About thirteen million babies each year are born prematurely, with preterm birth linked to increases in risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), problems with social development, and lower grades. A problem with past analyses of prematurity, however, is that they do not capture the variety seen in children born pre-term, including some with outcomes better than the average results for full-term children. Pre-term means birth before 37 weeks of gestation, with full term being 40 weeks.
The tendency to lump preterm babies into one group hinders efforts to tailor care for any one child, researchers say. Now a new study, published online on August 13th, 2024 in the journal Child Development , finds that preterm-born children fit into three profiles, with markedly different results on tests that measure cognition (thinking, reasoning, remembering) and behavior (ability to pay attention). Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the analysis defined the first neurocognitive profile, made up 19.
7% of all children tested, as performing above the average for even full-term children on standard cognition tests. A second profile, representing 41% of the children, showed scores above the norm for four tests (e.g.
, on memory, vocabulary, and reading) and below the norm for three others (pattern recognition and working memory). A third profile (39.3%) scored below the norm on all tests, with the cognitive deficits seen in this group found to correspond with a.