Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices as a measure of cognitive functioning in Cerebral Palsy.
BACKGROUND
Cognitive dysfunction is frequent in Cerebral Palsy (CP). CP motor impairment and associated speech deficits often hinder cognitive assessment, with the result being that not all CP studies consider cognitive dysfunction. Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices is a simple, rapid test which can be used in persons with severe motor impairment and speech limitations. We studied whether this test can offer a reliable measure of cognitive functioning in CP.


METHODS
Visuoperceptual, language, memory and frontal lobe functions were evaluated in 30 participants with severe motor impaired CP and a variety of speech difficulties. The relationship between Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices and a variety of tests was analysed.


RESULTS
Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices performance was associated with visuoperceptual, language, visual and verbal memory but not with frontal functions. Receptive vocabulary and visuospatial measures were the best predictors of Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices raw scores.


CONCLUSIONS
Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices is a fast, easy-to-administer test able to obtain a measure related with linguistic, visuoperceptual, and memory cognitive functioning in persons with CP despite their motor and speech disorders.
Pueyo
R
R
Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. rpueyo@ub.edu
Junqué
C
C
Vendrell
P
P
Narberhaus
A
A
Segarra
D
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D003116:Color; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013028:Space Perception; D013030:Spain; D014796:Visual Perception; D014825:Vocabulary