Abstract 118

The neuropsychological outcomes and school performance of a regional based cohort of 86 children aged 9 years with birthweights < 1500 g (VLBW) who were born in 1987-88 were compared with those of control children (n = 86) born at term and next in order to the index infant with the same sex and parity. The neonatal mortality rate was 19.6%. Three children with severe neurological dysfunction were excluded. 71 (83%) VLBW children and 73 (88%) control children were examined at 9 years of age. The examination included neuropsychological tests such as nonverbal reasoning (Raven's matrices), several tests of language abilities and a mathematical test, and a teacher questionnaire regarding school performance. The VLBW children had significantly poorer performance in comparison with the controls in nonverbal reasoning (p<0.001), in most reading variables, i.e. reading ability(p<0.01) and word decoding skills (p<0.05), in mathematics (p<0.001) and in attention (p<0.01). The VLBW children received educational assistance more frequently (p<0.05).

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