PRETERM BIRTH AND COGNITIVE INHIBITION

A group of 12 healthy preterm 12-year-old children born before 33 week s of gestational age and enrolled in a normal school program was compa red with three control groups : two groups of children born at full te rm and in normal education in ''sixieme'' (29 children) and in ''cinqu ieme'' (27 children) in French schools ; one group of 11 adolescents p resenting frontal lobe lesions without perception disorders. Results o f two tasks, the Hanoi tower (3 disks) and the stroop, do not indicate that preterm children perform differently from normal term children i n the control group. The group of adolescents suffering from frontal l obe lesions requires significantly more moves to successfully resolve the tower of Hanoi problem and more time to accomplish the Stroop task . The preterm childrens' results are discussed in terms of discontinui ty in cognitive inhibition development, placing less emphasis on the f rontal syndrome metaphor to explain their performance.