Preterm children have unfavorable motor, cognitive, and functional performance when compared to term children of preschool age.

Objective: to compare the motor coordination, cognitive, and functional development of preterm and term children at the age of 4 years.

Methods: this was a cross-sectional study of 124 four-year-old children, distributed in two different groups, according to gestational age and birth weight, paired by gender, age, and socioeconomic level. All children were evaluated by the Movement Assessment Battery for Children - second edition (MABC-2), the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI), and the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS).