Learning Disability Subtypes in Children with Neurofibromatosis

A high incidence of learning disabilities (LD) has been reported in children with neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF-1), and many children affected with this disease are thought to have a form of LD that is characterized by selective visuospatial and motor deficits. However, the evidence is subject to sampling biases and is limited by the clinical-inferential methods used to classify children into LD subtypes. In the present study, objective statistical methods were used to categorize LD in 105 children with NF-1 between the ages of 6 and 18 years. A cluster analysis of achievement test scores yielded 10 groups, 6 of which met our criterion for academic deficiency. An analysis of neuropsychological data for 72 children with academic deficiencies with complete neuropsychological data yielded three groups: a neuropsychologically normal group (n = 28), a group with general academic deficiencies (n = 34), and a group with visuospatial-construction deficiencies (n = 10). The low incidence of visuospatial-constructional deficits and the absence of cases involving pure linguistic deficits is notable.