The Developmental Pathways of Preschool Children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Communicative and Social Sequelae One Year after Treatment
by
Marta Tremolada 1,2,*,†
, Livia Taverna 3,†, Sabrina Bonichini 1, Marta Pillon 2 and Alessandra Biffi 2
Marta Tremolada 1,2,*,†, Livia Taverna 3,†, Sabrina Bonichini 1, Marta Pillon 2 and Alessandra Biffi 2
1
Department of Development and Social Psychology, University of Padua, 35131 Padova, Italy
2
Department of Women and Child’s Health, Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant Center, University of Padua, 35127 Padova, Italy
3
Faculty of Education, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39042 Brixen-Bressanone, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Children 2019, 6(8), 92; https://doi.org/10.3390/children6080092
Received: 14 July 2019 / Revised: 2 August 2019 / Accepted: 11 August 2019 / Published: 13 August 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pediatric Acute Myeloid Leukemia: Current Management and Future Directions)
Early childhood is considered to be a period of rapid development, with the acquisition of abilities predicting future positive school competences. Motor, cognitive, and social difficulties related to cancer therapies heavily impact the development of children with cancer. This study focused on two main aims: To assess the developmental pathways of preschool children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia one year post-treatment and to compare these abilities both with those of a control group of healthy peers and with Italian norms. Forty-four children and their families, recruited through the Hematology-Oncologic Clinic of the Department of Child and Woman Health (University of Padua), agreed to participate in this study. The children’s mean age was 4.52 years (SD = 0.94, range = 2.5–6 years), equally distributed by gender, all diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Matched healthy peers were recruited through pediatricians’ ambulatories. Each family was interviewed adopting the Vineland adaptive behavior scales. Paired sample Wilcoxon tests revealed that children were reported to have significantly more developmental difficulties than their healthy peers. When compared with Italian norms, they scored particularly low in verbal competence, social, and coping skills. No significant association was found between treatment variables and developmental abilities. These findings suggest that the creation of specialized interventions, both for parents and children, may fill the possible delays in children’s development probably due to stress, lack of adequate stimulation, or difficult adaptation.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
preschool; leukemia; adaptive behavior; developmental skills; healthy peers
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Tremolada, M.; Taverna, L.; Bonichini, S.; Pillon, M.; Biffi, A. The Developmental Pathways of Preschool Children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Communicative and Social Sequelae One Year after Treatment. Children 2019, 6, 92.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
