Neuropsychological aspects of Turner syndrome

To determine if females with Turner syndrome have an increased incidence of neuropsychologic deficits, we administered a series of performance measures and a three-condition dichotic listening task. Their results were compared to ten control subjects matched for age, sex, handedness, education and socioeconomic status. The groups did not differ in mean Verbal IQ scores, but those with Turner syndrome performed significantly poorer on tests involving visual-perceptual, visual-memory, and motor processes. In addition, no significant group differences were found on any of the dichotic listening tasks. Although control subjects demonstrated a slightly greater right ear advantage across tasks, there was no evidence of deviant or atypical hemispheric specialization for language in females with Turner syndrome. The current study indicates that females with Turner syndrome seem to be left hemisphere lateralized for language, yet have a range of perceptual and motor problems which is more extensive than that previously reported, and not specific to a particular region in one cerebral hemisphere.