ArticleEnvironmental health : a global access science source2025
Impact of early life exposure to heat and cold on linguistic development in two-year-old children: findings from the ELFE cohort study.
Article in Environmental health : a global access science source, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Prenatal exposure to extreme heat and autism in children.The Science of the total environment · 2026Article
- Effects of projected increases in heat exposure on linguistic development in two-year-old children: A longitudinal modified treatment policy analysis.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2025Article
- Differential Effects of Green Space Typologies on Congenital Anomalies: Data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service (2008-2013).Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
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8 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundA number of negative developmental outcomes in response to extreme temperature have been documented. Yet, to our knowledge, environmental research has left the question of the effect of temperature on human neurodevelopment largely unexplored. Here, we aimed to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on linguistic development at the age of 2 years-old.
methodsWe used data from the prospective national French birth cohort ELFE (N = 12,163) and highly-resolved exposure models with daily temporal resolution and 200 m to 1 km spatial resolution. We investigated the effect of weekly averages of overall, daytime and night-time temperature in the prenatal (first 30 weeks of gestation) and postnatal (91 weeks after birth) period on vocabulary production scores from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MB-CDI) at 2 years-old. Exposure-response and lag-response relationships were modeled with confounder-adjusted distributed lag non-linear models.
resultsScores at the MB-CDI decreased by 3.2% (relative risk (RR) 0.968, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.939-0.998) following exposure to severe night-time heat of 15.6 °C (95th percentile) vs. 8.3 °C (median) throughout gestational weeks 14 to 19. In the postnatal period, scores at the MB-CDI decreased by 14.8% (RR 0.852; 95% CI: [0.756-0.96]) for severe overall heat of 21.9 °C (95th percentile) vs. 11.5 °C (median) throughout weeks 1 to 28. Consistent results were found for daytime and night-time heat. We observed positive effects of overall and night-time heat in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Night-time cold in the pre-natal period also resulted in improved scores at the MB-CDI. Adjusting our models for air pollutants (PM2.5, PM10 and NO2) tended to confirm these observations. Finally, there were no significant differences in temperature effects between boys and girls.
conclusionIn this large cohort study, we showed a negative impact of hot temperatures during pregnancy and after birth on language acquisition. Positive associations observed in the first few weeks of pregnancy are likely the results of methodological artifacts. Positive associations with night-time cold during the prenatal period are likely truly protective, as colder temperatures may encourage staying indoors at a comfortable temperature. Policymakers should consider neurodevelopment impairments as a deleterious effect of climate change.
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