Original ArticleAttention Problems of Very Preterm Children Compared with Age-Matched Term Controls at School-Age
Section snippets
Methods
A sample of 66 very preterm (<32 weeks gestation) children and 66 age-matched term controls participated. All 66 very preterm children had participated in a randomized controlled trial on enteral glutamine supplementation (0.3 g/kg/d) between day 3 and 30 of life.15 For this study, all very preterm children admitted between September 2001 and July 2003 to the level III neonatal intensive care unit of the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam were eligible for inclusion, and baseline
Results
Age, SES, and sex were not different between very preterm children and their term peers (Table I). No differences were present for age (P = .87), SES (P = .25), and sex (P = .23) between both recruiting methods of age-matched peers. Furthermore, no significant effects of sex and being small for gestational age were found on any of the included neurocognitive measures in very preterm children (all Ps > .05, all ds < 0.33). As expected, very preterm children had significantly lower full-scale IQ
Discussion
Our study confirms that very preterm birth is associated with a medium sized increase in attention problems as reported by both parents and teacher (range d = 0.40-0.56). Furthermore, we found multiple deficits in the neurocognitive functions involved in attention, including a greater proportion of extremely slow responses (tau) and poorer visuospatial working memory abilities for very preterm children compared with age-matched term peers. Importantly, our findings clearly indicate that
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Cited by (0)
Supported by an unrestricted research grant from Danone Friederichsdorf, Germany, which had no involvement in (1) study design; (2) the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; (3) the writing of the report; and (4) the decision to submit the paper for publication. R.v.E. is an employee of Danone Research, Centre for Specialised Nutrition. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest.