View clinical trials related to Preterm Children.
Filter by:The study aims to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of the traditional and computerized home-based visual-motor training programs on at-risk kindergarteners.
Prematurity is associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic disturbances in adulthood. It has been demonstrated that the body composition of children born prematurely is different from that of children born under term with a deficit in fat free mass. It can thus be wondered if this excessive adiposity does or does not predict the risk of insulin resistance in adulthood. Children born prematurely, with a body composition measurement performed at discharge from neonatal hospitalization as part of the EPIPOD protocol, and now aged between 8 and 14 years, will be included in the INFANTPOD protocol. Analysis of body composition, insulin resistance, renal function, pulse wave velocity, eating behaviour and of physical activity will be performed.
The results will provide insightful information to understand the process of neural development and the predictive value of early cerebral blood flow measures on longitudinal neurodevelopment and handedness outcomes in preterm and term adolescents. The findings also contribute to the understanding of effectiveness of early intervention on long-term neurodevelopmental outcome in preterm children at adolescence. Our study has three hypotheses as below: 1. The preterm intervention group have higher neuromotor scores, lower behavioral problem scores and higher incidence of right-handedness than the preterm control group. 2. The preterm intervention group have comparable neuromotor scores, behavioral problem scores and incidence of right-handedness than the term adolescents. 3. The neonatal cerebral blood flow velocity asymmetry measures are significantly associated with the infant, preschool, school and adolescent neurodevelopment and handedness outcomes in preterm children with very low birth weight and term children.
The study aims at investigating social cognition outcomes of children born prematurely. Social cognition can be briefly defined as a process which underlines people's social and emotional behaviors. There are behavioral and cognitive evidences indicating that preterm children have executive dysfunctions. Executive functions refer to multiple cognitive processes that contribute to human higher order abilities, such as purposeful and future-orientated behavior. The literature regarding development of term born children indicates that executive functions are linked to the emergence of social cognition. Then, the investigators asked if children born prematurely, as they commonly present executive dysfunctions, would show an atypical development of social cognition. Additionally, as it has been shown that parental anxiety is a key factor of preterm children development, the investigators assumed that it should play a role in social cognition outcomes.
In recent years, several studies confirm that some of preterm children have language developmental disabilities, in production, in comprehension, or in written language. These language impairments lead to learning disabilities. There are, however, contradictions concerning the origin and nature of language dysfunctions. Some studies find lexical disorders (number of words used by the child), others preferentially phonological disorders (sounds used in the language), others also disorders of the morphosyntaxe (organization of the sentences) and fragilities that affect pragmatics (understanding situations). The computer-evaluation of the language is carried out at five and a half year coupled with the medical and neuropsychological examinations. The language assessment lasts 30 to 45 minutes per child. It is carried out using a laptop computer that allows the submission of stimuli and recording of the child's responses. The language evaluation scale is the battery CléA (Pasquet F et al, 2014), standardized reference tool for the realization of a language evaluation. The assessment includes three tests: comprehension of words and phrases, production of words and phrases, and judgment of sentences. Each time, the child sees images and hears words or phrases. Sometimes he has to say what he sees on the computer screen. As usual, a speech-language assessment is not carried out, routinely, at the age of 5 years in the context of the follow-up of children born very preterm. The evaluation proposed to the child in this research will be carried out at a significant period of development, before writing. This assessment will not only assess the structure of the child's language, but also determine if there are possible difficulties in learning to read and write. The expected benefits for the health of the children included in the trial therefore concern the detection or characterization of any developmental fragilities affecting the language. These screenings or characterizations will make it possible to advocate a speech rehabilitation if necessary.