Single and Dual Pathologies of the Temporal Lobe: Effects on Cognitive Function in Children with Epilepsy

The neuropathologies associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) are heterogeneous. The performance of 61 children with single pathology of hippocampal sclerosis (HS), temporal lobe tumor, or cortical dysplasia (CD) or dual pathology of HS + tumor or HS + CD was examined on measures of intelligence, language, memory, and executive function. Children with single pathologies performed significantly better than did children with HS + CD on all standardized measures of IQ. Children with tumors performed significantly better than children with dual pathology on receptive vocabulary. These results support prior research of an association between neuropathology and cognitive function in children with epilepsy and extend the findings to include additional neuropathologies and measures of cognitive functioning.