THE DEVELOPMENTAL IMPLICATIONS OF PRENATAL AND OR POSTNATAL CRACK COCAINE EXPOSURE IN PRESCHOOL-CHILDREN - A PRELIMINARY-REPORT/

Previous studies examining the development of prenatally cocaine-expos ed children through 3 years of age have found no significant differenc es between exposed and control groups, This study explored the develop mental correlates of prenatal and/or postnatal crack cocaine exposure in children between 4 and 6 years of age, Three groups were studied: G roup I, 18 prenatally-exposed children whose mothers continue to use c rack; Group II, 28 children without prenatal exposure whose mothers pr esently use crack; and Group III, 28 children whose mothers never used crack. Mothers were street-recruited and were comparable in race and socioeconomic status. The three groups of children did not differ on n eurological gross motor and expressive language measures. However, pre natally exposed children performed significantly worse than others on receptive language and visual motor drawing tests. Prenatal crack expo sure predicted poor visual motor performance even after control for in trauterine alcohol and marijuana exposure, age, birth weight, and dura tion of maternal crack use.