DEVELOPMENT NEUROLOGY

Academic Year 2023/2024 - Teacher: Agata Rita Maria POLIZZI

Expected Learning Outcomes

Knowing how to interpret and manage the main diseases of the child in educational contexts

Knowing how to monitor and evaluate the different trajectories of the child's development (motor, language, sensory, relational and behavioral) and growth, knowing how to grasp the differences between typical and atypical development of the child, complex clinical pictures and anomalous behaviors reactive to the context of life

Promote effective integration between educational, social, cultural and pediatric-health services.

Course Structure

Lectures at one of the departmental offices. The lectures make use of the support of slides with texts, tables, images and videos aimed at explaining pediatric physiology and pathology.

Required Prerequisites

The student must be confident with the use of basic scientific terminology

Detailed Course Content

PROGRAM of CHILD NEUROLOGY

GENERAL PART

§  Approach to the child and adolescent with neurological disease and disability

§  Age of onset, main causes and course patterns of neurological diseases

§  Levels of health care and integrated care services

§  Elements of embryology, anatomy and physiology of the central and peripheral nervous system.

§  Correlations with the main clinical frameworks of reference

§  Neuroplasticity

§  Principles of genetics

 

SPECIALISTIC PART 1

§  Newborn at term

§  Preterm infant

§  Normal development parameters; stages of psychomotor development; general movements, primitive neonatal reflexes

§  Trajectories of atypical development

§  Rare diseases

§  Malformations of the nervous system

§  Febrile seizures and epilepsy

§  Paroxysmal non-epileptic disorders in childhood

§  Headache and related disorders

§  Encephalitis and meningitis: definition and main clinical manifestations

§  Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy

§  Cerebral palsy 

§  Movement disorders [hypokinesia/stiffness/Parkinsonism; Korea; ballism; dystonias; tics and Tourette's syndrome; tremors; myoclonus; stereotypies, Sydenham Syndrome], Ataxia definition

§  Immune-mediated diseases of the nervous system [acute disseminated encephalomyelitis/ADEM; childhood multiple sclerosis; Guillain-Barré syndrome; chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy; myasthenia gravis]

§  Neuromuscular diseases [general principles and specific forms: spinal muscular atrophy and Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy]

§  Main neurocutaneous syndromes [neurofibromatosis; tuberous sclerosis]

§  Neurometabolic and degenerative diseases [general principles]

§  Enuresis: primary and secondary

§  Nervous system tumors [general principles and clinical manifestations such as warning signs] Neuroblastoma

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§  Sleep disturbances


SPECIALISTIC PART 2 [Disorders of cognitive and neuropsychological development]

§  Intellectual disabilities

§  Development and language and speech disorders in the developmental age

§  Neonatal withdrawal syndrome

§  Genetic syndromes with behavioral phenotype (e.g. Williams syndrome, Fragile-X syndrome, Prader Willi syndrome, Angelman syndrome)

§  Rett syndrome

§  Down syndrome

§  Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/Impulsivity

§  Specific learning disabilities

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§  Autism Spectrum Disorders

Textbook Information

Manuale di Pediatria. T. Lissauer, W. Carroll. Quinta Edizione. Edra

M.Ruggieri, E.Franzoni. Neurologia e Psichiatria dello sviluppo. Edra 2012

Learning Assessment

Learning Assessment Procedures

Oral examination

Examples of frequently asked questions and / or exercises

What are the neurodevelopment trajectories? What are the diagnostic criteria for the autism spectrum disorder? What are rare diseases? What are the main types of headaches in children? What is a behavioral phenotype?