Neurocognitive Assessments within COG: An Intensive, Integrated Model for Successfully Evaluating Children with High-Risk ALL

Background

Children with "high-risk" leukemia receive intense treatments that, while life-saving, can also cause them to develop problems with the way they learn and think.  This does not happen to all children receiving these treatments, but we cannot yet predict who will develop problems. One reason that we lack this information is that it is often difficult to test changes in the way children learn while they are receiving medical treatment. Children may feel too sick to complete testing, psychologists are not always available to do the evaluations, and insurance companies may not cover the testing that is needed. 

Project Goal

In this project, we aim to identify the first signs of changes in thinking and learning using a short, computerized testing program. The tests can be given in clinic by nurses or other staff and cost very little money. We will test children starting shortly after leukemia is diagnosed, and several times during the course of their treatment, so that we can identify problems as soon as they start to occur. Children in our study will also receive 3 one-hour evaluations with widely-used learning and memory tests, given by a psychologist, over a 5-year period. We will determine whether results from the computerized tests are able to predict performance on the more traditional tests given by the psychologists. If computerized testing done early in treatment helps us to better predict who will go on to have difficulties, we can help to slow down or eliminate these problems.