During the next five years, Case Western Reserve University psychologist Lynn Singer, Ph.D., and her research collaborators will track one of the largest groups of cocaine-exposed children in the nation at 9, 10, 11 and 12 years of age.

These children will be compared to children not exposed to cocaine to assess the risks of prenatal exposure to cocaine and to assess the role of the environment on the outcome of drug-exposed children at school age.

These children have been followed since birth. In prior studies of this group which numbers 376 children, the researchers found that prenatal cocaine exposure was associated with poorer fetal growth, neonatal attentional abnormalities, less developed cognitive skills at 2 years, and poorer general knowledge/arithmetic and visual spatial skills at 4 years.

This continuation of their research is supported by a new $4.9 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one of the National Institutes of Health. The grant will take the researchers up to their 14th year of funding.

Singer is a professor at the Case School of Medicine, and interim provost and university vice president at Case. Her collaborators include Barbara Lewis, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics, Betsy Short, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, Sandra Russ, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Lester Kirchner, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, Sonia Minnes, research associate, and Mee Young Oh-Min, research associate, all of Case, and Nancy Klein, professor at Cleveland State University.

Source: Case Western Reserve University News Release