Everyday Memory and Cognitive Ability in Children Born Very Prematurely

Abstract

In light of recent reports of episodic memory difficulties linked to early childhood hypoxia (Isaacs et al., 2000; Vargha‐Khadem et al., 1997), preliminary findings of everyday memory function are reported for 20 children born at or before 32 weeks gestation, compared to 20 children born at term. Memory skills were assessed using the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test for Children (Wilson, Ivani‐Chalian, & Aldrich, 1991) at 5 years of age. Everyday memory problems were not found to be a general feature of children born prematurely, and performance was closely linked to receptive language ability but not general cognitive ability in both groups of children. Three children in the preterm group did obtain scores in the impaired range of the RBMT, and in two of these children memory impairment could not be predicted from their receptive language ability. This suggests an increased risk of everyday memory difficulties in populations of preterm children that may be enhanced in further studies by sampling children with greater risk of hypoxic insult.

Neuropsychological assessment and perinatal risk: A study amongst very premature born 4- and 5-year old children

“…The results regarding memory coincide with those of Briscoe, Gathercole, and Marlow (2001) who observed deficits in premature five year olds.…”

Early Psychological Development of Very Preterm and/or Low Birth Weight Children: A Review of the Literature

“…In relation to cognitive development, the research found global cognitive delays in children born prematurely, but the specific cognitive processes most affected are memory from 2 to 6 years (40,42,43,45,47,48,52), attention from the first year of birth (35,36,38,41,44) and visual-spatial processing at 3-4 years (42,43,45). However, there is no consensus on the degree of impairment of memory and executive function, because some studies find they are not affected in the first 2 years (37), and other studies find worse scores at 5 and 6 years (48, 52).…”

“…Studies on communicative -linguistic development found that preterm children have problems in auditory discrimination in the first days of life, and at 4 and 5 years old (53,55,62), problems in grammar skills at 2, 3, 5 and 6 years old (47,50,55,57,59,61,64), problems in naming objects and words at 4 and 5 years old (55,62,63,64) and pre-reading skills at 6 years (64). Other studies found that these children have no problems in lexical production at 4 years old (62).…”

“…One study found that preterm children have no problems in expressive and receptive language development in general at 5 years (63) and other study found that these children have problems in some specific components of expressive language (sentences), but they do not have problems in other components (information) at 3 years old (60). In vocabulary, some studies found that preterm children have problems at 2, 3, 5 and 6 years old (41,47,50,57,60,62,64) and other studies found that they have no problems (58,59,60). Some studies found that preterm children have problems in communication skills (verbal) in the first two years of life (17,54), but others found that these children have no problems in communication skills (nonverbal) at 3 years old (60).…”

“…Similarly, Roberts et al (48) found that at this age, preterm children had problems in receptive and expressive language, independent of social risk. They also present problems in vocabulary and spoken language grammar skills (47), and obtain lower scores in listening comprehension and expressive communica- tion (40). The problems with vocabulary and morphosyntactic skills that preterm children manifest at this age are considered predictors of cognitive problems (50).…”