Cognitive Development in the Failure-to-Thrive Infant: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Groups of nonorganic failure-to-thrive, organic failure-to-thrive, and normal control infants were assessed in the first year of life with visual recognition memory tasks and the Bayley Mental Scale of Infant Development. Follow-up evaluations were completed at 20 months of age with the Bayley Mental Scale and at 3 years with the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Both groups of failure-to-thrive infants showed major developmental lags at outcome, with nonorganic failure-to-thrive infants functioning intellectually in the borderline range and organic failure-to-thrive infants functioning in the mildly retarded range at 3 years of age. For the entire sample, outcome was reliably associated with parental educational level which in turn was related to the number of caretaking placements an infant had experienced outside the home. Placement outside the home also was confounded with birth weight and gestational age. Both Bayley Mental Scale scores at 8 and 20 months, and visual recognition memory test scores, were reliable predictors of 3-year outcome.