Chronological vs. Adjusted Age in Assessing Motor Development of Healthy Twelve-Month-Old Premature and Fullterm Infants

A concern among clinicians is whether evaluation of premature infants' motor development should be based on the infants' chronological age or whether adjustments should be made to account for gestational age at birth. Most investigators examining this issue have studied cognitive development, and the few studies exploring motor development have included premature infants at high-risk for motor deficits. The present infants in terms of gross and fine motor development. Assessment with the recently revised and standardized Peabody Development Motor Scales indicated that the development quotients of the premature and fullterm infants were comparable when based on adjusted age but lower fro the premature infants when based on chronological age. Similarly, age evuivalent scores for the premature infants were consistently lower than those of the fullterm group. This study indicates that basing assessment on adjusted age may be an adequate procedure for equating healthy premature to fullterm one-year-old infants, but continued research is needed to explore differences between these groups at other ages. Additionally research should determine whether sex differences exist in premature infants and whether clinically significant differences are found between the motor performances of low- and high-risk premature infants.