Background: Preterm infants are at greater risk of developmental impairment and require close follow-up for early and optimal care.
Objectives: The objective of the present study was to determine from which age the parental Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) allows detection of school difficulties in preterm children <35 weeks' gestational age.
Methods: Preterm children from the regional Loire Infant Follow-up Team network were evaluated with the Global School Adaptation (GSA) assessment tool at 5 years of age and at least one parental-completed ASQ at 18, 24, or 36 months. Children belonging to the first decile of the GSA score (<38) were considered to have severe school difficulties. Using overall ASQ scores as continuous variables, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated at every age in order to identify preterm children with severe school difficulties.
Results: GSA scores were obtained in 1,775 infants at 5 years of age, and at least one ASQ score at 18, 24, or 36 months was completed. Upon ROC analysis, we observed that the 18-, 24-, and 36-month ASQ scores produced respective area under the ROC curve values of 0.66 (0.64-0.69), 0.72 (0.70-0.75), and 0.77 (0.75-0.80) for predicting a GSA score in the first decile. An ASQ cutoff value of 255 at 36 months showed optimal discriminatory power for identifying significant school difficulties at 5 years of age.
Conclusions: The 36-month ASQ is a simple and cost-effective tool that can be employed to help predict future severe school difficulties at 5 years of age in preterm-born children.