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Very-low-birthweight and term small-for-gestational-age adolescents: attention revisited.

Kulseng S, Jennekens-Schinkel A, Naess P, Romundstad P, Indredavik M, Vik T, Brubakk AM

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Children's and Women's Health, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. siri.kulseng@ntnu.no

AIM: To assess whether adolescents with very low birthweight (VLBW) and peers born small for gestational age (SGA) at term are at a disadvantage when attending to or executing tasks. METHODS: Cohorts of 54 VLBW (<or=1,500 g), 60 SGA and 83 controls were tested with the Knox Cube Test, Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT II), Stroop Colour-Word Test, Trail Making Test (TMT) A & B, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). IQ was estimated using the subtests vocabulary and picture arrangement of WISC III. RESULTS: VLBW adolescents scored worse than controls on Knox Cube Test, Stroop Colour-Word Test, TMT A & B and WCST, whereas term SGA adolescents only made more non-perseverative errors in WCST and more errors in the interference condition of the Stroop Colour-Word Test. Thirty-two (38.6%) adolescents in the control group had poor performance (< 2 SD) on at least one of the tests compared with 40 (74.1%) VLBW (p<0.01) and 32 (53.3%) SGA adolescents (not significant). CONCLUSION: VLBW adolescents are at risk of disadvantage in aspects of attention and/or executive functions. The adverse effects of being born SGA at term appear to be few in these domains of cognitive function.

Published 1 February 2006 in Acta Paediatr, 95(2): 224-30.
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