Ecological assessment of cognitive functions in children with acquired brain injury: a systematic review.
BACKGROUND
Childhood acquired brain injury (ABI) often leads to impairment in cognitive functioning, resulting in disabilities in both the home and school environment. Assessing the impact of these cognitive deficits in everyday life using traditional neuropsychological tests has been challenging. This study systematically reviewed ecological measures of cognitive abilities available for children with ABI.


METHODS
Eight databases were searched (until October 2011) for scales: (1) focused on ecological assessment of cognitive functioning; (2) with published data in an ABI population; (3) applicable to children up to 17;11 years of age; and (4) in English. The title and abstract of all papers were reviewed independently by two reviewers.


RESULTS
Database searches yielded a total of 12 504 references, of which 17 scales met the inclusion criteria for the review, focusing on executive functions (n = 9), memory (n = 3), general cognitive abilities (n = 2), visuo-spatial skills (n = 2) and attention (n = 1). Four tasks used observation of actual performance in a natural environment, five were proxy-reports and six were functional paper and pencil type tasks, performed in an office.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, few measures were found; eight were still experimental tasks which did not provide norms. Executive functions were better represented in ecological assessment, with relatively more standardized scales available.
Rehabilitation Department for Children with Acquired Brain Injury (INR-A), Hôpitaux de Saint Maurice, Saint Maurice, France. m.chevignard@hopitaux-st-maurice.fr
Mathilde P
MP
Chevignard
Cheryl
C
Soo
Jane
J
Galvin
Cathy
C
Catroppa
Senem
S
Eren
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000293:Adolescent; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results