Performance monitoring in children following traumatic brain injury
Tisha J Ornstein1, Harvey S Levin, Shirley Chen
1Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Ontario Canada.
Insights
Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) show impaired performance monitoring, struggling to adjust behavior after errors. This suggests TBI affects crucial executive functions like error detection and response adjustment.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatric Traumatology
Background:
- Executive control deficits are common after childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI).
- Performance monitoring is a key executive function often impacted by TBI.
- This study specifically investigated performance monitoring in children with TBI.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess performance monitoring in children with varying severity of TBI.
- To compare performance monitoring abilities between children with TBI and healthy controls.
- To identify potential factors influencing performance monitoring deficits post-TBI.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the stop-signal task, a reaction time measure, to assess performance monitoring.
- Included three groups: mild-moderate TBI, severe TBI, and non-TBI controls.
- Defined performance monitoring as the degree of reaction time slowing after failed response inhibition.
Main Results:
- Children with TBI exhibited significantly less post-error slowing compared to controls.
- This reduced slowing indicates impaired error monitoring in the TBI group.
- Time since injury and socioeconomic status were correlated with diminished post-error slowing.
Conclusions:
- Children with TBI demonstrate deficits in performance monitoring.
- These deficits manifest as difficulties in noticing and adjusting behavior to changing situations.
- Altered performance monitoring is a likely consequence of pediatric TBI.
Background:
Executive control deficits are common sequelae of childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI). The goal of the current study was to assess a specific executive control function, performance monitoring, in children following TBI.
Methods:
Thirty-one children with mild-moderate TBI, 18 with severe TBI, and 37 control children without TBI, of comparable age and sex, performed the stop signal task, a speeded choice reaction time task. On occasion, they were presented with a signal to stop their responses. Performance monitoring was defined as the extent of slowing in go-task reaction time following failure to stop responses.
Results:
The TBI group as a whole demonstrated less post-error slowing than did controls. This finding suggested impaired error monitoring performance. In addition, time since injury and socioeconomic status predicted less slowing after stopped responses.
Conclusions:
We suggest that alterations in performance monitoring expressed as the inability to notice, regulate and adjust behavior to changing situations are an effect of TBI in children.
