Memory consolidation and accelerated forgetting in children with idiopathic generalized epilepsy

Whether children with idiopathic generalized epilepsy exhibit accelerated forgetting of verbal and nonverbal information in comparison to healthy controls matched for age and IQ was explored. Twenty-one children with IGE were compared with 21 healthy controls on measures of verbal and visuospatial memory at delays of 30 minutes and 1 week by use of a minimum-learning criterion controlled for initial learning. For the auditory-verbal memory test, group performance was comparable at 30 minutes, but children with IGE recalled significantly less than controls at 1 week. When the number of learning trials to criterion was controlled, the main effects of group and delay became nonsignificant. No group differences were found with respect to recognition performance. Comparisons for the visuospatial task were nonsignificant. Overall, poor initial learning efficiency led to retrieval difficulties, specifically at the longer delay, and was more common in the IGE group. These results, although preliminary, have implications for education planning in childhood IGE.