Cognitive Abilities and Early Precursors of Learning Disabilities in Very-low-birthweight Children with Normal Intelligence and Normal Neurological Status

Abstract

Fifty-nine of 88 children with birthweights ≤1500 grams had normal Full Scale IQ scores (≥80) and were judged to have normal neurological status at 7 to 8 years old. Twenty-two (37%) of these children were classified as being learning-disabled, as they had academic achievement scores ≤25th percentile. The children with learning disabilities had significantly lower Full Scale and Verbal IQ scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (1974), but they did not differ significantly from the normal children without learning disabilities on Performance IQ. Learning-disabled children also scored significantly lower on some tests of auditory processing and auditory memory, but not on visuo-motor abilities. Discriminant function analysis indicated that it was possible to correctly predict classification of 81% of the children as learning-disabled or not, based on measures of neonatal respiratory distress and social class level, 1-year mental and neuromotor abilities, and 3-year-old measures of language and visuo-motor integration. Results suggest that verbal deficits, rather than visuo-motor ones, underly learning disabilities at school age in prematurely born children and that these children exhibit signs of subtle neurological impairment at earlier ages.