I found an article entitled
“Early Emergence of Behavior and Social Emotional problems in Very Preterm
Infants” which shared vital information about the social-emotional development of
preterm toddlers which stated, “Children born very preterm are reported to have
an increased frequency of social, emotional, and behavioral problems at school
age compared with their peers who are born full term” (Spittle et al.2009). The
main purpose of the study was to compare social-emotional difficulties and
competencies of very preterm and full-term children at 2 years' corrected
age. The relation between perinatal
variables and early behavior problems was also examined to help identify those
very preterm children who were most at risk.
At
2 years' corrected age, the parents of 188 very preterm (gestational age <30
weeks or birth weight <1,250 g) and 70 full-term (gestational age ≥37 weeks)
children completed the Infant Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment to
determine externalizing, internalizing, and dysregulation problems and
social-emotional competencies. For the very preterm children extensive
perinatal data were collected including sex, birth weight, gestational age,
chronic lung disease, and postnatal steroids, as well as neonatal cerebral
white matter abnormalities detected by magnetic resonance imaging.
The
very preterm children at 2 years demonstrated significantly higher
internalizing and dysregulation scores and lower competence scores than peers
born at term. There was no significant difference in externalizing scores
between groups. Female sex, lower birth weight z score, white matter
abnormalities, and postnatal corticosteroids were significantly associated with
lower competence scores in the very preterm group. Very preterm children
exhibit higher rates of behavior problems early in development, in particular
internalizing and dysregulation problems and poorer competence.
As
we know all children develop differently whether they are preterm or full term.
Early detection of problems help support families and makes sure appropriate interventions
are executed. However research information like this allows us to be aware of problems
preterm toddlers may exhibit.
Reference
Spittle, A., Treyvaud, K., Doyle, L., Roberts, G., Lee, K.,
Inder, T., et al.( 2009). Early Emergence of Behavior and Social Emotional
Problems in Very Preterm Infants. Journal of the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry. Vol.8 Issue O. pp.909-918.
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteThis article and research is very important. It seems that people focus on the physical development of pre-term babies but fail to think about their social and emotional development. This would be a great resource to use with teachers and parents of pre-term toddlers. Is there further research showing ways to help pre-term babies better regulate their emotions as they are developing such as certain types of interactions, etc? Thank you for sharing and I am going to pass this article along to our Inclusion Specialist.
Myra
You found a great article and premature parents should read it. I have a child who recently enrolled in my class, she was born premature and her parents were focused on her physical development. I explained to them that her social and emotional development was just as important.
ReplyDeleteBarbara,
ReplyDeleteWhat an great article, I will have to send this link to my friend. Her daughter was born at 4 months early and she was telling me that she is having lots of behavior problems in school. This might help shed some lights on why this is taking place.