The main purpose of this study was to compare the psychomotor development of five-year-old children born preterm and full term. The comparison included physical-motor, perceptual-motor, and socio-relational and affective skills. As low weight is one of the variables that most influences the psychomotor development of premature infants, a secondary aim was to analyze these skills according to their current body mass index (BMI). A prospective simple ex-post facto study was conducted. The sample consisted of 672 five-year-old children enrolled in the third year of early childhood education in the province of Albacete, Spain; 35 of them was born prematurely. Children were evaluated by their teachers using the Checklist of Psychomotor Activities (CPA). The results show that children born preterm had a lower development of their physical-motor skills. In the perceptual-motor field, premature children showed lower scores in the variables related to their body image and body schema, motor dissociation, and visual-motor coordination, as well as in socio-relational and affective aspects. However, the development in laterality, dynamic coordination, motor execution, tonic-postural control, and balance were not affected. These differences were not affected by the current weight, given that the analysis of the BMI indicated no differences in preterm children. This study demonstrated the need to establish protocols oriented to the prevention of the difficulties detected in children with psychomotor high-risk and the needs to reinforce the educational programs in this area to improve the integral development of children born preterm.
Keywords: body mass index; perceptual-motor skills; physical-motor skills; preterm children; socio-relational skills.