Visual recognition memory: a predictor of later cognitive functioning in preterms.

A number of preterms who had participated in a study of visual recognition memory when they were 6 months of age were seen at older ages to assess the predictive validity of the early visual measures for cognitive outcome. The Bayley scales were administered at 6, 12, and 24 months, the Stanford-Binet at 34 and 40 months, and the WISC-R at 6 years. Novelty scores, which reflect the relative amount of time infants look at new compared to familiar stimuli, constituted the measure of infant visual processing. These scores, obtained by averaging over performance on the 3 or 4 problems administered at 6 months of age, were consistently and significantly related to cognitive measures from 24 months to 6 years, with correlations ranging from r = .53 to r = .66. Parental education, which was unrelated to novelty scores, bore a strong relationship to outcome beginning at 24 months. Although both measures contributed uniquely to the variance in cognitive outcome at 24 months and 6 years, visual novelty scores made a stronger contribution than did parental education. Neither 6- nor 12-month Bayley scores, nor various perinatal variables, were related to outcome.