Comparative study of neupsychological functions in preterm and term childrens at eight years old

Abstract

Introduction: Monitoring of extremely preterm infants of school age reveals poor development of neuropsychological functions, compared to their full term peers.

Objective: To compare the neuropsychological functions of schoolchildren with history of extreme prematurity and full term children of the same age.

Patients and Method: Non-experimental, cross-sectional research. Forty-three preterm children who born weighting less than 1,500 g and/or less than 32 weeks of gestational age and a control group made up of forty full-term children, classmates of the sample group were included. Both groups had no diagnosis of neurological, sensory or cognitive disability. Parents signed informed consent forms and data were collected through the Child Neuropsychological Assessment-ENI2, which considers 14 items: construction skills, memory, Perceptual skills, language, metalinguistic skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, skills spatial, attention, conceptual skills, fluency, cognitive flexibility and planning. Data obtained were analyzed with Kruskal-Wallis test, establishing significance level at p < 05.

Results: Research findings partially agree with problems reported in the literature. In general, a lower standard score was observed at lower gestational age. There were significant differences in subtests of graphical skills, auditory perception, auditory attention, and cognitive flexibility.

Conclusions: Children with history of extreme prematurity who participated in this research showed a variety of deficits in neuropsychological functions, although their performance, as well as that of the control group, is disharmonic, with high scores in some items and low ones in others.