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Sustained attention problems in children with early treated congenital hypothyroidism
Author(s) -
Kooistra L,
Meere JJ van der,
Vulsma T,
Kalverboer AF
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1996.tb14054.x
Subject(s) - medicine , congenital hypothyroidism , task (project management) , pediatrics , stage (stratigraphy) , audiology , thyroid , paleontology , economics , biology , management
Sustained attention was studied in 48 children with early treated congenital hypothyroidism and 35 healthy controls, using a computer‐paced and a self‐paced continuous performance task. The performance of the patients, particularly those in the low T4 group (38 patients with T4 levels < 50 nmol/1 at neonatal screening), declined in the final stage of the computer‐paced task, suggesting a problem in remaining attentive over time. The performance of all children declined in the first and improved in the final stage of the self‐paced task. This pattern was most pronounced in the low T4 group, reflecting greater variability in their task performance over time, again indicating a problem in sustaining attention. No correlation was found between onset of treatment and sustained attention. The small size of the intermediate T4 group (10 patients with T4 levels ≥ 250 nmol/1 at neonatal screening) made the results more difficult to interpret and may have concealed a problem with sustained attention in this group.