LEARNING-DISABILITY SUBTYPES IN CHILDREN WITH NEUROFIBROMATOSIS

A high incidence of learning disabilities (LD) has been reported in ch ildren with neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF-1), and many children affecte d with this disease are thought to have a form of LD that is character ized by selective visuospatial and motor deficits. However, the eviden ce is subject to sampling biases and is limited by the clinical-infere ntial methods used to classify children into LD subtypes. In the prese nt study, objective statistical methods were used to categorize LD in 105 children with NF-1 between the ages of 6 and 18 years. A cluster a nalysis of achievement test scores yielded 10 groups, 6 of which met o ur criterion for academic deficiency. An analysis of neuropsychologica l data for 72 children with academic deficiencies with complete neurop sychological data yielded three groups: a neuropsychologically normal group (n = 28), a group with general academic deficiencies (n = 34), a nd a soup with visuospatial-construction deficiencies (n = 10). The lo w incidence of visuospatial-constructional deficits and the absence of cases involving pure linguistic deficits is notable.