Abstract
Regarding our recent publication, “Association of lifetime exposure to fluoride and cognitive functions in Chinese children: A pilot study” [Neurotoxicology and Teratology 47 (2015) 96–101], the authors wish to correct the following errors in the reported results.
The last statement reported in 3. Results should be “Marginal significant mean differences in forward and total digit span scores were found between children with very mild/mild fluorosis and children with moderate/severe fluorosis.”
In addition, the footnote c in Table 5 should be “c?Significant mean difference between the 2 categories: very mild/mild and moderate/severe at 0.05 < p < 0.10.”
Table 5. Adjusted meansa (95% confidence intervals) of the neuropsychological tests by Dean Index among the 51 children.
| Tests | Normal/questionable N = 8 |
Fluorosisb Very mild/mild N = 9 |
Moderate/severe N = 26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WRAML | |||
| Finger windows | 9.29 (6.65, 11.9) | 10.2 (7.53, 12.9) | 9.76 (7.44, 12.1) |
| Visual learning total (Trials 1–4) | 10.5 (5.55, 15.4) | 11.5 (6.49, 16.6) | 11.2 (6.86, 15.5) |
| Visual learning delay | 3.40 (1.15, 5.65) | 3.90 (1.60, 6.20) | 4.0 (2.02, 6.0) |
| Visual learning difference (Trials 1–4 delay) | ? 0.23 (? 1.80, 1.35) | ? 1.64 (? 3.25, ? 0.03)c? | ? 0.13 (? 1.51, 1.25)c? |
| Design memory | 16.5 (10.9, 22.0) | 19.5 (13.9, 25.2) | 20.2 (15.4, 25.1) |
| WISC-R | |||
| Squareroot block design | 2.22 (1.17, 3.27) | 2.81 (1.74, 3.88) | 2.54 (1.62, 3.46) |
| Digit span | |||
| Forward | 9.38 (7.75, 11.0) | 8.76 (7.09, 10.4)c? | 7.24 (5.81, 8.67)c? |
| Backward | 3.20 (1.88, 4.51)d?? | 1.86 (0.51, 3.20) | 1.07 (? 0.08, 2.22)d?? |
| Total | 12.6 (10.1, 15.0)d?? | 10.6 (8.11, 13.1)c? | 8.31 (6.15,10.5)c??d?? |
| WRAMA drawing | 12.1 (9.98, 14.2) | 14.1 (11.9, 16.2) | 13.3 (11.5, 15.1) |
| Finger tapping | |||
| Preferred hand | 29.5 (25.3, 33.6) | 29.5 (25.3, 33.8) | 28.7 (25.0, 32.3) |
| Non-preferred hand | 24.7 (21.3, 28.0) | 29.8 (26.4, 33.2) | 28.8 (25.8, 31.7) |
| Grooved pegboard | |||
| log10 dominant hand | 1.97 (1.90, 2.07) | 1.98 (1.89, 2.06) | 2.02 (1.95, 2.10) |
| log10 non-dominant hand | 2.06 (2.0, 2.14) | 2.04 (1.97, 2.12) | 2.06 (1.99, 2.12) |
a Adjusted for child’s sex, age, parity, illness before 3 years old, household income last year, and caretaker’s age and education.
b As indicated by the Dean Index.
c. Significant mean difference between the 2 categories: Very mild/mild and moderate/severe at 0.05 < p < 0.10.
d.. Significant mean difference between the 2 categories: Normal/questionable and moderate/severe at p < 0.05.