Cumulative Antenatal Risk and Kindergarten Readiness in Preterm-Born Preschoolers

Abstract

A suboptimal intrauterine environment is thought to increase the probability of deviation from the typical neurodevelopmental trajectory, potentially contributing to the etiology of learning disorders. Yet the cumulative influence of individual antenatal risk factors on emergent learning skills has not been sufficiently examined. We sought to determine whether antenatal complications, in aggregate, are a source of variability in preschoolers' kindergarten readiness, and whether specific classes of antenatal risk play a prominent role. We recruited 160 preschoolers (85 girls; ages 3-4 years), born ≤33 6 / 7 weeks' gestation, and reviewed their hospitalization records. Kindergarten readiness skills were assessed with standardized intellectual, oral-language, prewriting, and prenumeracy tasks. Cumulative antenatal risk was operationalized as the sum of complications identified out of nine common risks. These were also grouped into four classes in follow-up analyses: complications associated with intra-amniotic infection, placental insufficiency, endocrine dysfunction, and uteroplacental bleeding. Linear mixed model analyses, adjusting for sociodemographic and medical background characteristics (socioeconomic status, sex, gestational age, and sum of perinatal complications) revealed an inverse relationship between the sum of antenatal complications and performance in three domains: intelligence, language, and prenumeracy (p = 0.003, 0.002, 0.005, respectively). Each of the four classes of antenatal risk accounted for little variance, yet together they explained 10.5%, 9.8%, and 8.4% of the variance in the cognitive, literacy, and numeracy readiness domains, respectively. We conclude that an increase in the co-occurrence of antenatal complications is moderately linked to poorer kindergarten readiness skills even after statistical adjustment for perinatal risk.

Longitudinal Associations between Callous-unemotional (CU) Traits and School-based Affiliative Relationships among South Korean Children

“…This finding suggests that teachers may play a vital role in promoting emotional socialization, even when children have characteristics (i.e., CU traits) that might otherwise negatively impact their relationships with others. In contrast, qualitative studies suggest that teachers perceive fewer reward-based strategies as effective for children high in CU traits (Allen et al, 2016(Allen et al, , 2018, and longitudinal research in the current sample found that CU traits were related to teachers reducing their use of rewards over time (Hwang et al, 2020). Teachers' less frequent use of rewards and greater use of harsh discipline may elicit poor quality of teacherchild affiliation (De Jong et al, 2014), and have shown significant associations with CU traits (Allen et al, 2018).…”

“…Children rated items on a 3-point scale ranging from 0 (not true) to 2 (certainly true). The reliability and construct validity of the revised antisocial behavior scale was established in a prior study using the same sample, showing significant correlations with both CU traits and teacher harsh discipline (Hwang et al, 2020; T1, α = .88; T2, α = .90; T3, α = .92).…”

“…The original UNSW CU traits index has been shown to exhibit high reliability and construct validity (Hawes et al, 2019) and has been used to validate other measures of CU traits (Hawes et al, 2020). In the current sample, the psychometric properties and construct validity of a revised 9-item CU traits scale were established in a prior study using confirmatory factor analysis (see Hwang et al, 2020Hwang et al, , 2021; T1, α = .78; T2, α = .81; T3, α = .81).…”

“…We assessed child antisocial behavior at each time point using a revised 9-item version of the UNSW antisocial behavior index (Hwang et al, 2020). The revised version of the UNSW antisocial behavior index included items assessing aggression and externalizing problems (e.g., "I fight a lot", "I take things that are not mine from home, school or elsewhere").…”

Latent classes of childhood maltreatment in children and adolescents in foster care: associations with ICD-11 PTSD and complex PTSD

“…Therefore, frequent changes in foster care placement can be a risk factor for healthy development (Lewis, Dozier, Ackerman, & Sepulveda-Kozakowski, 2007 ; Newton, Litrownik, & Landsverk, 2000 ; Rubin, O’Reilly, Luan, & Localio, 2007 ). Furthermore, the duration of foster care stay was also associated with physical and mental well-being in prior studies (Fallesen, 2013 ; Frenkel et al, 2020 ; Navarro-Soria, Servera, & Burns, 2020 ).…”