Abstracts

Rationale: Children with long-standing epilepsy have a significantly increased risk of learning disorders compared to healthy controls. We evaluated children with new-onset seizures to assess the effect of change in neuropsychological functioning (NP) on change in academic achievement (AA) and to explore the moderating effects of demographic, seizure, and family variables. Methods: As part of a larger study, 197 children 6-14 years of age had neuropsychological and academic data collected at both baseline and 36 months. Prior factor analysis of results from a battery of well-standardized neuropsychological tests yielded four factors: language, processing speed, attention-executive-construction, and verbal memory. Academic achievement was measured with the Woodcock-Johnson-Revised Achievement Test Battery. Correlations and linear mixed models were used for analysis. Results: There were significant positive correlations between NP and AA at baseline (range: r=0.37 to 0.75) and at 36 months (range: r=0.55 to 0.78). Age at onset moderated the association between change in NP and change in reading and writing scores (stronger relationship for younger children; p<0.01). The association between change in language and writing score was moderated by caregiver anxiety (stronger for more anxious parents; p<0.05) and the association between change in NP processing speed and math scores was moderated by etiology (stronger for symptomatic/cryptogenic vs. idiopathic; p<0.05). Gender and other family variables did not have significant moderating effects.