Cognitive development in preterm infants: birth to 8 years.

This report summarizes the outcome at age 8 of a group of preterm infants followed intensively from birth. The study was designed primarily to follow the processes of interaction between biological and environmental factors in determining the childhood outcome of infants born preterm rather than to report the incidence of particular types of outcomes for special subgroups of infants. A high percentage of the children were performing within the normal range. Social factors played a major role in determining the outcome regardless of neonatal complications. Functional assessment of newborn visual attention and sleep organization showed a modest relation to outcome. A subgroup of preterm infants from Spanish-speaking families, for cultural and language integration reasons, followed a somewhat different course from infancy to childhood outcome than did the group from English-speaking families. The results suggest that in longitudinal studies of preterm infants, different cultural and language groups should be analyzed separately so that one may understand the developmental processes and outcomes.