Performance on creative narrative tasks of children treated for acute lymphocytic leukaemia

Abstract

Twenty-three children who had completed treatment for acute lymphocytic leukaemia (ALL) and 23 age-and sex-matched non-neurologically impaired controls generated a creative narrative in response to a character figurine. Story grammar, intersentential cohesion and developmental level were examined. N o significant differences were found between the performance of the A I L group and the matched controls on the majority of the measures of narrative ability examined. The control subjects did, however, produce more episodes containing initiating events than the leukaemia group.

Psychosocial and behavioral issues in cancer survival in pediatric populations.

“…Evidence suggests impairments in cognitive functioning (Palmei et al, 2001;Ris, Packet, Goldwein, Jones-Wallace, & Boyett, 2001) and deficits in memory (Boon, Murdoch, & Jordan, 1994;Copeland, Moore, Francis, Jaffe, & Culbert, 1996;Jordan, Murdoch, Buttsworth, & Hudson-Tennent, 1995), metacognition (Kleinman & Wabei, 1994;Waber, Isquith, Kahn, & Romero, 1994), visual-spatial/motoi skills (Espy et al, 2001;Johnson et al, 1994), and piocessing speed (Langei et al, 2002;Schatz, Kiamei, Ablin, & Matthay, 2000) foi childien suiviving biain tumois and cianial ladiation therapy (CRT) and intrathecal chemotheiapy tieatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). These children acquiie new information and skills at lower rates than healthy peers (Palmei et al, 2001) and, ultimately, have pooiei academic achievement (Espy et al, 2001;Hill et al, 1998).…”