Memória operacional e consciência fonológica em crianças com epilepsia rolândica

Abstract

Association among cognitive alterations, language deficits and rolandic epilepsy (RE) diagnosis has been increasing in a constant basis. Nevertheless, a consistent criticism related to the absence of a due IQ level control of participants is addressed to these studies. Another source of criticism is related to the debate concerning possible existing relationship among deficits in language domain, epilectiform activity and a set of intervening clinical variables. This study aimed at investigating operational memory and phonological consciousness in children diagnosed as presenting rolandic epilepsy (RE), in order to clarify the relationship among above-mentioned aspects. 42 participants with ages varying from six to thirteen years were evaluated. Twenty-one participants, diagnosed as presenting rolandic epilepsy, according to ILAE – International League Against Epilepsy diagnosis criteria, constituted the experimental group; the other twenty-one participants had not this RE diagnosis, constituting thereby the control group. Both experimental and control groups were paired concerning sex, age, school level and socio-economic familiar background. Evaluating process was constituted by anamneses inquiry addressed to parents/caretakers, and protocol composed by the following proofs: Raven Color Progressive Matrices Test, Raven General Scale Progressive Matrices Test, Sub-test Digits from Wechsler Intelligence Scale – children version (WISC-IV), Corsi Blocs Test, Verbal Fluency and Phonological Consciousness Test - Instrument of Sequential Evaluation (CONFIAS). Results showed significant differences between RE and non-RE participants performance in tests evaluating operational memory and phonological consciousness, signaling better performance in children with typical development. On the other hand, highly significant positive correlations were detected between operational memory and phonological consciousness inside clinical subgroup RE. These findings indicate the absence of significant influence of clinical variables over performance in RE children in operational memory and phonological consciousness tests. In general terms, it is suggested here that handicaps in these cognitive functions could be associated to damages in language domain in RE children. Additionally, these findings allow the proposition of interrelation between development of operational memory and phonological consciousness.