Implicit and explicit memory in children with traumatic brain injury

This study aimed to investigate whether implicit memory is preserved in chi ldren with traumatic brain injury (TBI). A fragmented picture-completion pr ocedure (Snodgrass, Smith, Feenan, & Corwin, 1987) was used to compare impl icit and explicit memory of 12 children with severe long-term TBI and 12 co ntrols, matched for age and gender. On the implicit memory task, both the T BI and control groups were found to show significant priming. In addition, the extent of priming for the two groups was not found to be different. On the explicit memory task, however, the TBI group was found to perform signi ficantly more poorly than the control group. These results are consistent w ith those reported in the adult TBI literature and have implications for un derstanding and rehabilitating memory impairments in children with TBI.