Conclusion : Positive clinical ly meaningful effects ( > 5 points ) are seen to an age of 36 months , but are no longer present at 5 years
Objective : To determine in a systematic review , whether interventions for infant development that involve parents , improve neurodevelopment at 12 months corrected age or older .
Early intervention promotes intellectual development of premature infants: a preliminary report. Early Intervention of Premature Infants Cooperative Research Group.
OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of early intervention on the intellectual development of the premature infants . METHODS Premature infants at gestational age of 28 - 36.9 weeks were r and omly divided into two groups : intervention and conventional care groups . Normal newborn infants during the same period were included in the control group ( routine care ) . Up to March 1996 , 156 cases were over the age 1.5 - 2 years ( corrected age ) , 52 in the intervention group , 51 in the conventional care group and 53 in the normal control group . Parents were taught to carry out the 0 - 2 year intervention program , which included motor , cognitive , speech development and social behavior . Every three months , height , weight and head circumference were measured . At the age of one and a half and two years , all infants in the three groups received infant development tests of Child Development Center of China ( CDCC ) scale . The examiner did not know which infant had received intervention . RESULTS There was no significant difference in biological factors among the two premature groups and in cultural and social factors among the three groups . Intelligence tests at the age of one and a half and two years showed that the average mental development index ( MDI ) in the intervention group was 13.8 and 14.6 higher than those in the conventional care group and the differences were significant . The psychomotor development index ( PDI ) was 5.2 and 4.7 higher but the differences were not significant . The MDI and PDI in the intervention group and normal control were quite close , but at two years , the MDI and PDI in the intervention group were 5.7 and 7.3 higher than those in the normal control and the differences were significant ( P < 0.05 ) . Compared with the normal control , the MDI in conventional care group at one and a half and two years of age were 11.5 and 8.9 lower . The difference was very significant . There were four cases of mental retardation , whose mental development index ( MDI ) was less then 70 in the conventional care group , but none in the intervention group . CONCLUSIONS Early intervention can promote intellectual development of the premature infants and may be beneficial to the prevention of mental retardation . Early and intensive intervention can produce better results . Bringing parent 's initiative into full play through deepening their underst and ing of the importance of early intervention is the key to success
Conclusion : Positive clinical ly meaningful effects ( > 5 points ) are seen to an age of 36 months , but are no longer present at 5 years
Objective : To determine in a systematic review , whether interventions for infant development that involve parents , improve neurodevelopment at 12 months corrected age or older .