Childhood brain tumor survivors may have problems at school

TUESDAY, Sept. 3, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Brain tumors are rare in young children, but those who survive them may have problems with school for years, a new study suggests.

For families that can afford it, intervening while children are still in preschool can help them achieve better academic outcomes later, researchers say.

“We now know that we don’t have to wait until patients start having trouble with math and reading; we can intervene earlier,” said Heather Conklin, senior author of the study.

“We’ve shown that the variability that we see early on predicts long-term academic skills, which strongly suggests that earlier interventions are going to be beneficial and make a real difference,” said Conklin, chief of neuropsychology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

The new study focused on an understudied group: children who were treated for and survived a brain tumor that occurred in infancy or before the age of 3.

Conklin and her colleagues tracked the academic progress of 70 of these children every six months for five years.

“We found a growing gap between these young patients treated for brain tumors and their peers with normal development, because their academic readiness skills were not developing as quickly,” St. Jude noted in a news release. “They gradually fell behind their peers in basic academic skills, such as learning letters, numbers and colors.”

The delay in development and academic skills was permanent.

“Early academic readiness was predictive of long-term outcomes in reading and math,” Conklin said. “The effect is not temporary. These kids don’t just catch up naturally.”

However, one group of children managed to catch up over time: children from wealthier families.

“The only clinical or demographic factor that we found predicted academic readiness was socioeconomic status,” Conklin said. “Being from a higher socioeconomic status family had a protective effect on children’s academic readiness.”

This is probably because parents have the money and time to invest in activities that help their little ones catch up.

Researchers say it’s important to find ways to help families of all childhood brain cancer survivors access these resources because cancer treatments prevent young people from developing naturally.

“We know that being away from the home environment, caregivers, daycare, playgrounds, parks and early intervention services during these critical years of development likely has a negative impact on very young patients,” Conklin explained.

“Our results suggest that families can make play meaningful and by making small changes to the way they interact with their child, with the support of their healthcare team and receiving appropriate resources, they can impact their children’s cognitive and academic outcomes,” she said.

The study was funded by St Jude and the National Cancer Institute and recently published in the journal Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

More information

Learn more about treating pediatric brain tumors at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

SOURCE: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, press release, August 20, 2024.