Accelerated forgetting and memory consolidation in children with idiopathic generalised epilepsy

Abstract

Long-term memory retention and learning of verbal and non-verbal material was investigated in children with idiopathic generalised epilepsy (IGE) and healthy controls. Ten children with IGE were compared to 12 control children for their initial learning ability and memory retention of verbal and non-verbal material at delays of 30-minutes and 1-week. A minimum learning criterion was used to control for initial learning. No significant group differences were found for the initial learning and recall of non-verbal material across delays. In the verbal test children with IGE did not differ significantly from controls in the number of learning trials they required to achieve criterion or in their recall at the 30-minute delay, however one week later they recalled significantly less than controls. There were no significant group differences for the recognition of verbal material across delays. These findings suggest that children with IGE have difficulty retrieving verbal material that has been successfully encoded and stored in long-term memory.