Summary

Cerebral palsy (CP) is defined as non-progressive damage to the brain at or around birth, which leads to varying symptoms depending on the extent and location of damage. The leading symptom is sensory-motor impairment of varying expression, but additional perceptual, cognitive, and socio-emotional symptoms are common. CP can be divided into four types, with bilateral spastic being by far the most frequent, followed by the unilateral spastic, the dyskinetic, and the ataxic variants. The intellectual, linguistic, and cognitive profile of CP is extremely variant, but all qualities correlate more or less with CP type and motor impairment. Early diagnosis is important since early intervention may promote all developmental dimensions. Generally, individuals with unilateral spastic CP have the best (almost normal) intellectual, linguistic, and cognitive outcomes, while those with bilateral spastic CP fare the worst. Language perception is often an individual strength, while language expression, and particularly speech, may be heavily impaired. Attention and executive functions are often impaired as compared to typically developing controls, even in those children with normal intellectual functioning. The same holds true for visual perceptual functions, which are impaired in almost half of all children and adolescents with CP. The potential neuropsychological dysfunctions are a risk factor for arithmetic functions and literacy. Obstacles to participate in society are high for individuals with CP and heavily dependent on their motor, language, intellectual, and cognitive functions. However, quality of life is good for most children and adolescents, and they develop a sound self-concept. On the other side, bully experience is more common than amongst typically developing children and is associated with behavior problems and executive dysfunction. The development of children and adolescents with CP is determined by a complex interplay between physical, intellectual, and neuropsychological functions.