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.
Department of Developmental Cognitive Neurology, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. cutting@kennedykrieger.org
L E
LE
Cutting
C W
CW
Koth
M B
MB
Denckla
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