Preserved statistical learning in preterm children aged 4–6 years: Evidence from neural and behavioral measures

Statistical learning (SL), the ability to extract patterns from sensory input, is thought to be involved in several cognitive processes, and particularly in language acquisition. While SL has been widely studied, its development in children born preterm, who are at heightened risk for learning difficulties including language deficits, remains underexplored. This study examined SL abilities in preterm and full-term children aged 4-6 years using neural and behavioral measures. Children were exposed to an "alien language", a continuous stream of syllables comprising four recurring trisyllabic pseudowords. SL was assessed via neural frequency tagging during exposure and a post-exposure serial recall task. Additionally, language abilities were evaluated in a large subset of the sample. Both SL measures revealed robust learning of the statistical regularities in all gestational age groups, with preterm children not performing numerically worse than full-term peers. While prematurity was associated with lower language scores, SL ability did not mediate this relationship. These findings suggest that SL abilities are preserved in preterm children and are unlikely to account for the language difficulties observed in this population. This preservation supports the view of SL as a basic, resilient capacity that remains intact despite the learning challenges associated with prematurity.