1. Objectifs

Intentions :
The objective of this study was to «[...] asses[s] the relationship between maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy and cognitive abilities in adolescent offspring [...].» (p. 158)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
503 adolescents de 12 à 18 ans

Instruments :
The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III
Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III)
The Stories Immediate, Stories Delayed and Stories Recognition subtests of Children’s Memory Scale (CMS)
Self Ordered Pointing Task
Ruff 2-&-7 Selective Attention Test
Stroop Color-Word Test
NEPSY Verbal Fluency test
Grooved Pegboard Test
Puberty Development Scale (PDS)
Other questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Non-exposed adolescents (controls) were matched to exposed adolescents (cases) by maternal education and school attended. Cognitive abilities were evaluated using a neuropsychological battery consisting of 33 tasks measuring verbal abilities, visuospatial skills, verbal and visual memory, processing speed, resistance to interference and motor dexterity. We found no differences between cases and controls in any of the cognitive domains whether potential confounders were included in the model or not. In addition to maternal smoking during pregnancy, we also evaluated the effect of sex and age on the various cognitive abilities in this large adolescent sample and found that most of the abilities continue to improve during adolescence to the same extent in girls and boys, with several age-independent sex differences. We found no effect of maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy on cognitive abilities of the adolescent offspring when matching cases and controls by maternal education, the most common confounder of maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy.» (p. 158)