Influence of socioeconomic status on cognitive outcome after childhood arterial ischemic stroke.
Lisa Bartha-Doering, Andreas Gleiss, Sarah Knaus and 2 others
PMID 33336807WHAT IT FOUND
Socioeconomic status predicted cognitive outcomes better than stroke severity in 18 children.
Each point increase in SES raised perceptual reasoning scores by 15.64 percentile points. Clinical factors like lesion size had weaker effects. Low sample size limits generalizability.
Key findings
01Socioeconomic status was a stronger predictor of cognitive outcome than clinical factors, explaining up to 41.9% of the variability in perceptual reasoning.
02One additional point in the child's SES score added 15.64 percentile points to perceptual reasoning and 14.36 to language scores.
03Initial infarct volume (modASPECTS) and residual lesion volume had moderate but smaller effects on memory and perceptual reasoning compared to SES.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study included only 18 participants, resulting in low statistical power and high variability in results. The time between stroke and testing varied widely (0.2 to 10.2 years), meaning some children may not have completed neural reorganization. Normative data for expressive vocabulary was missing for older children, potentially leading to overestimated scores. The study excluded children with seizures or developmental problems, limiting applicability to more complex cases. No correction for multiple testing was performed, increasing the risk of false positives.
Declared interests
Funded by the Austrian Science Fund and Oesterreichische Nationalbank. No specific conflicts of interest declared by the authors in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this small study proves SES causes better cognitive outcomes. The association could reflect unmeasured factors like access to private therapy or parental education levels, which were not fully controlled for.