Evaluated the utility of neuropsychological testing in predicting academic outcome in children 1 year following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Fifty-one school age children who were admitted to hospital after TBI were assessed with a battery of neuropsychological measures at 3 months postinjury. Academic achievement was assessed at 3 and 12 months postinjury. The neuropsychological battery included intelligence testing and measures of memory, learning, and speed of information processing. Academic outcome was assessed in terms of post-TBI changes in reading, spelling, and arithmetic; changes in teacher ratings of school performance; and change in school placement. According to logistic regression analysis, change in placement from regular to special education at 1-year post-TBI was predicted by injury severity and by neuropsychological performance at 3 months post-TBI. Findings suggest that neuropsychological testing is useful in identifying children with special educational needs subsequent to TBI.

Respiratory support of children at home by trained parents and layperson carers is safe and efficient. All modes of respiratory support may be used.

Within the context of a longitudinal study investigating outcome for children following traumatic brain injury, this paper reports on the utility of neuropsychological testing in predicting academic outcome in children 2 years following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Twenty-nine school-age children who were admitted to hospital after TBI were assessed with a battery of neuropsychological and academic measures at 3 and 24 months postinjury. The neuropsychological battery included measures of memory, learning, and speed of information processing. Academic outcome was assessed in terms of post-TBI change in school placement. According to logistic regression analysis, change in placement from regular to special education at 2 years post-TBI was predicted by injury severity and by neuropsychological performance at 3 months post-TBI. Findings suggest that neuropsychological testing is useful in identifying children with special educational needs subsequent to TBI. (JINS, 1997, 3, 608–616.)

An expectation of health care for young people with disability is that quality coordinated care continues to be available as they pass from the paediatric to the adult health care system. While individual clinicians provide this service well, the widespread absence of coordinated multidisciplinary care for young people with spina bifida in the adult health care system is a major deficiency. This paper describes the planning and implementation that underpinned the transfer of 10 young people with spina bifida from a paediatric to an adult service. The range of structural, financial and 'cultural' barriers that need to be overcome before patients can be successfully transferred is highlighted; lessons learned from this model may serve to facilitate the development of other transfer services.