Effects of Speech Therapy in Children with Specific Language Impairment and Mild Intellectual Disability

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the effects of speech therapy between children with specific language impairment (SLI) and mild intellectual disability (ID). METHOD: Fourteen children with SLI and thirteen children with mild ID who had received speech therapy for more than 1 year were enrolled. The language function and cognitive function of all subjects were assessed before and after speech therapy. RESULTS: Improvement of receptive and expressive language development were shown in 78.5% and 71.4% of children with SLI, respectively. However improvement of receptive and expressive language development was shown in only 30.7% of children with ID. Improvement of verbal intelligence which had appeared in the SLI group was not shown in the ID group. CONCLUSION: Effects of speech therapy were different in children with SLI and mild ID and more favorable outcomes were demonstrated in children with SLI.

Visual-perceptual Function in Children with Spastic Cerebral Palsy

OBJECTIVE: To compare visual-perceptual function between children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy who have periventricular leukomalacia and unilateral spastic cerebral palsy without periventricular leukomalacia. METHOD: Twenty-one children with spastic cerebral palsy (11 bilateral, 10 unilateral) were enrolled and their visual-perceptual function were assessed using K-DTVP-2 (Korean developmental test of visual perception 2). RESULTS: K-DTVP-2 in the bilateral group showed significant dysfunction when compared with the unilateral group. Among 6 sub-items of K-DTVP-2, scores related to visual closure and copying were particularly reduced in the bilateral group. There was discrepancy of verbal and performance IQ in the bilateral group which was not apparent in the unilateral group. CONCLUSION: In children with spastic cerebral palsy, the bilaterally affected group had characteristic features of visual-perceptual dysfunction.

A Survey on the Health Status of Population with Disability in Goyang City

OBJECTIVE: To improve the quality of life of the disabled population by decreasing the incidence of complications and chronic diseases and improving self-care abilities according to individual diseases through health status evaluation and basic survey. METHOD: The basic clinical information of 1,378 regional severely-disabled patients were collected along with information regarding functional level, activities of daily living, nutritional status, and management of complications which were distinguished into 3 stages (good, moderate, poor), which were correlated into scores (1-3 points) that were used to assess a collaborative score (5-15 points) that represented their health status. Health behavior and blood tests were also done. RESULTS: Health status were evaluated based on sex, grade of disability, age, frequency of exercise and type of disability, which revealed that female sex, brain disorder, 1st grade disability, total lack of exercise, old age disabled patients were relatively poor in terms of health status. CONCLUSION: Health status of the severely-disabled showed differences according to sex, age, grade of disability, type of disability, and frequency of exercise, and health programs designed to screen and follow up the severely-disabled person with poor health status as well as manage their accompanying diseases and complications are needed.

Delayed Onset Pneumo-hydrocephalus Caused by Traumatic Skull Base Fracture: A case report

Pneumocephalus is defined as the presence of air or gas within the cranial cavity. It is usually associated with disruption of the continuity of the skull after head and facial trauma, neuro or otorhinolaryngologic surgery, and rarely, spontaneously. But a case of pneumo-hydrocephlus, a special subtype of pneumocephalus, has been rarely reported. This is a case of a 26-year-old quadriplegic patient who traumatic brain injury with left frontoparietal skull bone fracture and epidural hemorrhage with developed of pneumo-hydrocepahlus in the ventricle 6 months after injury. The mechanism of this case can be explained by the "inverted bottle" hypothesis. Clinical observation suggests that the leakage of cerebrospinal fluid through the ventricle-peritoneal shunt tube caused negative pressure gradient differences resulting in the inflow of outside air into the ventricle through fissures created by concealed fracture of the skull base.