Performance discrepancies on the California Verbal Learning Test–Children's Version (CVLT–C) in children with traumatic brain injury

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.)