Monetary incentive effects on event-based prospective memory three months after traumatic brain injury in children

Abstract

Information regarding the remediation of event-based prospective memory (EB-PM) impairments following pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) is scarce. Addressing this, two levels of monetary incentives were used to improve EB-PM in children ages 7 to 16 years with orthopedic injuries (OI, n = 51), or moderate (n = 25) and severe (n = 39) TBI at approximately 3 months postinjury. The EB-PM task consisted of the child giving a specific verbal response to a verbal cue from the examiner while performing a battery of neuropsychological measures (ongoing task). Significant effects were found for age-at-test, motivation condition, period, and group. Within-group analyses indicated that OI and moderate TBI groups performed significantly better under the high- than under the low-incentive condition, but the severe TBI group demonstrated no significant improvement. These results indicate that EB-PM can be significantly improved at 3 months postinjury in children with moderate, but not severe, TBI.

Keywords:

• Event-based prospective memory
• Traumatic brain injury
• Monetary incentives
• Motivation
• Memory rehabilitation
• Pediatrics

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research Grant K23 HD-40896 (“Prospective memory in normal and head-injured children,” awarded to Stephen R. McCauley) and National Institute Neurological Disorders and Stroke Grant NS-21889 (“Neurobehavioral outcome of head injury in children,” awarded to Harvey S. Levin). The information in this manuscript and the manuscript itself have never been published either electronically or in print. None of the authors have any financial or other relationship(s) that could be construed as a conflict of interest with respect to the content of this manuscript. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research or the National Institutes of Health. We thank the participants and their families for their interest and willingness to be part of this research. I would like to extend my personal appreciation to Mark A. McDaniel and Harvey S. Levin who graciously served as mentors on my K-23 mentored patient-oriented research career development award. We also acknowledge the support of the General Clinical Research Center at Texas Children's Hospital, Houston.