Abstract
A new examination has been developed which provides a reliable evaluation of neonatal neurological and behavioral organization, and is sensitive to individual differences in neurobehavioral status at conceptional ages from 30 to 42 weeks. Items evaluate maturational level, sensorimotor status and functions thought to involve cortical processing (i.e., visual tracking and auditory orienting).
Fifty normal full-term infants (NFT) were compared to 120 low-birth-weight (LBW) infants (< 37 weeks gestational age, and/or weight < 10 percentile for age) tested at 40 weeks conceptional age. Interscorer reliability was .97 and test-retest reliability .91. 78% of LBW infants fell outside the range of NFT infants on visual tracking and auditory orienting items. Head position preference thought to be an early expression of hemispheric dominance was overwhelmingly right-sided (90%) in the NFT group and substantially less so (49%) in LBW infants. The LBW infants as a group manifested significant deficits on active motillty, and in complex reflexes (rooting and Moro), as well as a somewhat higher incidence of hypotonia and hypertonia. Items considered sensitive to deficient cortical functioning showed a strikingly greater disparity between LBW and NFT than did the standard neurological tests of motor and reflexive performance.
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Daum, C., Kurtzberg, D., Grellong, B. et al. NEUROBEHAVIORAL ASSESSMENT OF HIGH-RISK NEONATES. Pediatr Res 11, 376 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197704000-00042
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197704000-00042
