Intrauterine Exposure to Cocaine, Tobacco, Marijuana Doesn’t Affect Academic Scores.

Researchers from the BU Schools of Public Health and Medicine, along with Boston Medical Center, have found children’s academic achievement test scores were not affected by intrauterine exposure to cocaine, tobacco or marijuana.

However, alcohol exposure in children who had no evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) did lead to lower scores in math reasoning and spelling, even after controlling for other intrauterine substance exposures and contextual factors. These findings currently appear online in the journal Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies.

There has been widespread concern that intrauterine cocaine exposure (IUCE) may have harmful effects on children’s academic performance, particularly at higher grades that require abstract reasoning and greater attention and control. Also unresolved is whether other intrauterine exposures, such as alcohol (IUAE), tobacco, and marijuana, which often co-occur with IUCE, independently affect children’s academic abilities after controlling for other exposures.

Academic achievement scores from the Wechsler Individual 15 Achievement Test-Second Edition (WIAT-II) were collected from 119 low-income, urban 11 year olds who had been enrolled in a prospective longitudinal study of IUCE. The results indicate that neither IUCE nor intrauterine exposure to marijuana or tobacco was associated with lower scores.

“Our results are consistent with growing evidence that IUCE exposure does not independently predict poorer achievement scores in school-aged children exposed to multiple other substance exposures and psychosocial stressors,” explained lead author Ruth Rose-Jacobs, associate professor of pediatrics at BUSM and a research scientist at BMC.

However, according to Rose-Jacobs, the negative associations of alcohol exposure on arithmetic reasoning and spelling were significant, given that the analyses had controlled for other substances; the children did not have FAS and had not been born preterm, which might negatively influence achievement scores. The relationship between IUAE and achievement scores in this sample was partially explained by the Children’s Depression Inventory, the authors said. Children’s depressive symptoms could precede, or be a response to, school achievement difficulties.

But whatever the pathway, relatively low achievement scores of children with IUAE are of potential educational importance, Rose-Jacobs said.

“Study finding suggest the children with histories of even low-level IUAE who experience school difficulties should be evaluated particularly for arithmetic skills and depressive symptoms and offered enhanced educational methods (or) interventions tailored to their needs,” she said.

Study co-authors affiliated with BUSPH include: Timothy Heeren, professor of biostatistics; Howard J. Cabral, associate professor of biostatistics; and Brett Martin, statistical manager of the Data Coordinating Center.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Center for Research Resources and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Submitted by: Lisa Chedekel

chedekel@bu.edu