Differences in iq and Memory of Monolingual/Bilingual Children who Suffered a tbi

 
Neuroanatomical Changes in TBI 
Jonsson, Smedler, Ljungmark, & Emanuelson (2009) examined what neurological 
changes occurred in children after severe TBIs. Of note, these children had such severe 
TBI’s that they had cerebral bleeds and swelling, which were treated with neurosurgery. 
Neuroanatomically, they found that that these individuals had a late maturation in the 
frontal and temporal lobes (measured by a loss of cortical grey matter). The loss of 
cortical grey matter was a result of synaptic pruning due to TBI (Jonsson, Smedler, 
Ljungmark, & Emanuelson, 2009). This loss was still present in the temporal lobe at the 
age of 19. Consequently, they also found that the TBI groups had significantly lower 
IQ’s and memory scores compared to the controls. This shows that there is empirical 
support that traumatic brain injury causes a neurological impact, which in turn translates 
into deficits of IQ and memory.
Ewing-Cobbs et al. (2008) looked at the changes in the corpus callosum of 
individuals who incurred a moderate to severe TBI classified using the Glasgow Coma 
Scale (GCS). In this study, the researchers found that individuals with a TBI had a 
significantly smaller posterior body and isthmus of their corpus callosum compared to the 
controls of the study. Their overall conclusion was that there was arrested development of 

---

9 
the corpus callosum in children who had incurred a TBI. Furthermore, they also assessed 
neuropsychological domains to see what differences were present in individuals with TBI 
compared to the controls. They found that children who incurred a TBI demonstrated 
worse performance on all of the cognitive domains assessed, which included IQ, reading 
comprehension, memory, fine motor skill, processing speed, and calculation.