Antecedents and Correlates of Improved Cognitive Performance in Children Exposed in Utero to Low Levels of Lead

By Bellinger, David

Book Id: WPLBN0000217021
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 0.4 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Antecedents and Correlates of Improved Cognitive Performance in Children Exposed in Utero to Low Levels of Lead
Author:	Bellinger, David
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Government publications, United Nations., United Nations. Office for Disarmament Affairs
Collections:	Government Library Collection, Disarmament Documents
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	United Nations- Office for Disarmament Affairs (Unoda)


Citation APA MLA Chicago Bellinger, D. (n.d.). Antecedents and Correlates of Improved Cognitive Performance in Children Exposed in Utero to Low Levels of Lead. Retrieved from http://self.gutenberg.org/

Description
Government Reference Publication

Excerpt
Introduction: In our prospective study of lead and cognitive development, children with high umbilical cord blood lead levels (10-25 pgldL) achieved significantly lower Mental Development Index scores through 2 years of age than did infants whose cord blood lead levels were low (< 3 pg1dL) or medium (6-7 pg1dL) (1). In contrast to the results of the infant assessments, cord blood lead level was not significantly related to children?s performance on the McCarthy Scales of Children?s bitiiast age 57 months (2). These data may be explained in several ways. First, between 24 and 57 months of age, children recover from, or at least compensate for, the insult represented by high prenatal lead exposure. A variant of this is that the extent of recovery or compensation varies among children. Such a contingency might be difficult to appreciate using analytical approaches that focus only on differences in the mean recovery of groups defined by prenatal exposure level. Finding that the likelihood of recovery is systematically related to some characteristic or event would be particularly important from the standpoint of intervention.