Objective: This study aimed to investigate visual motor integration in children with late premature birth history at the elementary school ages.

Materials and Methods: This matched case-control study was carried out at students attending to I and II. grades of elementary school through evaluation of visual-motor integration levels of 29 children in premature group who were born at late gestational ages (gestational age≥32 weeks) without major cognitive or physical/motor disabilities. The control group was composed of 29 healthy children with term birth history who were mached whith the premature group in terms of school, grade, gender and chronological age. The Ayres’ design copying test was used assess visual-motor integration level. This children’s parental education and current employment status were recorded.

Results: Statistically significant difference was found in between the groups with regard to design copying outcome (P=0.017). Premature cases shown lower visual-motor integration performance than the peers born at term. In subgroup analysis, significant difference for the design copying was found only in the prematurely borned students attending to I. grade (P=0.026). In the premature group, there were important positive associations in between the design copying outcome with maternal education, maternal employment status and school grade (r= 0.427, P=0.022; r= 0.394, P=0.034; r= 0.407, P=0.028, respectively). Maternal education was detected to be a significant predictor of the visual-motor abilities following premature born (P=0.049).

Conclusion: Visual-motor integration impairments may be observed at elementary school ages in children with late premature birth history. Low educational status-especially low maternal education-negatively may affect the visual-motor integration ability of the children who are born prematurely.