Comparison of Comparison of cognitive skills of children to term and pre-term skills of children to term and pre-term

Abstract

Introduction: Cognition is a set of mental skills essential to acquiring knowledge. It is during the first three years of life that great advances in cognitive development occur. This development is directly related to the nutritional, socioeconomic aspects, educational level of the family and family dynamics. Premature children are at risk for a change in the cognitive development process. Objective: To verify cognitive development in 20 preterm infants. Method: It is an observational and cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 20 full-term infants and 20 preterm infants. Those responsible for the children answered a questionnaire, containing information regarding the participant’s medical history and socioeconomic data. It was applied to the subpart of the Bayley III scale regarding cognitive abilities. Data analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney statistical test, presented in quantitative data of means, standard deviation and alpha (p-value). Results: When analyzing the scores of the cognitive abilities of the groups it was observed that 16 children (80 %) had 2 below-average scores, 1 (5%) on average and 3 (15%) above the expected age-for-age. The preterm group obtained 13 children (65%) with below-average scores, 1 (5%) in the mean and 6 (30%) above the mean, noting that the premature group presented better results. There was no significant difference between the means of the two groups of the present study in relation to none of the variables. Conclusion: There was no statistical difference in cognitive performance between the groups in this age group. It should be considered that the performance of the participants may change in another age group.