How children with neurofibromatosis type 1 differ from "typical" learning disabled clinic attenders: nonverbal learning disabilities revisited.
To further investigate cognitive deficits in children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF-1), children with NF-1 were compared to typical learning disabled clinic attenders (LD-clinic), all of whom had reading disabilities, as well as to a group with no disabilities (NoDx). Results indicated that both the NF-1 group and LD-clinic group had reading and reading-related deficits when compared to the NoDx group; however, the NF-1 group was more globally language impaired than the LD-clinic group. In addition, the NF-1 group scored significantly lower than the LD-clinic group, but not the NoDx group, on the visuospatial measures, thus confirming that children with NF-1 have visuospatial deficits not typical of a general LD-clinic population. The NF-1 group was not impaired in comparison to the NoDx group on certain language and visuospatial tasks that were previously found to be deficits in sibling pairwise matched designs; thus, the importance of considering genetic and familial context when studying the impact of genetic disorders on cognition was demonstrated.
Cutting
L E
LE
Department of Developmental Cognitive Neurology, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. cutting@kennedykrieger.org
Koth
C W
CW
Denckla
M B
MB
D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D009456:Neurofibromatosis 1 / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011932:Reading; D014796:Visual Perception