Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017;42(3):127-145.
doi: 10.1080/87565641.2017.1315581. Epub 2017 May 12.

Recovery of Working Memory Following Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: A Longitudinal Analysis

Stephanie Gorman  1 , Marcia A Barnes  2 , Paul R Swank  3 , Linda Ewing-Cobbs  3
Affiliations

Recovery of Working Memory Following Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: A Longitudinal Analysis

Stephanie Gorman et al. Dev Neuropsychol. 2017.

Abstract

In a prospective longitudinal study, the trajectory of verbal and visual-spatial working memory (WM) development was examined 2-, 6-, 12-, and 24-months following complicated-mild to severe pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI; n = 55) relative to an orthopedic injury comparison group (n = 47). Individual growth curve modeling revealed an interaction of age, severity, and time for verbal, but not visual-spatial WM. The youngest children with severe TBI had the lowest scores and slowest verbal WM growth. WM outcome is best understood in light of age at injury and TBI severity. Findings support the early vulnerability hypothesis and highlight the need for long-term follow-up.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Expected verbal working memory by severity and age at injury. Dotted lines represent children injured at a younger age by orthopedic, mild/moderate and severe injury groups. Solid lines represent children injured at an older age of same injury severity groups.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Expected visual spatial working memory by severity and age at injury. Dotted lines represent children injured at a younger age by orthopedic, mild/moderate and severe injury groups. Solid lines represent children injured at an older age of same injury severity groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Anderson V, Catroppa C, Morse S, Haritou F, Rosenfeld J. Recovery of intellectual ability following traumatic brain injury in childhood: Impact of injury severity and age at injury. Pediatric Neurosurgery. 2000;32:282–290. doi: 10.1159/000028956. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Anderson V, Catroppa C, Morse S, Haritou F, Rosenfeld J. Functional plasticity or vulnerability after early brain injury? Pediatrics. 2005;116:1374–1382. doi: 10.1542/peds.2004-1728. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Anderson V, Moore C. Age at injury as a predictor of outcome following pediatric head injury: A longitudinal perspective. Child Neuropsychology. 1995;1:187–202. doi: 10.1080/09297049508400224. - DOI
    1. Anderson VA, Spencer-Smith M, Leventer R, Coleman L, Anderson P, Williams J, … Jacobs R. Childhood brain insult: Can age at insult help us predict outcome? Brain. 2009;132:45–56. doi: 10.1093/brain/awn293. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baddeley AD. The fractionation of working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America. 1996;93:13468–13472. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.24.13468. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources