Neuropsychological aspects in children and adolescents with ConHD

Abstract

This chapter describes the neurodevelopmental and cognitive functioning of infants, children, and adolescents with a congenital heart disease (ConHD). We will discuss the cognitive outcome within three age groups: early development, preschool age and school age, and adolescence. Different cognitive domains such as mental development, intelligence, attention, memory, language, visual perceptual and spatial skills, psychomotor skills, and executive functioning are used to structure the chapter and to keep a clear overview. Infants with ConHD already display lower scores on mental and motor development. In early childhood, gross and fine motor problems and deficits in speech functions and verbal reasoning emerge and to a lesser extent problems with visuospatial skills, number skills, and nonverbal reasoning emerge. As the cognitive demand on children increases, more problems supervene during school period and adolescence on the level of communication, handwriting, attention, visual-spatial functions, and executive functioning. These shortcomings may have a negative impact on the acquisition of adequate reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, placing a burden on the child’s school career. The need for early identification of patients at risk is stressed.