Original ArticlesImpact of family structure and stability on academic outcome in preterm children at 10 years of age☆
Section snippets
Subjects
The study subjects consisted of all live-born neonates of 24 to 31 weeks' gestational age cared for at the Central New York Regional Perinatal Center at Crouse Hospital between July 1, 1985, and June 30, 1986. This is the sole tertiary care facility for central New York State's 26,000 annual births. A lower cutoff of 24 weeks' gestation was chosen because the regional policy was to intervene aggressively on behalf of the fetus and neonate beginning at that gestation. An upper cutoff of 31 weeks
Study participants
At 10 years of age, 118 (94%) of the preterm children and 119 (95%) of the term control subjects were evaluated. Preterm children not evaluated included one child who was adopted and could not be traced, 2 children who were severely disabled and could not be tested, and 4 children whose families declined to participate. Six term children were not evaluated because their families declined to participate. Both the preterm and term children were evaluated at a mean (± SD) age of 10.1 ± 0.1 years.
Discussion
The critical issue in evaluating long-term outcome of survivors of extreme prematurity is the ability of these children to adapt to society. School performance is one of the first measures of this achievement. Our study confirms the reports of other investigators showing a high incidence of school problems among preterm children.3, 4, 5, 7 These school problems were associated with lower cognitive and achievement scores and a greater likelihood of behavior problems.
We found that perinatal
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Reprint requests: Steven J. Gross, MD, Crouse Hospital, Department of Neonatology, 736 Irving Ave, Syracuse, NY 13210.