Cognitive development in 7- to 24-month-old extremely/very-to-moderately/late preterm and full-term born infants: The mediating role of focused attention

Abstract

The present study analyzed the links between prematurity, attention, and global cognitive performance in infancy and early childhood. At 7 months, focused attention (FA) was examined with an object examination task in 93 preterm infants (39 of them born extremely/very preterm, 54 born moderately/late preterm, and 38 infants born full-term). Global cognition was assessed at 7 and 24 months with the Bayley-II cognitive scale. Groups did not differ with respect to global cognitive performance but FA of infants born extremely/very preterm was significantly lower than in infants born moderately/late preterm. FA correlated significantly with both prematurity and cognitive performance at 7 months of age but not with global cognition in childhood. Findings point to a subtle adverse effect of prematurity on early attention and reveal evidence for the mediating role of FA on the effect of prematurity on cognition.

Keywords:

• Prematurity
• Cognitive development
• Focused attention
• Attention development
• Late preterm birth

Gitta Reuner received a grant by the Dietmar Hopp Stiftung in the context of a broader study on early developmental diagnostic tools. Andrea Weinschenk received financial support from a German national Doctoral Fellowship by the Landesgraduiertenfoerderung of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg. All assessments were performed at the University Children’s Hospital of Heidelberg. The authors gratefully thank the families for participating in this study.

Conflict of interest statement: None of the authors had financial or other relationships that could be interpreted as conflicts of interests relevant to the content of this manuscript. The information is original and has not been published previously in any form. Parts of this work have been presented at the joint meeting of the Federation of European Societies of Neuropsychology (FESN) and the German Society of Neuropsychology (GNP) from September 12–14, 2013 in Berlin, Germany.