Abstract
Objective: The purpose of our study was to assess social cognition in adolescents and children with epilepsy or Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) compared to typical individuals. It was verified whether the age of onset, duration and drug therapy of epileptics can influence this ability and if there is a correlation between Social Cognition, intelligence and executive functions. Methods: This is an observational cross-sectional study that included a total of 125 subjects between 7 and 16 years (62 with focal epilepsy and 63 with SLD). The control group included 32 healthy subjects. Study subjects were evaluated with neuropsychological tools to evaluate executive functions (EpiTrack Junior), Social Cognition (NEPSY-II), and intelligence; a nonverbal cognitive test (Raven's Matrices) was used in subjects with Epilepsy, while WISC-IV was administered to SLDs. Results: the groups of subjects scored significantly lower than the controls in Social Cognition. The results showed a positive correlation between affect recognition scores and executive function in both groups. In patients with epilepsy the deficit in Affect Recognition appeared to be linked with early age of onset of epilepsy, long term of disease and lack of non-verbal intelligence; a high frequency of seizures, on the other hand, was related to poor performance in the Theory of Mind (ToM). In the SLD group there was no correlation between social cognition and intellectual level. Conclusions: The results of our study suggest that individuals with focal epilepsy or SLD have deficits in the recognition of facial emotions and ToM compared to their peers. In epilepsy group, the Social Cognition deficit seems to be linked to characteristics of epilepsy, particularly the deficits in the recognition of facial emotions seems linked to problems in nonverbal intelligence and in executive function. In the SLD group, however, the ability to recognize emotions was correlated only with executive functions.
Highlights
A very important skill for a good adaptation and a good quality of life is social cognition, which allows us to define social stimuli giving them an appropriate interpretation and response
Since social cognition is a skill that develops during the course of life, some studies have tried to investigate how it evolves in children with developmental disorders, such as in Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) subjects or with childhood-onset diseases such as epilepsy (Dimitrovsky et al, 1998; IvesDeliperi & Jokeit, 2019)
Social cognition in subjects with SLD and epilepsy was evaluated and the results were compared with a control group; it was evaluated if other factors, such as age of onset of epilepsy, duration and drug therapy, could influence this ability; lastly, the presence of a correlation between social cognition, executive functions and intelligence was investigated
Summary
A very important skill for a good adaptation and a good quality of life is social cognition, which allows us to define social stimuli giving them an appropriate interpretation and response. Studies on epileptic patients have shown that these subjects had difficulties both in recognizing emotions and in theory of mind tasks, this pointing out that there might be a correlation between the brain structures affected by the epileptic focus and the impoverishment of social cognition skills, underlining that there is no real difference between focal and generalized epilepsy (Fusar-Poli et al, 2009; Meletti et al, 2009; Stewart et al, 2018; Stewart et al, 2019) Another set of skills, called Executive Functions, appear to be related to Social Cognition, this association is not yet clear (Wade et al, 2018; Zhang et al, 2018). Social cognition in subjects with SLD and epilepsy was evaluated and the results were compared with a control group; it was evaluated if other factors, such as age of onset of epilepsy, duration and drug therapy, could influence this ability; lastly, the presence of a correlation between social cognition, executive functions and intelligence was investigated
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