DISCOURSE AND ACADEMIC SKILLS IN CHILDREN WITH SPINA BIFIDA

学龄儿童脊柱裂、脑膜脊髓膨出和脑积水 (SBH)在几个方面有特有的认知和学习障碍 限制学业成功和限制就业机会的领域。 他们表现出一致的看法；离题、冗长和 陈词滥调；对他们所见和所见的非推论理解 听力差；阅读理解能力差；数学能力差。然而， 很少有假设驱动的研究分析损伤是如何发生的 这些领域与核心认知缺陷有关，并分析了 这些区域的损伤与大脑的类型和范围有关 SBH条件下的畸形。在项目5中，335名儿童患有 8至15岁的儿童和96岁的儿童将接受SBH测试 控制。该项目有两个目标：1.确定一个有限的 核心缺陷的数量可以解释学龄儿童的认知结果 患有SBH的儿童。这是通过假设驱动的测试实现的 已知的有助于领域功能的核心认知过程 SBH儿童的损害特征；2.检验假说 关于核心缺陷与特定大脑的关系 SBH的畸形和医学特征，从而将这一点联系起来 项目到项目3、4和核心B，其中小脑、脑体 痂和其他感兴趣的大脑区域和医学变量是 对此进行了较为详细的研究。该项目将提供关于以下方面的独特信息 语篇可变性的认知和生物学根源 SBH儿童的学习技能，对 学校运作和职业适应。

School-aged children with spina bifida meningomyelocele and hydrocephalus (SBH) have characteristic cognitive and academic impairments in several domains that constrain school success and limit employment opportunities. There is agreement that they exhibit; tangential, verbose and stereotypical speech; non-inferential understanding of what they see and hear; deficit reading comprehension; and poor mathematics skills. Yet, there is little hypothesis-driven research that analyzes how impairment in these domains is related to core cognitive deficits and that analyzes how impairment in these domains is related to the type and extent of brain dysmorphology within the SBH condition. In Project 5, 335 children with SBH between the ages of 8 and 15 years will be tested, along with 96 controls. The Project has two aims: 1. To determine whether a limited number of core deficits can explain cognitive outcomes in school-aged children with SBH. This is accomplished by hypothesis-driven testing of core cognitive processes known to contribute to functioning in the domains of impairment that characterize children with SBH; 2. To test hypotheses about the relation between core deficits and the specific brain dysmorphologies and medical characteristics of SBH, thus linking this project to Projects 3,4 and Core B in which the cerebellum, corpus callosum and other brain regions of interest and medical variables are studied in some detail. This project will provide unique information about the cognitive and biological sources of variability in discourse and academic skills in children with SBH, with important implications for school functioning and vocational adjustment.