This study analysed the early linguistic development of Italian pre-term children. Samples of spontaneous pre-linguistic and verbal production were recorded at 12 and 18 months of age from two groups of children: 24 pre-term children and 15 full-term children. The Italian version of the MacArthur-Bates Questionnaire was administered at 24 months of age. Comparisons between these two groups reveal differences in many aspects of phonetic and phonological development, such as consonantal inventory at 12 and 18 months of age and syllabic babbling complexity at 18 months of age. Results evidenced that birth weight was related with phonological skills exhibited at 18 months of age, and these skills in turn are related with vocabulary size at 24 months of age. Data are discussed within a theoretical framework that hypothesizes that early phonetic abilities have long-lasting effects on the process of language acquisition. (Contains 7 tables and 2 notes.)