The development of executive function in children exposed to alcohol in utero: An exploratory study
Year: 2007
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Children who have been exposed to alcohol in utero have well documented deficits in executive function.However, previous research in the field has not situated the executive deficits displayed by these children within a developmental framework.The present study endeavoured to address this shortcoming by investigating the development of executive function in children exposed to alcohol in utero, through the use of 10 subtests from the NEPSY that assess attention and executive function.It was hypothesised that the executive abilities of children would mature with age.In addition, it was hypothesised that children who were exposed to alcohol in utero would display deficits in executive function and that these deficits would become more pronounced with age.The study made use of cross-sectional design that compared the performance of younger children (6-to 7-year-olds) with that of older children (12-to 13-year-olds) on various measures of executive function.Within this, it made use of a natural experimental design, with children exposed to alcohol in utero as the experimental group and non-exposed children as the control group.Participants were recruited from a school and a clinic in two towns in the Western Cape.Twenty children with confirmed in utero exposure to alcohol took part in the study.Twenty non-exposed volunteers constituted the control group.These two groups were each divided equally into two age groups: 6-to 7-year-olds and 12-to 13-year-olds.The Health Professions Council of South Africa's regulations with regard to research was adhered to.Two-way factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilised for each subtest of the NEPSY to investigate the main effects of age group (6-to 7-year-olds and 12-to 13-year-olds) and exposure (exposed and non-exposed) as well as any interaction effects.Significant interaction effects were evident on the Tower subtest, the Auditory Attention task, the Auditory Response Set task and the accuracy score of the Visual Attention subtest of the NEPSY.In concordance with previous research in the field, the executive abilities of children were found to improve with age.Incidental findings suggested that the executive abilities of children exposed to alcohol in utero may develop at a slower rate than those of non-exposed children.Furthermore, the findings of the present study suggest that children exposed to alcohol in utero present with deficits in executive function which dissipates with age.The findings are discussed in terms of theories of recovery of function after brain damage.Special thanks goes to Dr Gordon Emmerson for his advice on the statistical analysis.Finally, I would like to thank all the participants in this study, their caregivers, and the gatekeepers at the relevant institutions.Without their enthusiastic participation this study could not have taken place.
Author: Tania Badenhorst
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2283383710