The neurocognitive development of premature infants at 5 months corrected age

Abstract

It is known that prematurity is a risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly for ADHD and autism. However, the impact of prematurity on neurocognitive functions in the early stages of development is not investigated thoroughly.The aim of research was to reveal the differences in neurocognitive development in premature infants and full-term infants at 5 months age.The participants were 26 premature infants and 26 gender matched healthy full-term infants. The gestational age of preterm infants was between 29 and 35 weeks.The Bayley Scales of Infant Development were used to evaluate the neurocognitive abilities in infants.The one-way ANOVA has revealed that premature infants performed significantly (P ≤ 0.05) more poorly than the full-term infants on cognitive scale, receptive language and gross motor. No significant differences were found between preterm and full-term infants on expressive language and fine motor.Two-way ANOVA has revealed no significant (P ≤ 0.05) differences between female premature infants and full-term female infants on gross motor in comparison to male infants.It was proposed that the prematurity has specific (not global) negative effect on neurocognitive development at 5 months age with gender effect on development of gross motor.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.