title: Lexicon before and after epilepsy surgery in adolescents.
abstract: Poor performance on confrontation naming tasks by children and adolescents with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy has been interpreted as indicating impairments of lexicon, that is, the store of words in long-term memory. However, confrontation naming performance crucially depends not only on word knowledge but also on other functions such as fluency. We applied an alternative method to assess lexicon with the aim of tracing deficits in lexicon before and after surgery in adolescents with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy.
  
  
  
  Sixteen patients and 32 age- and sex-matched controls completed the Dutch version of the controlled oral word production task. Responses were used to calculate indices of lexical fluency (retrieval efficiency), lexical breadth (vocabulary size), and lexical depth (knowledge of word properties), as well as use of search strategies.
  
  
  
  Adolescents with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy had lower lexical fluency scores than healthy peers, but did not differ from them on the dimensions of lexical breadth and lexical depth. Patients demonstrated reduced use of search strategies. In fact, the difference in lexical fluency between patients and controls disappeared after controlling for Full Scale IQ (obtained using the Dutch version of the 3rd edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IIINL; Kort et al., 2005; Wechsler, 2002) or-for older children-the Dutch version of the first edition of the Kaufman Adult and Adolescent Intelligence Test (KAIT; Kaufman & Kaufman, 1993; Mulder, Dekker, & Dekker, 2004) and use of search strategies. In patients, changes in the use of the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine were associated with lexical fluency.
  
  
  
  Adolescents with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy differ from their healthy peers mainly in lexical fluency, rather than word knowledge per se. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Sector of Neuropsychology for Children and Adolescents, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Joost
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6902-8958
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Meekes
authors.affiliation: Sector of Neuropsychology for Children and Adolescents, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Mari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chanturidze
authors.affiliation: Sector of Neuropsychology for Children and Adolescents, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Olga B
authors.initials: OB
authors.lastname: Braams
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Neurology, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Kees P J
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Peter C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: van Rijen
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioural Sciences, Kempenhaeghe Expertise Centre for Epileptology, Sleep Medicine and Neurocognitio, Heezen.
authors.forename: Marc P H
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Hendriks
authors.affiliation: Sector of Neuropsychology for Children and Adolescents, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Aag
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jennekens-Schinkel
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Neurology, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center Utrecht.
authors.forename: Onno
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: van Nieuwenhuizen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology; D002220:Carbamazepine / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000069279:Drug Resistant Epilepsy / Q000150:complications / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D014825:Vocabulary
chemical_list: D000927:Anticonvulsants; D002220:Carbamazepine