Impact of Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Evaluation for Children with Congenital Heart Disease

ABSTRACT

Children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are at increased risk for neurodevelopmental delays. This study of school-aged children with single ventricle CHD compared access to services for those who did and did not complete an evaluation. Children completing an evaluation had more academic services, including an Individualized Education Plan (66% vs 34%,P = .017), small group academic instruction (54% vs 20%,P = .01), any instructional supports (77% vs 44%,P = .008). A barrier to not completing the evaluation was lack of knowledge about the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program (82%). The neurodevelopmental evaluation is an impactful tool that can increase access to school services in vulnerable CHD patients.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the Emory and Children’s Pediatric Biostatistics Core for their help with analysis of the data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical Standards

The authors assert that the study procedures comply with ethical standards.

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.