Neuropsychological differences between college students with learning disabilities and those with mild head injury

Abstract

College students with learning disabilities (LD) and those with a history of mild head injury (MHI) are two groups whose learning problems are not adequately addressed. We administered a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological, psychological, and academic achievement tests to college students with learning problems (LD, n = 35; MHI, n = 25) and a control group (n = 22), and completed a series of discriminant function analyses. A combination of six neuropsychological and psychoeducational test variables produced statistically significant differences among the three groups. The instruments were sensitive to LD, MHI, and the differences between them. The students with LD performed poorly on linguistically oriented psychoeducational tests, whereas the students with MHI showed cognitive deficits in visual-spatial skills and in the areas of attention, memory, and novel problem solving. Differential interventions addressing these deficits appear to be indicated.