2026

Background Information

Children born preterm often experience difficulties in a range of cognitive skills, typically assessed by an examiner. These include general cognitive abilities and particular areas such as language, attention and executive functions. There is a need for efficient, scalable assessments that are relevant to everyday behaviours. For example, parental questionnaires are increasingly used, but it is unclear how well they can detect early cognitive difficulties in preterm children. Cognitive skills are also often correlated, such that people who perform well in one area usually perform well in another area. However, it is unknown if parental ratings of different skills correlate similarly.

Research Question

We used parental questionnaires to assess the language, attention and executive functions of 2-year-olds (96 preterm children and 87 term-born children). We explored associations between these skills and gestational age at birth, and also studied whether an underlying factor of shared ‘general ability’ links them.

Findings

Parents of preterm toddlers report reduced language abilities but similar attention and executive functions compared to term-born children. We found that these three skills are correlated with an underlying general ability that links them based on parents’ ratings.

Conclusions

Our findings show how parental ratings might be used to identify differences in preterm children’s abilities in many different areas, highlighting that they are particularly sensitive to differences in language. Future studies should compare parental reports with examiner-administered assessments to understand how both types of assessments relate to one another in early life.