Neuropsychological assessment of patients with severe neuromotor and verbal disabilities

In people with cerebral palsy, severe neuromotor disability and communicati on problems make standard neuropsychological tests impossible. Therefore, a lternative methods and specific aids must be developed to allow patients to autonomously respond to the examiner's questions. In the present individua ls and study, a neuropsychological evaluation was made of a group of eight individuals with cerebral palsy, and severe neuromotor and verbal disabilit ies, and a group of Ig normal subjects matched for mental age. The tests we re administered using an autonomous selection method in which thr patient s elects the various responses through specific aids without the examiner's i nterference. Patients' group performances in visuo-spatial and memory tests were on average lower than the mean of the control group. In the verbal do main, patients' scores were comparable to those of normal children in all t ests but one assessing the comprehension of syntactically complex sentences . An analysis of the patients' individual performances also revealed hetero geneous cognitive profiles: some patients presented a homogeneously distrib uted cognitive impairment and others a more selective one. This finding is particularly important for planning differentiated learning programmes, and identifying suitable communicative instruments in rehabilitative and educa tional settings.