Social reasoning abilities in preterm and full-term children aged 5–7 years

•Social reasoning abilities in preterm children (GA < 32 wks) ages 5-7 were assessed with the “Social resolution task”.•Preterm children showed difficulties to judge, identify and reason about the transgression of conventional rules compared with full-terms.•Preterm children displayed more difficulties to understand socially inappropriate behaviors.•They used more irrelevant information, exhibited less social awareness when reasoning about the transgression of social rule.

BackgroundLiterature has evidenced behavioral and socio-emotional problems in preterm children, as well as long-term difficulties to establish and maintain social relationships in preterm population. Several studies have shown relations between behavior and social reasoning abilities in typically developing children and adults.AimThe present study aimed to investigate the social understanding and social reasoning abilities in preterm children aged between 5 and 7 years in comparison to their full-term peers.Study designA social resolution task (SRT) was used to assess abilities to judge, identify and reason about others' behavior in relation to conventional and moral rules knowledge.Subjects102 preterm children and 88 full-term children were included in the study.ResultsCompared with their full-term peers, preterm children exhibited difficulties to understand and reason about inappropriate social behavior, particularly for situations related to the transgression of conventional rules. They used more irrelevant information and exhibited less social awareness when reasoning about the transgression of social rules.The only significant predictor for global SRT and social reasoning scores was the mental processing composite of the K-ABC, but the part of the variance of the SRT that could be explained by the general cognitive abilities was relatively small.ConclusionPreterm children demonstrated poorer social knowledge and social reasoning abilities compared with full-term children at early school age. Improving such abilities may reduce behavioral difficulties and peer relationship problems often described in the preterm population. These findings emphasize the need to early identify children at risk for impaired social development.