MEDICAL DISORDERS ASSOCIATED WITH CEREBRAL PALSY

Intellectual impairment. Approximately one-third of children who have cerebral palsy are mildly intellectually impaired, while approximately one-third of children are moderately or severely impaired.  The remaining one third of children who have cerebral palsy are normal intellectually. 

Seizures. Half of all children with cerebral palsy have seizures.

Growth problems. Failure to thrive,  a general term used to describe children who lag behind in growth and development,  is common in children with moderate-to-severe cerebral palsy, especially those with spastic quadriparesis.  Failure to thrive usually takes the form of too little weight gain.   In young children, failure to thrive can appear as abnormal shortness; in teenagers, it may also include a lack of sexual development.

Impaired vision or hearing. A large number of children with cerebral palsy have a condition called strabismus, in which the eyes are not aligned because of differences in the left and right eye muscles. In an adult, this condition causes double vision. In children, the brain may compensate by ignoring signals from one of the misaligned eyes. If left untreated in children, this can lead to very poor vision in one eye.

Impaired hearing is more frequent among those with cerebral palsy than among those in the general population.

Abnormal sensation and perception. Some children with cerebral palsy have difficulty with the ability to feel sensations such touch and pain. Children may also have difficulty perceiving and identifying objects using their sense of touch (stereognosia).