رابطه مصرف مواد پرناتال و حافظه شناخت نوزادان به مهارت های شناختی بعد

The aim of this study was to investigate the relation of prenatal substance exposure and visual recognition memory (VRM) to later cognitive competence. In particular, we ask whether substance exposure and infants’ ability to acquire information make significant contributions to outcome independent of the infants’ perinatal status and parental socioeconomic status (SES). Ninety participants were enlisted from an infant and family center and from local maternal and child health centers. Forty-eight of the children were at high biomedical risk, born of substance-abusing mothers, and 42 were at low biomedical risk. The sample included all children who completed the Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence at two different occasions (27 and 39 weeks), and the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities at age 4.5 years. Regression analyses demonstrated that prenatal substance exposure made a significant and independent contribution to cognitive competence at 4.5 years. It was also found that VRM, as measured in the first year of life, made a significant contribution over and above the other predictor variables to McCarthy perceptual performance. The results suggest that perceptual performance is especially sensitive to prenatal adversity, and that VRM is a valid index of the integrity of the brain. The results also imply that the contribution of infant memory to later cognitive abilities may be increased if the reliabilities of the infancy measures are taken into account.