Citation

Gilboa Y, Kerrouche B, Longaud-Vales A, Kieffer V, Tiberghien A, Aligon D, Mariller A, Mintegui A, Canizares C, Abada G, Paule Chevignard M. Brain Inj. 2015; 29(13-14): 1691-1700.

Affiliation

Rehabilitation Department for Children with Acquired Neurological Injury, Saint Maurice Hospitals , Saint Maurice , France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.3109/02699052.2015.1075148

PMID

26399584

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the study were: (1) to describe the attention deficits profile of children with significant acquired brain injury (ABI) in comparison to matched controls, using the virtual classroom (VC); (2) to assess the utility of the VC in detecting attention deficits in children with ABI, as compared to classical neuropsychological tests and questionnaire-based assessment of attention; and (3) to determine how performance in the VC is affected by demographic and injury severity variables.

METHODS: Forty-one children with ABI and 35 age- and gender-matched controls, aged 8-16, were assessed with the VC. The results of the VC were compared to sub-tests of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch), the Conners' Parent Rating Scales-Revised: Short (CPRS-R:S) questionnaire and analysed according to demographic and injury severity variables.

RESULTS: Significant differences were found between the groups regarding the number of targets correctly identified in the VC. Significant inter-correlations were obtained between the VC variables. Significant correlations were found between the VC variables, the sub-tests of TEA-Ch and the CPRS-R:S and the demographic characteristics of the sample.

CONCLUSION: The VC appears to be a sensitive and ecologically valid assessment tool for use in the diagnosis of attention deficits among children with ABI.

Language: en