Evaluación de procesos cognitivos en niños de siete años de edad nacidos pretérmino.
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><em>Introduction</em>. Several studies have shown that the cognitive development of premature children is affected. In fact, it appears to be a close relationship between prematurity, executive deficits, learning disorders, language disorders and behavioral problems. Premature children present also difficulties in viso-perceptive tasks and functional integration tasks. <em>Objective</em>. The main goal of this study was to assess cognitive processes (executive functions, viso-perceptual integration, viso-motor coordination, memory, environmental knowledge, language, viso-motor processing and motor skills) in seven-year-old children who were born preterm and to compare them with those of a control group, matching in sociocultural level, sex and age. <em>Subjects and method</em>. 20 children ranging in age between seven years and two months and seven years and 11 months, assigned to two groups (premature vs. control) participated in the present study. A protocol including standardized neuropsychological tests was designed to assess the different cognitive mentioned domains. <em>Results</em>. We observed that there was worse performance in several evaluated domains (v.g., executive functions and viso-motor processing) in premature children than in the control group.<em> Conclusions.</em> There are few studies that explore cognitive processes in hispanic-speaking children born prematurely. In the present study we selected the seven-year age window, a time in life in which essential processes begin –reading, writing and mathematical calculation-. To detect neuropsychological problems that might be influencing the academic achievement of this population, adding new findings to the field of child neuropsychology.</p>