Neural Basis of Emergent Math Difficulties in Healthy Preterm Children

描述(由申请人提供)：早产儿神经发育受损的风险很高。学业成绩和教育成果明显低于预期，尤其是在数学领域。即使是新生儿课程相对良性的儿童，在婴幼儿随访中被认为是正常的，也仍然面临着严重的数学困难的风险。此外，这些“健康的早产儿”有明显的注意力、视觉、知觉、运动和执行功能缺陷的风险，但对学龄前儿童出现这些缺陷可能与后来的数学困难之间的关系知之甚少。目前还没有数据来检验选择性神经心理缺陷和早期学习困难的神经基础，但这是一个动态神经认知发展的关键时期，干预可能具有缓解后来缺陷的最佳潜力。这项纵向研究旨在评估健康早产儿神经心理和数学缺陷的出现情况，绘制早产对儿童早期大脑发育的影响图，并探讨健康早产儿数学和神经心理发育与脑发育异常之间的关系。参与者将是60名平均智力的健康早产儿(出生25-32周)和40名在年龄、性别、SES和语言智商方面匹配的足月儿。儿童将在幼儿园入学前6个月内参加这项研究。我们将在三个年度时间点将多模式神经成像(使用结构MRI测量全脑形态测量，使用扩散加权成像测量白质完整性指数)与神经心理学和学术测量相结合。我们预测，特定的早期知觉和认知缺陷将与新出现的数学缺陷有关。我们将研究后期的数学缺陷是否与早期的非符号和符号加工缺陷有关。我们的纵向研究设计旨在阐明受影响最严重的皮质表面积和潜在纤维束之间的联系，以及一系列相关的神经认知和数学功能的表现水平，并获得有关这些影响如何影响神经系统正在进行的生物发育的更多信息，这些神经系统在发育早期受到的直接影响较小。我们还将研究其他中介因素，如早产儿程度以及医学和人口统计变量。这个项目的结果将极大地提高我们的理解，为什么某些技能似乎更容易早产，这些技能如何与早期出现的数学缺陷有关，以及潜在的神经病理如何解释健康早产儿神经发育结果的广泛差异。这些结果将为确定最容易受到有效干预的赤字提供关键基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Very preterm children are at high risk for neurodevelopmental impairments. Academic achievement and educational outcomes are significantly lower than expected, particularly in the area of mathematics. Even children with relatively benign neonatal courses who are deemed normal at infant/toddler follow-up remain at risk for significant math difficulties. In addition, these "healthy preterm" children are at risk fr significant attention, visual, perceptual, motor, and executive function deficits, but little is knwn about how the emergence of these deficits in preterm preschoolers may be related to later math difficulties. There are currently no data examining the neural basis of selective neuropsychological deficits and early academic difficulties, yet this is a critical period of dynamc neurocognitive development when intervention may have the best potential for mitigating later deficits. This longitudinal study aims to evaluate the emergence of neuropsychological and math deficits in healthy preterm children, map the impact of preterm birth on brain development during early childhood, and examine the relationship between math and neuropsychological development and developmental brain abnormalities in healthy preterm children. Participants will be 60 healthy preterm children (born 25-32 gestational weeks) with average intelligence and 40 full term children matched for age, sex, SES, and verbal IQ. Children will enter the study within 6 months prior to kindergarten entry. We will integrate multimodal neuroimaging (whole brain morphometric measures using structural MRI and indices of white matter integrity using diffusion weighted imaging) with neuropsychological and academic measures across three annual time points. We predict that specific early perceptual and cognitive deficits will be relate to emerging math deficits. We will examine whether later math deficits are related to early non-symbolic and symbolic processing deficits. Our longitudinal study design aims to elucidate the links between the most affected cortical surface areas and underlying fiber tracts and level of performance on a set of implicated neurocognitive and math functions, and to acquire more information about how these effects impact ongoing biological development in neural systems less directly affected early in development. We will also examine other mediating factors, such as degree of prematurity and medical and demographic variables. The results from this project will greatly enhance our understanding of why certain skills appear more vulnerable to preterm birth, how these skills are related to the early emergence of math deficits, and how the underlying neuropathology accounts for extensive variations in neurodevelopmental outcome in healthy preterm children. These results will provide the critical foundation for identifying the deficits most amenable to effective interventions.