Autobiographical Memory in Youth with Stroke

Autobiographical memory (AM) consists of both memory for specific past personal events (episodic memory) and personal facts (semantic memory). An increasing amount of research has explored short term memory in youth following pediatric arterial ischemic stroke (AIS), however little work has been done examining long-term memory such as AM in this population. In the current study 28 youth with stroke and 32 age and sex-matched controls were administered the Children’s Autobiographical Memory Interview (cAMI). Youth with stroke showed deficits in the recall of episodic AM, and overall memory recall in comparison to controls. Furthermore, there were significant relationships between area of stroke, lesion lateralization, and time since stroke and specific memory scores. This study unveils, to our knowledge that pediatric stroke is associated with a selective deficit in AM. These results have implications for the adjustment of youth following pediatric stroke, so that earlier diagnosis of memory deficits can occur and early implementation of intervention programs can be put in place to allow these youth to function maximally.