Page 13 - Sample Moderate prematurity, socioeconomic status, and neurodevelopment in early childhood
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Developmental outcomes
The risk of developmental delay in four-year-old, MP children is twice that of 1 full-term children and half that of very preterm-born children.12 Developmental
delay refers to a condition in which a child has not achieved one or more skills, or
‘milestones’, at the age at which most other children have reached these particular
milestones. Prevalence rates of developmental delay increase exponentially with decreasing gestational age, as depicted in Figure 1.16 In MP children the prevalence varies from 6% to 11% for gestational weeks 32 to 36, compared to 4% on average in full-term children.16 More specifically, we found that MP children show more delay in fine motor, communication, problem-solving, and personal- social functioning at preschool age.12 Later on, developmental impairments may continue to cause problems at primary school, as they may lead to poor handwriting and difficulties in motor coordination and verbal fluency.17-19 Furthermore, MP children frequently lag behind their peers in executive functioning, attention, and visuospatial reasoning.20
Figure 1 Exponential association between gestational age and developmental delay (i.e. abnormal total- problems score on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, ASQ). The white bars depict the expected percentages of developmental delay according to an exponential model. The black bars depict the real percentages. Adapted from Kerstjens et al.16
General introduction
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