Emotion, attention, and effortful control in 24-month-old very preterm and full-term children

The literature reports behavioral and socio-emotional problems in children born preterm that persist throughout adolescence and early adulthood. However, no study has simultaneously investigated emotion, attention, and effortful control. In the present study, we compared these abilities between children born very preterm (<29 weeks of gestation) and full-term children at 24 months of age by parental questionnaire and experimental design. Results on the questionnaire showed that very preterm children were rated by parents as having a higher level of negative affect and lower sustained attention than full-term children. Results on the experimental tasks revealed a distinct attention pattern between the two groups: The full-term children showed a peak of attention in the second trial while preterm children exhibited an unchanged level of attention throughout the task. The preterm children also exhibited greater difficulties in maintaining inhibitory control compared with full-term children. Taken together, the results observed in very preterm children clearly showed difficulties in key abilities which allow a voluntary self-regulation behavior and consequently, they should be considered to improve early intervention strategies.