Perinatal

Small for Gestational Age as a Predictor of Behavioral and Learning Problems in Twins

“…For example, damage may affect "cognitive processes involving elaboration, amplification, and interrelated perception of incoming sensory information (secondary) and cross-modal integration of information (tertiary) across different sensory modalities and cortical zones" (Beaumont, 1983;Luria, 1973, cited in Emory et al, 1992. In children who have been born full-term in the absence of evidence of intellectual disability, damage to these areas is shown in disinhibition syndromes such as hyperactivity and attention, as well as more generally in learning disorders (Emory et al, 1992). It is possible that being born SGA involves a degree of hypoxia and other subclinical perinatal insults and provides an explanation of impairment in secondary and tertiary functioning shown in this study.…”

“…Little is known about the causal relationship between perinatal events such as being SGA with disorders of attention and language processing (Emory et al, 1992), but there is some evidence that subclinical perinatal insults such as hypoxia have been associated with impairment involving secondary and tertiary neuropsychological processes. Secondary and tertiary neuropsychological processes involve more sophisticated cortical processes and functioning as opposed to primary or more "gross" functions (Luria, 1973, 1981, cited in Emory et al, 1992.…”