Aim: To investigate predictors of language and reading outcomes in 12-year-oldSwedish children born very preterm (<32 gestational weeks) in 2004–2007.

Method: Children born very preterm (n = 78, 43 girls), and term-born controls (n = 50,32 girls), were examined on verbal IQ, semantic and phonemic fluency, sentence recall,reading fluency, word and phonological decoding at 12 years of age. The results wererelated to neonatal characteristics, language development, measured with Bayley-III,at 2.5 years corrected age, and concurrent non-verbal IQ.

Results: Preterm children showed language and reading difficulties that were notcompletely accounted for by level of concurrent non-verbal IQ. Extremely pretermborn children (<28 gestational weeks) demonstrated specific linguistic weaknesses.Administration of antenatal steroids, retinopathy of prematurity and persistent ductusarteriosus explained unique variance in language and reading outcomes. Languageassessments at 2.5 years had low predictive value for language and reading outcomesat age 12.

Conclusion: Language and reading difficulties in 12-year-old children born pretermwere not fully explained by concurrent non-verbal IQ, and were not reliably predictedby language assessments at 2.5 years. Renewed language assessments at school ageare warranted for identifying children with persisting linguistic difficulties.