Karolinska Institutet researchers report that children born before 34 weeks of gestation show persistent deficits in cognitive abilities at ages 9 to 10. Impairments appear independent of socioeconomic status, genetic predisposition, and prenatal or child-specific risk factors. Lower scores were observed in vocabulary, working memory, episodic memory, and recall tasks. Children born late preterm (34–36 weeks) or early term (37–38 weeks) performed comparably to those born full term.
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