Development of Intelligence and Memory in Children With Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Although substantial data exist regarding the consequences of early lateralized cerebral lesions on intelligence and language ability, little is known about the development of other cognitive functions after such lesions. We examined the development of both verbal and nonverbal memory in 82 hemiplegic children, grouped according to hemispheric side of injury and presence or absence of seizure disorder. The control group consisted of 41 age-matched normal children, most of them siblings of the patients. Measures were obtained of intelligence and of immediate and delayed recall for prose passages, word paired associates and geometric designs. Electrophysiological and neuroradiological measures were available for a majority of the patients. The scores of the hemiplegic children on the IQ and memory tests did not exhibit the pattern seen in brain-damaged adults, in that the children's deficits showed no relation to hemispheric side of damage. Indeed, early cerebral damage to either hemisphere, even if extensive, resulted in relatively few and mild deficits if the damage was unaccompanied by seizure activity. By contrast, early lateralized lesions that were accompanied by a seizure disorder resulted in both a high incidence and degree of deficit that was unrelated to lesion side.

Differential Effects of Unilateral Lesions on Language Production in Children and Adults

“…Finally, there are occasional differences across these studies in the statistical methods employed (e.g., whether children with LHD vs RHD were compared directly, using inferential statistics, or compared indirectly, sometimes using separate controls for each lesion group-for a discussion of these analytic issues, see Bishop, 1983). It is worth noting in this regard that our results for language outcomes in children with congenital, unilateral strokes are quite compatible with reports by other investigators for the same population, using methods similar to ours (e.g., Vargha-Khadem et al, 1992, 1994.…”

“…In fact, in the absence of confounding factors (e.g., intractable seizures-Vargha-Khadem, Isaacs, van der Werf, Robb, & Wilson, 1992), children with early left-hemisphere injuries almost always go on to acquire language abilities within the normal or low-normal range. Even more surprising from the point of view of adult aphasia, it has proven extremely difficult to demonstrate significant differences in language outcomes between children with left-hemisphere damage (LHD) vs right-hemisphere damage (RHD).…”

Severe memory impairment in a child with bihippocampal injury after status epilepticus

“…It is noteworthy that the persistence of epilepsy interferes with the reorganizational processes that occur after brain damage in early life (Vargha-Khadem et al 1992). This observation emphasizes the importance of evaluating memory in children even in Case Report 225 …”

Are there sex differences in the brain basis of literacy related skills? Evidence from reading and spelling impairments after early unilateral brain damage

“…The patients, who were selected according to criteria described previously [10,11], all had a measurable degree of hemiparesis, and the side of lesion was verified by CT scans. In 30 cases, the unilateral weakness became manifest during the first 6-9 months of life in the absence of an acute episode, and so the pathology was assumed to have occurred prenatally; in the remaining 15 cases the hemiplegia occurred after a well-defined neurological episode (e.g.…”

“…Using existing data from a large scale neuropsychological study which was carried out during the 1980s in a children's hospital in Montreal [10,11], we tested the hypothesis that early brain damage in the left hemisphere may be more detrimental than right-hemisphere damage to the acquisition of alphabetic literacy. We expected this to be true for both sexes.…”