Neurocognitive development of children with congenital unilateral brain lesion and epilepsy

The aim of this study was to specify the neuropsychological deficits charac teristic of children with unilateral non-progressive brain lesion. In order to assess these specific functions, we used a comprehensive model of conge nital hemiparesis with partial epilepsy and neu ly diagnosed partial epilep sy without hemiparesis. The neuropsychological examination was performed us ing the NEPSY test battery on 44 children aged from 4 to 9 years. The child ren were divided into three groups: 18 children suffering from congenital h emiparesis with chronic partial epilepsy, 12 children with newly diagnosed partial epilepsy prior to anti-epileptic treatment, and 14 healthy controls matched by sex, age, and socioeconomic status. Children with congenital he miparesis and epilepsy had a more clearly expressed cognitive dysfunction, especially in language, visuo-perceptual and memory tasks, than children wi th newly diagnosed partial epilepsy. The profile of cognitive weakness appe ars to be diffuse and quite similar in both groups, and it did not demonstr ate a clear effect of lateralization, according to the side of epileptic el ectroencephalogram discharges. Children within both groups are likely to ha ve a high risk of developing attention, phonological, visuo-perceptual, and memory deficits in their life. Especially interesting and surprising was t he fact that the newly diagnosed epilepsy group demonstrated impairment not only in attention, visuo-perceptual and short-term memory skills, but also in auditory perception. lexical function, and the comprehension of speech. Therefore, it is recommended that children with epilepsy would undergo neu ropsychological examination in order to assess their cognitive abilities. ( C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.