Clinical Utility of the Judgment of Line Orientation Test and Facial Recognition Test in Children With Acquired Unilateral Cerebral Lesions

Abstract

In unselected adult patients with brain damage, the Judgment of Line Orientation Test and the Facial Recognition Test are considered valid instruments for detecting right cerebral hemisphere lesions. It is unknown, however, whether this applies to children as well. Performance levels on the Judgment of Line Orientation Test and the Facial Recognition Test of 18 children with acquired left cerebral lesions and 14 children with acquired right cerebral lesions were reviewed. Subjects were unselected for age, sex, or etiology. Age-related norms were obtained in 81 normal controls, aged 7 to 14 years. Judgment of Line Orientation Test and Facial Recognition Test performance levels did not predict the presence of cerebral pathology per se in our unselected groups with demonstrated unilateral cerebral lesions, nor did they contribute to the prediction of the side of the lesion within the two groups with cerebral lesions. These results cast serious doubt on an important aspect of the clinical utility of both tests in children, namely their discriminative validity in the assessment of etiologically unselected populations with brain damage. (J Child Neurol 1999;14:243-248).

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Lezak MD : Neuropsychological Assessment, 3rd ed. New York, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Benton AL , Hannay HJ , Varney NR : Visual perception of line direction in patients with unilateral brain disease . Neurology 1975;25:907-910.

Benton AL , Varney NR , Hamsher K. : Visuospatial judgment: A clinical test. Arch Neurol 1978;35:364-367.

Benton AL , Van Allen MW : Impairment in facial recognition in patients with cerebral disease . Cortex 1968;4:344-358.

Hamsher K. , Levin HS , Benton AL : Facial recognition in patients with focal brain lesions. Arch Neurol 1979;36:837-839.

Benton AL , Hamsher K. , Varney NR , Spreen O. : Contributions to Neuropsychological Assessment: A Clinical Manual . New York, Oxford University Press , 1983.

Benton AL , Sivan AB , Hamsher K. , et al: Contributions to Neuropsychological Assessment: A Clinical Manual , 2nd ed. New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Hamsher K. , Capruso DX , Benton A. : Visuospatial judgment and right hemisphere disease. Cortex 1992;28:493-495.

Lindgren SD : Spatial perception in children: Supramodal spatial ability and hemispheric specialization for spatial processing. PhD diss. University of Iowa, 1977.

10.

Lindgren SD , Benton AL : Developmental patterns of visuospatial judgment . J Pediatr Psychol 1980;5:217-225.

11.

Riva D. , Benton A. : Visuospatial judgment: A crossnational comparison. Cortex 1993;29:141-143.

12.

Ferro JM , Martins IP , Tavora L. : Neglect in children. Ann Neurol 1984 ;15:281-284.

13.

Young AW , Ellis HD : Childhood prosopagnosia. Brain Cogn 1989;9: 16-47.

14.

Sips Hjw , Catsman-Berrevoets CE , Van Dongen HR , et al: Measuring right-hemisphere dysfunction in children: Validity of two new computer tests. Dev Med Child Neurol 1994;36:57-63.

15.

Paquier PF , Saerens J. , Parizel PM , et al: Acquired reading disorder similar to pure alexia in a child with ruptured arteriovenous malformation. Aphasiology 1989;3:667-676.

16.

Paquier PF , Van Dongen HR : Two contrasting cases of fluent aphasia in children. Aphasiology 1991;5:235-245.

17.

Nagaraja D. , Verma A. , Taly AB , et al: Cerebrovascular disease in children . Acta Neurol Scand 1994 ;90:251-255.

18.

Mancini J. , Girard N. , Chabrol B. , et al: Ischemic cerebrovascular disease in children: Retrospective study of 35 patients. J Child NeuroL 1997;12:193-199.