspring were 1, 2 and 3 years of age, parents of 767 children (males = 395; females = 372) completed the Infant Monitoring Questionnaire (IMQ), which measures Communication, Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Adaptive and Personal-Social development. Cut-off scores are available for each scale at each age to identify children with 'clinically significant'..
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Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) for their long-term contribution to funding the study over the last 20 years. Core Management of the Raine study has been funded by the University of Western Australia (UWA), Curtin University, the UWA Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, the Raine Medical Research Foundation, the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, and the Women's and Infants Research Foundation. The 1-, 2- and 3-year follow-ups were funded by the NHMRC and the Raine Medical Research Foundation. Funding from Australian Rotary Health was used for the steroid analysis. AJOW (#1004065) and M. H. are funded by Career Development Fellowships from the NHMRC; J.A.K. is funded by the Women and Infants' Research Foundation. This study was partly funded by NHMRC Project Grant # 1003424. These funders had no further role in study design, analysis, data interpretation or manuscript writing and submission. The authors are extremely grateful to all of the families who took part in this study and the whole Raine Study team, which includes data collectors, cohort managers, data managers, clerical staff, research scientists and volunteers. Thank you also to Dorothy Bishop who provided helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript.