Neuropsychological profiles of children with cerebral palsy

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To explore factors contributing to variability in cognitive functioning in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Method: A geographical cohort of 70 children with CP was assessed with tests of language comprehension, visual-spatial reasoning, attention, working memory, memory, and executive functioning. Mean age was 9;9 years (range 5;1–17;7), 54.3% were girls, and 50.0% had hemiplegic, 25.7% diplegic, 12.9% quadriplegic, and 11.4% dyskinetic CP. For the participants with severe motor impairments, assessments were adapted for gaze pointing. A cognitive quotient (CQ) was computed. Results: Mean CQ was 78.5 (range 19–123). Gross motor functioning, epilepsy, and type of brain injury explained 35.5% of the variance in CQ (F = 10.643, p = .000). Conclusion: Twenty-four percent had an intellectual disability, most of them were children with quadriplegic CP. Verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning scores did only differ for the 21% with an uneven profile, of whom two-thirds had challenges with perceptual reasoning.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment
• cerebral palsy
• cognition
• development
• IQ
• neuropsychology

Acknowledgment

We thank all participating children and their parents.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

^a Gaze pointing, where the child points intentionally using gaze, should not be confused with various forms of eye tracking, where inferences about cognitive function are made based on the child’s eye movements and length of fixation.⁷³