Development of egocentric and allocentric spatial orientation abilities in children born preterm with very low birth weight

Background: Very low birth weight preterm infants show neuropsychological alterations in functions such as memory or visuospatial skills, although certain related functions, such as spatial orientation, have not been studied.

Objectives: To compare children born preterm and at term between the ages of 5 and 7 years on egocentric and allocentric spatial orientation, and relate their performance to visuospatial skills, behavior, memory in daily environments, and perinatal risk factors.

Study design: Observational cross-sectional study.

Subjects: 88 very low birth weight children born preterm and 59 controls.

Outcome measures: IQ (RIST), visuospatial skills (NEPSY II: Route Finding and Geometric Puzzles), spatial orientation (Egocentric and Allocentric Spatial Memory Test - Children's Version), behavior (BASC questionnaire for parents), memory in everyday environments (ECM-Q questionnaire for parents), and perinatal risk factors (collected from medical records).

Results: Children born preterm obtain significantly lower scores than controls on the RIST, Route Finding, and Allocentric Spatial Memory Tests. Although spatial orientation is related to other neuropsychological variables in both premature and control children, there is no meaningful association with behavior or daily memory in children born preterm. The perinatal risk factors that are associated the most with visuospatial and orientation problems are surgical procedures and peri- and intraventricular hemorrhages.

Conclusions: Children born preterm with low birth weight present difficulties in their spatial orientation, and for this reason, we propose including these types of tasks in the usual neuropsychological evaluation.