Identification of Neurodevelopmental Transition Patterns From Infancy to Early Childhood and Risk Factors Predicting Descending Transition: A Birth Cohort Study

It is unclear whether neurodevelopmental progress from infancy to early childhood remains stable. Moreover, little is known about the risk factors, if any, affecting neurodevelopmental descending transition patterns and the relationship between these patterns and later childhood adaptive behaviours. We used data of 875 children from the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort Study in Japan. Children’s neurodevelopment at 18 and 32 months and adaptive behaviours at 40 months were evaluated. Perinatal factors and infant overweight status at 18 months were investigated to identify descending-transition-associated risk factors. In the latent transition analysis, ultimately, three classes were identified for each time point, resulting in nine transition patterns; among them, 10.4% of children showed descending class shifts (normal to delayed class). Such decelerated growth was predicted by maternal pre-pregnancy overweight status (odds ratio [OR] = 2.49; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.23, 5.02), low maternal educational history (OR = 1.20; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.36), and infant overweight status at 18 months (OR = 5.89; 95% CI: 1.26, 27.45). Children with descending transition showed poor functioning in adaptive behaviours at the age of 40 months. Interventions targeting children with risk factors for descending transition patterns may prevent decelerated growth and subsequent poor adaptive functioning.