Discrepancies between the California Verbal Learning Test: Children's Version and the Children's Category Test after pediatric traumatic brain injury.

One hundred 9-16-year-old children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) completed the California Verbal Learning Test-Children's Version (CVLT-C) and the Children's Category Test (CCT) within 1 year after injury. Performance contrasts between these two instruments that were unusually large (> 16 T score points) were about as common in this clinical sample as in the standardization sample of both instruments. However, relatively poor performance on the CVLT-C as compared to the CCT was associated with prolonged coma and lower scores on the Processing Speed index of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition. It is concluded that a relative weakness on the CVLT-C is more likely to reflect cerebral compromise after pediatric TBI than is a relative weakness on the CCT.