Prefrontal injury and behavior in children

A review of the literature discloses a surprising paucity of cases that can be utilized to evaluate the behavioral effects of prefrontal disease in children. Almost all past studies on the topic are deficient in that they fail to demonstrate that the underlying lesion was in fact confined to the prefrontal region. Indirect approaches (e.g., comparison of the behavior of human infants with that of normal and prefrontally injured monkeys) have generated findings that promise to advance our understanding of the role of the prefrontal region in the mediation of children's behavior. It is also reasonable to expect that utilization of current neurodiagnostic procedures will alleviate the extreme paucity of informative case material.