This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Alfred A. Baumeister, PhD
Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tenn

Verne R. Bacharach, PhD
Appalachian State University Boone, NC

JAMA. 1997;277(16):1278.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The Infant Health and Development Program^1-3 (IHDP) was designed to avert developmental problems associated with premature, low-birth-weight (LBW) infants. Included were 985 infants—one third randomly assigned to intervention, the others to follow-up. Interventions were home visitation following discharge and, at 12 months, parent meetings and center-based education for 2 years.

When the children were 36 months old, substantial effects were reported: an advantage of 13.2 IQ points for heavier (2001-2500 g) and 6.6 for lighter infants (<2000 g).¹ The authors claimed "substantial promise of decreasing the number of LBW premature infants at risk for later developmental disability."¹

Reevaluation conducted at 5 years showed initial differences had vanished.² The exception was that heavier LBW children apparently maintained a 3.7-point IQ advantage (P=.03). But summary data deposited with the National Auxiliary Publication Service (NAPS) indicated this difference was 3.0 points (P=.09), not statistically . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?