Do preschoolers born premature perform properly on lexical and verbal short-term memory abilities?

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate lexical performance and verbal short-term memory ability in premature infants at preschool age and compare the results with their full-term peers. Methods: Forty preschool children aged between 4 and 5 years and 11 months participated on the study and were equally divided into two groups considering their gestational age: preterm and full-term. Groups did not differ on age, family income and maternal education. Participants were paired according to their chronological age and their socioeconomic status. Their performance was assessed using expressive vocabulary and verbal short-term memory tests. Inferential statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney and the Fisher exact test. Results: Group performance did not differ on vocabulary, but premature children showed an inferior performance on nonword repetition tasks. Conclusion: These data indicates that preschoolers born premature performed statistically lower than their peers born full-term on nonword repetition task. Thus, premature birth was associated to vocabulary development on typically developing range, but also to verbal short-term memory impairments.