MEMORY FUNCTIONS IN CHILDREN WITH EARLY HYDROCEPHALUS

Children with arrested, shunted, and no hydrocephalus were compared on verbal and nonverbal memory tasks assessing multiple components of me mory. A gradient of severity was hypothesized, with the shunted hydroc ephalus group expected to exhibit the most significant memory impairme nts and the arrested group expected to perform more poorly than childr en with no hydrocephalus. Etiologies of prematurity, spina bifida, and aqueductal stenosis were represented by 157 participants. Results sup ported the hypothesis; the shunted hydrocephalus group performed poore r on all memory measures. Differences for the arrested group were less frequently statistically significant relative to children with no hyd rocephalus. Irrespective of etiology, the shunted hydrocephalus group exhibited a pattern of performance suggestive of encoding and retrieva l deficits on both verbal and nonverbal tasks, showing a pervasive dis turbance of memory processes.