Children with spastic cerebral palsy are often affected by linguistic and cognitive disorders, which directly
involve learning processes. Up to now there are a few studies analyzing the learning skills of CP children,
most of them describing the expression of specific learning disorders in CP children caused by focal
damage. The collected data are often limited to the measurement of IQ and don’t take into consideration
academic skills.
The aim of our study is to present the neuropsychological profile of learning difficulties in a cohort of
school aged children with cerebral palsy, evaluated with a specific assessment protocol.
From the children with cerebral palsy referred to the Unit of Child Neurology and Psychiatry at the Civil
Hospital of Brescia during the last year we selected 15 children according to the following criteria: school
age, pre and perinatal brain injury documented by MRI, verbal IQ levels > 70, normal or near normal visual
acuity. The neuropsychological protocol comprises standardized tests for the study of intelligence, higher
visual abilities, executive functions, memory and academic skills.
Our results show that CP spastic children experience functional difficulties in several neuropsychological
domains.
