0000000000182034
AUTHOR
Päivi Rautava
Prematurity and overlap between reading and arithmetic: The cognitive mechanisms behind the association
It is well-known that very preterm children perform at lower levels than full-term children in reading and arithmetic at school. Whether the lower performance levels of preterm children in these two separate domains have the same or different origins, however, is not clear. The present study examined the extent to which prematurity is associated with the overlap (i.e., common variance) of reading and arithmetic among Finnish school beginners. We also examined the extent to which the association of prematurity with the overlap between reading and arithmetic is due to different prereading skills, basic number skills, and general cognitive abilities. The participants (age 6-7) consisted of 193…
Reading and math abilities of Finnish school beginners born very preterm or with very low birth weight
Reading and math skills of preterm born (birth weight 1500 g or gestational age:532 weeks) children and full term (FT) children were compared during the first weeks of grade 1. The participants were 194 preterm born and 175 FT children born between 2001 and 2006. There were more precocious readers among FT than among preterm students, but even the latter performed close to the national norm. FT and preterm group differences among non-readers were minor with only rapid naming showing a robust difference. Math performance showed a stable difference in favor of FT students and the difference was sustained in the full-scale IQcontrol. Major brain pathology increased the likelihood of poor schol…