Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict which prematurely born infants are at risk of later academic impairment, scientists say.
Children who are born prematurely are more likely to have low mathematical achievement in school, due to reduced working memory and number skills, researchers said.
Researchers assessed up to 224 preterm children in Australia at age five and age seven to examine the use of MRI after birth to identify infants at risk of later academic impairment.
The researchers suggest that identifying infants at risk for low mathematical achievement at school age would assist clinicians in directing families to targeted early intervention and surveillance for educational difficulties many years before impairment is detected in school.
Neonatal MRI is a useful method of predicting cognitive outcome in preterm children, according to the study.
The researchers were looking for associations between diffusion MRI and local brain volumes on neonatal MRI with number skills and working memory in childhood.
Neonatal brain microstructure was positively associated with working memory scores in childhood, while increasing tissue volumes in the left insula and putamen regions of the neonatal Jacobian map were positively associated with higher number skills scores in childhood.
This meant they were able to identify brain microstructure and regions in the neonatal brain that are associated with childhood mathematical learning.
"Our findings demonstrate that brain microstructure and increased tissue volumes in regions located around the insula and putamen during the neonatal period are associated with better early mathematics in preterm children," said co-author Henrik Ullman, from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
"This knowledge could assist in identifying infants at risk of mild academic impairments who would benefit from monitoring and referral to early intervention," said co-author Megan Spencer-Smith, from Monash University in Australia.
"Such an approach could assist in reducing the number of preterm children performing below their peers in mathematics," Spencer-Smith said.
"The study also suggests that identifying these children early could reduce behavioural and emotional problems in childhood, as well as reducing well-being and mental health problems in adulthood," she said.
The study was published in the journal Brain.
