Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 16, 2026
Anteromesial Temporal Lobectomy for Medically Intractable Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: An Operative Study
Published on: August 15, 2025
Verbal memory and literacy outcomes one year after pediatric temporal lobectomy: a retrospective cohort study
1Department of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia; ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Australia.
Objective:
In children with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), temporal lobectomy (TL) is a treatment of choice for those children with seizure that are difficult to control with medication. Semantic memory is dependent on functional integrity of the temporal lobes and is thought to be critical for development of literacy skills. However, little is known about semantic memory and literacy outcomes post-TL in children.
Method:
In this retrospective cohort study, 40 children with TLE were administered tests of memory and literacy pre-TL and 1year post-TL in one hospital between 1996 and 2011.
Results:
One year post-TL, 60% of the children became seizure-free. A significant decline was found in one aspect of semantic memory (naming) in children who underwent left TL. In addition, a significant drop was also evident in one aspect of literacy (reading accuracy), irrespective of the side of surgery. These declines were related neither to each other nor to epilepsy variables including seizure outcome.
Conclusions:
This is the largest pediatric outcome study of memory and literacy skills to date and shows that TL is associated with a risk of a mild drop in specific aspects of semantic memory (naming, following left TL) and reading accuracy, while other areas of memory and literacy remain unchanged.
