COgnitive REhabilitation in Pediatric Patients with ABI, from Vegetative State to Functional Recovery

Personalized neuropsychological treatment. In the CORE-ABI intervention, the stimulation of cognitive functions will be provided based on a weekly evaluation of child's cognitive profile by a qualified neuropsychologist. Each session will have a duration of 45 min. While the first 30 minutes will be devoted to the stimulation of the most impaired cognitive function(s), the remaining 15 minutes will ensure the stimulation of the other cognitive subdomains. Domains addressed by the intervention will be the following: selective attention, sustained and divided attention, inhibition and shifting, visual-perceptual abilities, visual-spatial abilities, visual-constructional abilities, short-term memory, long-term memory, working-memory, categorization/reasoning/abstraction, problem-solving/planning and socio-emotional skills.

"Sequential Neuropsychological Treatment. In the SET-ABI intervention, the stimulation of cognitive functions will be provided following a sequential order, identical for each child and for each session in each setting (neuropsychological treatment, speech therapy treatment and psychoeducational treatment). Each session will have a duration of 45 min.~Specifically, the first three weeks (weeks 1-3) of treatment will target attention; in weeks 4-6, the domain of visual-spatial and visual-constructional abilities will be addressed; in weeks 7-9, memory will be the target domain; in weeks 10-12, executive functions and socio-emotional skills will be addressed."