Early mathematical skills of prematurely and full-term born children

Abstract

The current study aims to analyse whether prematurely born children form unique mathematical skills profiles that are qualitatively different from full term born children and to explore the mathematical profiles of prematurely and full term born children in relation with general cognitive abilities at the age of five. The study adopted a cross-sectional design, having a sample of 5-year-old prematurely born Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) children (N = 121) and a control group of children (N = 100) born full term in Turku University Hospital in 2001-2003. Only prematurely born children with a birth weight smaller than 1501 g and a gestational age smaller than 32 weeks participated in the study. Participants were classified using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) into four homogenous subgroups that can be characterized by similar mathematical skill profiles. Even though the prematurely or full term born children did not form any unique mathematical skill profile, the prematurely born children were more likely to belong to latent profiles characterized by lower mathematical skills. The multiple comparisons of cognitive characteristics across different mathematical profiles signal the presence of certain variability in the extent cognitive characteristic are different across groups. Multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that IQ and phonological processing accounted for unique variance when cognitive characteristics, birth condition and mother’s education were entered simultaneously.