Children and adolescents with chronic cerebellar lesions show no clinically relevant signs of aphasia or neglect.

Abstract

We studied language and visuospatial functions of 12 children and adolescents who had undergone surgery for cerebellar astrocytoma without subsequent radiation or chemotherapy and compared them with 27 age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy control subjects. To study possible lateralization of the functions of the left and right cerebellar hemispheres, subjects performed several language tasks including a verb-generation task as well as standard neglect and extinction tests. Three-dimensional-MR images confirmed that lesions affected cerebellar hemispheres in all children but one who had a pure vermal lesion. The right cerebellar hemisphere was affected in six, the left hemisphere in four children, and both hemispheres in one child. There were no signs of aphasia in the children or adolescents with cerebellar lesions. Language abilities did not differ between cerebellar patients and control subjects except for small increases in reaction times in verb generation in patients with left-sided lesions. Visuospatial functions were also intact in cerebellar subjects except for minor group differences in neglect tasks. In sum, chronic focal cerebellar lesions acquired in childhood or youth do not result in persistent language disorders or clinically significant signs of spatial neglect or extinction.