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OBJECTIVES: Within the framework of an ongoing longitudinal study, relations between motor skills and cognitive function in 7-8-year-old preterm born children were investigated.

BACKGROUND: Motor and cognitive problems have been suggested to be the two major sequalea of a preterm birth. Global and selective deficit of neuromotor and executive functions have been found within this group of children at school age. However, few studies haveinvestigated the associations between motor skills andcognitive function in relation toweeks of gestation (GW) and birth weight (BW).

DESIGN/METHOD: Children (n = 18) born between 25-34 GW performed the Movement-ABC 2 (M-ABC 2) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV). Scaled scores from M-ABC 2 (hand function, ball handling skills, static- and dynamic balance, total score) were correlated with indexes derived from the WISC-IV (verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, processing speed, full scale intelligence quotient [FSIQ]), GW and BW.

RESULTS: The majority of children had mild to moderate general motor impairments (n = 10) where hand function was most affected (n = 15). FSIQ was somewhat below the norm (M = 95) where working memory (WM) was most impaired (M = 87). Further, associations between motor skills (apart from balance) and processing speed was shown, FSIQ was related to GW, and BW to WM, perceptual reasoning and FSIQ. Most of the associations remained even when excluding two children with a diagnosis of hemiplegic cerebral palsy.

CONCLUSIONS: No direct relationships between GW/BW and motor skills were shown. However, the associations found suggest that cognitive function may be a mediating factor between birth status and motor skills. Other analytical methods requiring larger study samples are needed to verify such causality.