Spatial Orientation and Navigation in Children With Perinatal Stroke

Abstract

As a focal injury in an otherwise healthy child, perinatal stroke provides a clinical model of developmental brain plasticity. In this study, we report evidence that children with perinatal periventricular venous infarcts perform as well as control children on a video game that tests navigation abilities. In addition, children with a history of perinatal arterial strokes overcame initial deficits in navigation performance after additional practice. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that a complex cognitive skill dependent on a distributed neural network with prolonged maturation, such as navigation, may demonstrate resilience after early brain injury.

The Virtual City ParadigmTM for Testing Visuo-Spatial Memory, Executive Functions and Cognitive Strategies in Children With ADHD: A Feasibility Study

“…The Digit span WISC-IV subtests-forward and backward- served as a control verbal measure of spatial memory. Parents and children filled out a pilot questionnaire on everyday visuo-spatial and navigation abilities (Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale-Parent and Child Version: p-CBSOD and c-CBSOD) adapted by Murias et al ( 45 ) (see Supplementary Material 1 ).…”

New insights from children with early focal brain injury: Lessons to be learned from examining STEM‐related skills

“…There is considerable research on both domains with TD children (for reviews see Newcombe et al, ; Newcombe & Frick, ; Vasilyeva & Lourenco, ). Very few studies have examined the effects of early brain injury on the development of intrinsic and extrinsic spatial representations (e.g., Murias et al, ; Stiles et al, ). Spatial skills of children with PL have mostly been investigated regarding the visuospatial skills and spatial grouping (e.g., Askhoomoff, Feroleto, Doyle, & Stiles, ; Schatz, Ballantyne, & Trauner, ; Stiles, ; Stiles, Stern, Trauner, & Nass, ).…”

“…Extrinsic skills like spatial navigation have not been studied extensively in this population. One recent study by Murias et al (2017) showed that children with PL perform similarly to TD children on a video game that tests their spatial navigational abilities. They conclude that cognitive skills that rely on distributed networks can be less vulnerable to early injury and can be more resilient (Kolb, Mychasiuk, Williams, & Gibb, 2011).…”

“…Less is known about children's performance on complex domains that have implications for cognitive functioning later in life and eventual life outcomes. Specifically, to our knowledge, very limited work examined children's cognitive performance related to STEM disciplines (e.g., Glenn, Demir-Lira, Gibson, Congdon, & Levine, 2017;Murias et al, 2017;Stiles, Reilly, Paul, & Moses, 2005). How children's skills related to STEM develop over time and how their developmental trajectories vary as a function of children's biological and environmental characteristics remain unanswered.…”

Egocentric and allocentric spatial memory in young children: A comparison with young adults

“…Assessing allocentric and egocentric frames of reference separately is particularly relevant not only with the objective of understanding their development and average functioning, but also to use it as a tool to evaluate different populations with pathologies. In children, certain clinical populations such as spinal muscular atrophy (Rivière & Lécuyer, 2002) or perinatal stroke (Murias et al, 2017) show an adequate spatial memory for their developmental stage. Nevertheless, difficulties in both egocentric and allocentric frameworks have been found in developmental topographical disorientation (Iaria & Barton, 2010) and in Williams syndrome (Bernardino, Mouga, Castelo‐Branco, & Van Asselen, 2013; Broadbent, Farran, & Tolmie, 2014), while in Down syndrome (Lavenex et al, 2015), in cerebral palsy (Belmonti, Fiori, Guzzetta, Cioni, & Berthoz, 2015), in fetal alcohol syndrome (Hamilton, Kodituwakku, Sutherland, & Savage, 2003) and in children born prematurely (Fernandez‐Baizan, Alcantara‐Canabal, Solis, & Mendez, 2020) a worse allocentric‐based orientation is found, which, as we have already commented, has been the most studied.…”