About Project EF
Purpose: Project EF: Executive Function in Infants and Toddlers Born Low Birth Weight (LBW) and Preterm is to examine whether traditional assessment methods that have components of EF in their structure can discern early indicators of executive functioning in three subgroups of children ages six months to three years: a) children born LBW and preterm at low risk, b) children born LBW and preterm at high risk, and c) children born at full term. The primary goal in Years 1 and 2 is to assess a sample of 100 children born LBW and preterm and 50 children who were full term by administering a battery of standardized measures of infant and toddler development involving both caregiver report and individual assessment. In Year 3, the children will be assessed on these measures and a measure of executive function.
Participants: Children who have been born prematurely and low birth weight and who are being followed in the NICU, now DEC Follow-Up Clinic at OHSU. Children will be recruited from OHSU NICU and follow-up clinic. In addition, some children will be recruited from Salem Hospital and the full term children will be recruited in the local community and assessed at The Research Institute (TRI) at Western Oregon University.
Procedures: Children will be tested 3 times, once each year. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development III (Bayley, 2005) and the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ 17) will be administered in all three years. The Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000) will be added for year 2 and 3. The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function,Preschool version (BRIEF-P) (Gioia, Espy, Isquith, 2002) will be conducted in Year 3 of the study.
Measures: The Bayley -III takes between 1 and 2 hours to complete. The Dimension of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ) takes approximately 20 minutes depending on the age of the child. Older children, the questionnaire is longer but shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes to complete. These measures are given as part of routine follow-up through the NICU Follow-Up program. There are no additional interviews conducted. Scores from this measure are entered into a patient’s chart in EPIC. In addition, an already approved secure database (Blasco & Saxton, 2010) will store the scores and medical information needed for the study.
Data Analysis: In the first phase of Project EF (Years 1 and 2) and to test Hypothesis 1, we will use analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine differences among the LBW and preterm groups (at low and high risk) and the full-term sample on domains of early development BSID-III and DMQ-17. In the second phase of Project EF (Year 3), we will address Hypothesis 2 by using multiple regression to examine the relationship between children’s performance on these developmental measures and later performance on BRIEF-P and the CBC.
OHSU IRB # 11290 - P.I.: Patricia M. Blasco, PhD