title: Social reasoning abilities in preterm and full-term children aged 5-7years.
abstract: Literature 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.
  
  
  
  The present study aimed to investigate the social understanding and social reasoning abilities in preterm children aged between 5 and 7years in comparison to their full-term peers.
  
  
  
  A 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.
  
  
  
  102 preterm children and 88 full-term children were included in the study.
  
  
  
  Compared 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.
  
  
  
  Preterm 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.
authors.affiliation: Child Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fleur
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lejeune
authors.affiliation: Child Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Division of Development and Growth, Department of Child and Adolescent, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Morgane
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Réveillon
authors.affiliation: Follow-up Unit, Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maryline
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Monnier
authors.affiliation: Division of Development and Growth, Department of Child and Adolescent, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Petra S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Hüppi
authors.affiliation: Division of Development and Growth, Department of Child and Adolescent, University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Borradori Tolsa
authors.affiliation: Child Clinical Neuropsychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Electronic address: Koviljka.Barisnikov@unige.ch.
authors.forename: Koviljka
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Barisnikov
mesh_terms: D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D056348:Emotional Intelligence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D013850:Thinking
keywords: Prematurity; Social knowledge; Social reasoning; Social rules