By: Victoria Breithaupt
I am Victoria Breithaupt and am majoring is nursing and minoring in psychology at FranU. My ultimate goal is to become a NICU nurse and to help not only the NICU babies, but also the parents with their mental and emotional state too.
Are you or have you know a NICU baby? If you are or know people who were NICU babies did they or you have a learning disability? Since a NICU baby is born earlier than expected, they might not have everything fully developed and could cause problems later down the road with learning certain skills in school. For instance, a child that had a lower birth weight or gestational age is more likely to have a learning disability. One of the learning disabilities that the child could have would be being able to read.
Locomotor subscale evaluates the gross motor skills. Personal-Social subscale evaluates the ability of activities in daily living, independence, and also being able to interact with other children. Performance subscale is the visuospatial skills like their pace when working and precision. This topic matters because if a child is diagnosed wit ha learning disability earlier in life, then the child will be able to have more resources or help when it comes to academics. The earlier the diagnosis, then the child will struggle less in school because the child could be in a program or school that is designed to help students with learning disabilities. This is important for my topic because it supports my idea that NICU babies can develop learning disabilities and were studied at different ages like 2 and up in order to see the different levels of difficulties that the students were dealing with.
Infants that were born at 35-36 weeks gestation did not show any signs of a lower academic score, while infants that were born at 32-34 weeks gestation showed lower academic scores. Children that were born earlier show difficulties in math and if the children were born very early, then they showed slower reaction times in nonsymbiotic magnitude comparisons and delays in knowledge of numbers. When babies were 18 months of age, they were tested with the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development language composite and also the children's lexical processing speed in the looking-while-listening task. The children were also tested with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test when they were 36 months. Babies that are born earlier are scoring lower on tests that are designed to assess their abilities.
Patients or teachers seeing children having difficulties in school and trying to find a solution to the problem in order for them to do better in school and be more successful. The parents getting the child tested for a learning disability and trying to get them help with their school work. Once parents know how to help their children with a learning disability, then it will make the child's academic life so much better. Once a child is diagnosed, then it takes a lot of the weight off the parent's, but also the child's back too. If a parent of teacher knows that their baby or student was a NICU baby, then that could give them some insight into the assistance that they need in order for them to thrive in their school work. Bein a NICU baby will come with a lot of struggles, but being diagnosed with a learning disability can be one of the struggles.
Squarza, C., Picciolini, O., Gardon, L., Giannì, M. L., Murru, A., Gangi, S., Cortinovis, I., Milani, S., & Mosca, F. (2016). Learning disabilities in extremely low birth weight children and neurodevelopmental profiles at preschool age. Frontiers in Psychology, 7.
Church, P. T., Dahan, M., Rule, A., Janvier, A., Stewart, J. E., Maypole, J. S., Fehlings, D., Litt, J. S., & Banihani, R. (2024). NICU Language, Everyday Ethics, and Giving Better News: Optimizing Discussions about Disability with Families. Children, 11(2), 242. https://doi-org.ezproxy.franu.edu/10.3390/children11020242
LOCK, N. E. et al. Academic performance in moderately and late preterm children in the United States: are they catching up? Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association, [s. l.], v. 44, n. 6, p. 819–826, 2024. DOI 10.1038/s41372-024-01938-y. Disponível em: https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.franu.edu/linkprocessor/plink?id=901f94c2-012c-3085-896e-5eacfe53dc92. Acesso em: 9 maio. 2025.
Guarini, A., Tobia, V., Bonifacci, P., Faldella, G., & Sansavini, A. (2021). Magnitude Comparisons, Number Knowledge and Calculation in Very Preterm Children and Children with Specific Learning Disability: A Cross-Population Study Using Eye-Tracking. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 54(2), 83–96. https://doi-org.ezproxy.franu.edu/10.1177/0022219420950651
Marchman, V. A., Adams, K. A., Loi, E. C., Fernald, A., & Feldman, H. M. (2016). Early language processing efficiency predicts later receptive vocabulary outcomes in children born preterm. Child Neuropsychology, 22(6), 649–665. https://doi-org.ezproxy.franu.edu/10.1080/09297049.2015.1038987
https://michaclark.com/nicu/the-importance-of-developmental-care-in-the-nicu/
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