, 2008; Julvez et al., 2007; Mortensen, Michaelsen, Sanders, & Reinisch, 2004). selleck chem inhibitor A deficit in intellectual function on the Stanford�CBinet was noted (Olds et al., 1994), and the pre-school�Caged offspring of women that quit smoking during pregnancy, relative to those that persisted, had more difficulties on the verbal scale of the McCarthy assessment even after controlling for other prenatal and postnatal variables (Sexton et al., 1990). In contrast, nicotine-associated decrements in mathematics and reading on the Peabody Individual Achievement Test in children from the United States were nonsignificant when accounting for maternal education (Batty et al., 2006). Socioeconomic factors appear to be responsible for the nicotine group differences in reading but not mathematics or spelling in Dutch adolescents (Batstra et al.

, 2003). Children with a history of in utero smoking exposure had more problems with maternally rated executive function. The BRIEF findings were quite robust with significant mean elevations in the NIC groups on the GEC, both indices, and six of the eight scales. Most notably, the difference between unexposed and nicotine-exposed children on the GEC were retained after removal of the variance attributable to several other potential confounds. The proportion of children scoring in the clinical range was also more frequent among NIC-exposed children on the Inhibit, Emotional Control, Organization, and Monitor scales.

It should be reiterated that executive function is conceptualized by the BRIEF developers as a broad construct mediated by the frontal cortex with its associated cortical and subcortical connections that is responsible for intentional, goal-directed, problem-solving behaviors (Gioia et al., 2000). A fundamental strength of this instrument, unlike single laboratory executive function tests, is that this measure can be completed relatively quickly and can assess nonoverlapping aspects of executive functioning. Furthermore, although elevations in BRIEF ratings are well known among children with ADHD (Gioia et al., 2000; McCandless & O��Laughlin, 2007), abnormalities in executive function are certainly not unique to this condition and have also been identified in extremely low birth weight Entinostat (Anderson & Doyle, 2004), FAS (Chasnoff et al., 2010), and children that experienced a traumatic brain injury (Sesma et al., 2008). While this is the first report to examine maternally assessed executive function in the offspring of smokers, there are prior studies with laboratory-based measures (Fried et al., 2003; Huizink & Mulder, 2006; Kristjansson et al., 1989), and the present finding of abnormalities in the offspring of smokers are generally concordant.