3.+Cognitive+Effects

= The cognitive effects of cocaine use during pregnancy =

Prenatal cocaine exposure may effect children's intelligence, language, and spatial working memory.

**__ Intelligence __**

===There are many studies to suggest that children develop cognitive difficulties if exposed to cocaine early in life. When looking at general intelligence, a study by Richardson, Goldschmidt, & Willford (2009) looked into 38.5 month (approximately 2.5 years) old children in terms of intelligence. First-trimester cocaine exposure predicted lower short-term memory scores and lower scores on intelligence tests. Morrow et al. (2006) assessed the intelligence of older children up to age seven. A total of 212 cocaine-exposed children were investigated and were found to have 2.8 times greater risk of developing a learning disability by age seven. This shows that prenatal cocaine exposure may negatively effect the general intelligence of children up to age seven, which suggests long-term effects. ===

These cognitive effects are also demonstrated is through language issues. The most prominent research in infants exposed to cocaine in-utero involves effects on their language, discussed next.



__ Language __
The first study by Lewis et al. (2007) looked at pre-school children whose mothers used cocaine when pregnant. They compared these children with those children not exposed to the drug, and followed both groups of children at birth and at ages one, two, four and six. The authors found that prenatal cocaine exposure had a negative effect on language skills, with the cocaine-exposed children showing language deficits compared to non-exposed children. This study suggests that there is a negative effect of cocaine exposure in-utero on language abilities in children.

Another study by Bandstra et al. (2001) found similar effects, comparing non-exposed children and cocaine-exposed children. When evaluating language, they also found that there is an effect of cocaine on language functioning through to six years old. S tudies do seem to suggest that children who are exposed in utero to cocaine suffer negative effects on their language abilities.

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__ **Spatial Working Memory** __
Moving away from language deficits, there are other cognitive problems associated with children who were exposed to cocaine in-utero. One study by Mayes et al. (2007) looked at spatial working memory in 8- to 10-year old children who were exposed prenatally to cocaine, compared with those children who were not exposed. The children completed a computer-based hidden maze learning test and their correct moves were scored. This study found that children exposed to cocaine prenatally seemed to exhibit impairment in learning this type of test, which can indicate deficits in spatial working memory. These children, overall, learned the maze at a slower pace than the other children and navigated through the maze with a higher number of errors.

Agreeing with this study, Dehn (2010) comments that other studies have shown that cocaine exposure in-utero increases impairments in both short-term and long-term visuospatial memory (p. 122). He also comments that prenatal alcohol exposure seems to negatively effect the hippocampus and may reduce consolidation of initial learning, indicating cognitive effects of the drug.

Overall, “research on the cognitive effects of prenatal cocaine exposure has been limited and has produced inconsistent results (Dehn, 2010, p. 122).”