Abstract
There is insufficient evidence on the intellectual and attentional profile of adolescents born prematurely. Aim: to identify maladjustment in intellectual and attention skills at the beginning of secondary school. Method: 69 premature 12-year-old adolescents were evaluated with the WISC, d2 Test of Attention, and Test of Perception of Differences-Revised (CARAS-R). Results: adolescents present intellectual and attention abilities in the normal range. However, all premature adolescents show difficulties in impulse control and female adolescents are better in processing speed. Depending on the category of prematurity, differences in attention skills are evident. Conclusion: adolescents born prematurely without associated sequelae have significantly lower performance in the same areas than the normative group. This could affect the cognitive control of their behavior and academic performance in the medium and long term. Great prematurity could interfere with attention skills and self-control even at the age of 12, especially in males.
Highlights
Worldwide, the rate of preterm births ranges between 5% and 18% of newborns and shows a progressive increase [1]
The results highlight that 83% of the preterm adolescents had lower scores than the average in fluid reasoning (FRI), and 68% in processing speed (PSI) (Table 1)
The results showed that early adolescents with a history of prematurity and with no associated sequelae have a performance level in intellectual and attention skills that is in the average of the composite scores of the WISC and the attention tests (D2 and CARAS-R)
Summary
The rate of preterm births ranges between 5% and 18% of newborns and shows a progressive increase [1]. There is no consensus among researchers about adolescence. This population arouses special interest since a set of physical, cognitive, affective, and behavioral changes occur in this stage, to which the risks involved in being born preterm are added [3,4]. On this matter, studies referring to adolescents born preterm are limited both worldwide and, in our context, Spain. Most of these research studies are based on general and scattered data [5,6,7,8] or parents’ and professors’ reports [8,9,10,11,12]
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