Child Development, Cognitive Impairment
Conditions
Keywords
Neuropsychology
Brief summary
Diagnosing and documenting the presence of abnormal change in cognitive functions (such as reasoning abilities) in children over time is of upmost importance when it comes to evaluating the impact of neurological injury, disease, and interventions designed to help improve wellbeing. Unfortunately however, current methods for detecting cognitive impairment and monitoring for abnormal cognitive change in children over time are seriously flawed. By assessing typically developing children's cognitive functioning at two different time points, this study intends to generate new normative data that will significantly improve measurement accuracy when it comes to evaluating the impact of neurological injury and disease on a child's cognitive abilities.
Detailed description
Neurological injury and disease can substantially affect how children's brains work. This can severely impair cognitive abilities and general development. On a day-to-day level, completing everyday tasks, socialising successfully with peers, and getting on with school work can become much more difficult than it was before. Helpfully, supports and treatments are available that can reduce the negative effects of neurological impairment on a child's cognitive functioning in order to maximise developmental outcomes. However, to deliver appropriate interventions, we must correctly estimate the impact of injury or illness on cognitive abilities and accurately measure how successful treatments are at improving outcomes. Unfortunately, reliable ways of doing this simply do not exist at this time. Consequently, accurate disease (effects) monitoring is seriously undermined; potentially compromising a child's medical management and, thereby, future developmental outcomes. This study intends to addresses this grave shortcoming by developing reliable ways of measuring the cognitive effects of neurological disease or injury at diagnosis and beyond. Of note, by providing a mechanism to better inform clinical/medical management decisions, completion of this study will help contribute to health and social care aims of enabling children to realise their developmental potential.
Interventions
OTHERCognitive test administration
Specifically chosen cognitive tests will be administered to all participants twice; with an approximate 12 month gap between initial testing and follow-up testing.
Sponsors
University of Aberdeen
NHS Grampian
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
PROSPECTIVE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
6 Years to 17 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* All participants must be aged between 6 years 0 months and 16 years 11 months 364 days * Participants must be enrolled into a local mainstream school and have English as their first language * Participants must not have sustained a previous brain-injury and not suffer from any other neurological illness (please see
Exclusion criteria
below)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Obtained intelligence quotient (IQ) score | Baseline | A child's obtained Full Scale IQ score from a standardised assessment of intelligence constitutes the main outcome variable for this study |
| Change in obtained intelligence quotient (IQ) score (at 12 month follow-up) | 12 months | A child's obtained Full Scale IQ score at 12 months follow-up also constitutes a main outcome variable for this study |
Countries
United Kingdom
Contacts
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORBruce Downey
NHS Grampian
Outcome results
None listed