2189 - COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS IN CHILDREN WITH EPILEPSY

Session: P_D06S007 - Poster Session 7 - Division 6
AUTHORS:
Vuković Lerga Danijela (Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka ~ Rijeka ~ Croatia)
Abstract text:
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases in childhood and it's increased risk for developmental and cognitive difficulties is continuously highlighted by parents as a major source of concern. The most commonly used and the only standardized developmental test for preschool children in the Republic of Croatia is the Developmental Test Čuturić (RTČ-P) for which there is a lack of data on it's predictive validity for later intellectual development. That's why the goal of this study was to determine the developmental profiles of children with epilepsy at preschool age of the RTČ-P and at school age of The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) and the possibility of predicting intellectual achievement of WISC-IV based on the results of RTČ-P. The study has included 91 children (55 boys and 36 girls) with epilepsy who underwent two neuropsychological assessments, first in preschool age and second in the school age. Statistical analysis has revealed a wide range of mental development quotient scores with a score shift towards higher values and the weakest results on graphomotor tasks. The profile of cognitive functioning weighs in favour of a wide range of intelligence quotients with a slight shift towards lower values on the Working Memory and Processing Speed Index quotients. The mental development quotient is, as expected, statistically significantly related with all WISC-IV quotients, but the scores indicate that in almost 50% of children, the achievement on the mental development quotient is 10 to 49 units higher than on the FSIQ which indicates caution when forecasting future cognitive outcomes. An unexpected result was that a greater number of epileptic seizures by the time of the first testing is associated with a higher FSIQ, which indicates the need for additional research of the factors that can upgrade future cognitive functioning.