המידע מתוך medicontext.co.il
By Gary Faulds
UPPSALA, Sweden (Reuters Health) – Very low birth weight (VLBW) infants fare worse than their full-term counterparts in reading and writing development, according to a study presented here on Thursday at the 10th European Conference on Developmental Psychology.
An initial assessment of 7,505 children in southern Germany showed that children with birthweights of 1500 g or less had a significantly lower IQ on average than heavier preterm infants at 5 years of age. A cohort of 339 VLBW children, weighing less than 1500 g or with gestation periods of less than 32 weeks, was chosen for further study and investigation.
Professor Dieter Wolke and colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, assessed the reading and writing development of these children and compared the results with those obtained from a control group of 294 full-term children.
Marked differences were noted between the two groups. At 8.5 years of age, only 51.5% of the VLBW children were in the appropriate age group for their class compared with 91.2% of the control group. Dr. Wolke' group also found that 22.8% of VLBW infants were in special schools compared with 1.5% of controls. A follow-up study showed that four years later, as children progressed into secondary school, nearly 20% of the VLBW children remained in special schools.
Nearly 30% of the preterm children had reading problems at 8.5 years, compared with 9% of the control group. Writing problems were even more pronounced in the VLBW group, with almost 40% having difficulties in this area.
A closer analysis of these results showed that reading skills could be predicted in the control group by preschool phonetic awareness, IQ and preschool knowledge of the alphabet. In the VLBW group, reading ability was mainly determined by general IQ alone. In contrast, writing difficulties could be predicted by the same factors in both groups.
According to Professor Wolke, there is a critical point where the development of the prenatal infant is at a crucial stage. "It's pretty clear that the density of risk is relatively low until you get down to 1500 g or 32 weeks of gestation. From then on, there's a turning point and the density of risk becomes higher."
Professor Wolke pointed out that in spite of the risk, many preterm babies go on to develop very well. "We suggest that for a subgroup only of these children, there's clearly some early brain mechanisms which have led to lower IQ functioning in simultaneous information processing which is then related to a range of problems, like behavioural problems or reading and academic problems."
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