Does Cognition in Children Born Extremely Preterm Catch Up by Early Adulthood?

Cognitive impairments in extremely preterm infants have been shown to persist into childhood, but adult outcomes have not been studied rigorously. To describe cognitive development from infancy to early adulthood in extremely preterm individuals, researchers prospectively followed a cohort of 315 infants born in the U.K. or Ireland at or before 25 weeks' gestation. Standardized cognitive testing (IQ tests with mean scores of 100) was performed at ages 2.5, 6, 11, and 19 years. From 6 years on, scores were compared to those of 160 matched term-born peers.

Extremely preterm individuals had significantly lower cognitive scores than term-born peers over the study period (25.2 points lower, on average). Although there was some catch-up in the pre…