High Failure Rate With Brigance Developmental Screening In 3 Year-Old Children With Sickle Cell Disease

Background: Central nervous system complications of sickle cell disease (SCD) include stroke, silent cerebral infarct, and neurocognitive deficits, but few studies have examined developmental delays in preschool-age children. Using the Brigance developmental screen in 3 year-old children with SCD we found a high frequency of scores below the “normal” cutoff for age, but control data were lacking (Ped. Blood Cancer 2011;56:620). We hypothesized that children with SCD would be more likely to “fail” this screening test than age-matched children from a similar ethnic/socio-economic background.