Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Several studies demonstrate that preterm infants are more at risk for developmental impairments compared to infants born at term, especially within the domain of cognition. The premature population has been shown to have deficits in executive functions and attention that to persist into adulthood and are considered responsible for poor academic achievement and lower income outcomes. Due to the impact of these skills in a child’s everyday academic and social life, it is essential to understand the development and outcomes of executive functioning and attention. The primary goal of this study was to measure the performance of premature school-aged children in tasks measuring attention, working memory and executive functioning and compare it to that of children born at term and without neonatal complications in order to determine if there is an increased risk of delays, as well as the nature of the difficulties. Twenty (n=20) school-age premature children from Northern Ontario were assessed using standardized tools measuring memory, information processing, attention, and executive functioning. Participants were matched according to gender, age, linguistic status (i.e. monolingual or bilingual) and socio-economic status. The influence of gestational age (GA), birth weight (BW) and socioeconomic status (SES) on participants’ performance were also reviewed. Our findings revealed that, at school age, children born prematurely were more at risk to develop deficits involving attention, cognitive processing and memory.