A collection of studies have suggested that prenatal tobacco exposure is associated with a number of serious neurodevelopmental and behavioral consequences in infants, children, and adolescents. For example, studies in infants have shown that maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with delayed psychomotor and mental developmental scores as measured by the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Kiechl-Kohlendorfer et al., 2010). Kable and colleagues analyzed the impact of maternal smoking during pregnancy on auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and determined that after controlling for a number of potential confounders, maternal smoking during pregnancy was negatively related to ABR latency in infants (Kable, Coles, Lynch, & Carroll, 2009). Interestingly, since alterations in infants’ auditory processing have been previously found to be highly predictive of future reading and language difficulties, these findings suggest that maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy may negatively impact a child’s future speech and language development (Benasich & Tallal, 2002; Kable, et al., 2009; Molfese, 2000).
