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Visual search, perception, and visual-motor skill in "healthy" children born at 27-32 weeks' gestation
N Foreman1, A Fielder, C Minshell
1Department of Psychology, University of Leicester, United Kingdom. for@le.ac.uk
Insights
Premature birth (born at 27-32 gestational weeks) can lead to subtle visual-motor impairments, affecting attention and coordination, even without detectable disabilities. These challenges persist into childhood, impacting visual search and fine motor skills.
Area of Science:
- Developmental neuroscience
- Pediatric ophthalmology
- Cognitive psychology
Background:
- Prematurity is associated with various neurodevelopmental challenges.
- Subtle visual-perceptual and visual-motor deficits may persist despite normal screening.
- Understanding long-term visual-motor outcomes in preterm children is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate visual-perceptual, attentional, and visual-motor skills in school-age children born preterm.
- To compare the performance of preterm children with full-term controls on specific visual tasks.
- To identify persistent subtle impairments in preterm individuals without clinically detectable disabilities.
Main Methods:
- A group of 16 school-age children born between 27-32 gestational weeks was assessed.
- Participants performed normally on pediatric screening tests.
- Performance was compared to 16 matched full-term controls on visual-perceptual, attentional, and visual-motor tasks.
Main Results:
- Preterm children were slower in identifying a missing arc on a computer screen.
- Preterm children made more errors in a complex visual search task.
- No significant deficits were observed in visual form extraction and closure tasks.
Conclusions:
- Prematurity is linked to persistent, subtle visual-motor impairments affecting attention and coordination.
- These deficits are present even in preterm children with normal screening results.
- Visual form perception appears unaffected, suggesting specific impacts on visual-motor integration and attention.
Abstract:
Visual-perceptual, attentional, and visual-motor skills were examined in a group of 16 school-age children, born at 27-32 gestational weeks, who had performed normally on pediatric screening tests. Compared with 16 matched full-term controls, the preterms performed poorly on only two measures: they took longer to point to the missing arc of an annulus displayed on a computer screen and failed to find targets more often in a complex visual search task. They showed no deficits on tests of visual form extraction and closure. These data suggest that in the absence of any disability that is clinically detectable, prematurity results in a cluster of small but significant visual-motor impairments that persist into middle childhood. These relate to the maintenance of attention and visual-motor coordination, though visual form perception is not measurably affected. The results are discussed in the context of current neurobiological models of visual system organization.