Visual Perceptual and Attention Skills in Moderately Preterm Children

Pediatrics published research on 248 moderately preterm (born at 32-35 weeks gestation) and 130 full term, seven year old children.  The children underwent various assessments including IQ, memory, attention, visual perception, motor skills, visual motor skills, and parental report of executive functioning.  The following results were recorded:

• moderately preterm group performed significantly worse on total and performance IQ, visual spatial reasoning, attention control, inhibition, and executive functioning.
• there were no differences found in verbal IQ, verbal memory, and visual motor and motor skills between the preterm and the full term group
• preterm children were at higher risk for scores in the less than 10% range on intelligence, visual spatial reasoning and executive functioning
• preterm boys scored significantly worse on visual spatial skills than full term boys
• preterm girls scored significantly worse than full term girls on visual spatial reasoning, intelligence, attention and executive functioning.

Reference:  Renata Cserjesi, Koenraad N.J.A. Van Braeckel, Phillipa R. Butcher, Jorien M. Kerstjens, Sijmen A. Reijneveld, Anke Bouma, Reint H. Geuze, and Arend F. Bos.  Functioning of 7-Year-Old Children Born at 32 to 35 Weeks’ Gestational Age Pediatrics 2012; 130:4 e838-e846; published ahead of print September 3, 2012, doi:10.1542/peds.2011-2079


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