One hundred sixty-seven children with traumatic brain injury (TBI),
selected from an 8-year series of consecutive referrals to a Midwestern
rehabilitation hospital, completed the California Verbal Learning
Test–Children's Version (CVLT–C) and the Wechsler
Intelligence Scale for Children–Third Edition (WISC–III)
within 1 year after injury. A large proactive interference (PI) effect,
defined as performance on the second list that was at least 1.5
standard deviations below that on the 1st one, was statistically
significantly more common in this clinical sample (21%) than in the
CVLT–C standardization sample (11%). Other performance
discrepancies, including retroactive interference, rapid forgetting,
and retrieval problems, occurred at approximately the same rate in the
clinical and standardization samples. Children with anterior cerebral
lesions were about 3 times less likely to have a large PI effect than
children without such lesions, but the former group performed worse on
the first CVLT–C list. The impact of pediatric TBI on a wide
range of CVLT–C quantitative variables was mediated by speed of
information processing, as assessed by the WISC–III Processing
Speed factor index. It is concluded that failure to release from PI is
somewhat common, although certainly not universal, in children with
TBI. Unlike with adults, anterior cerebral lesions are not associated
selectively with an increased risk for PI after pediatric TBI but
rather with a reduced efficiency of allocation of cognitive resources.
Deficits in speed of information processing appear to be primarily
responsible for the learning deficits on the CVLT–C after
pediatric TBI. (JINS, 2004, 10, 482–488.)
Further Investigation of Traumatic Brain Injury Versus Insufficient Effort with the California Verbal Learning Test
