Accelerated long‐term forgetting in children with neurofibromatosis type 1

Parents of children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) often report that their child has memory difficulties. However, these concerns are generally not reflected on standard memory tests involving a short 30-minute delay. This study investigated whether children with NF1 experience accelerated long-term forgetting. Accelerated long-term forgetting refers to the phenomenon where information is learned and remembered normally over short delays (between 2 and 30 minutes) but is forgotten at a more rapid rate over longer delays of days to weeks. The study included 60 children with NF1 and 88 children without NF1, aged 6 to 15 years. Children completed a word-learning task and were assessed on how well they remembered a proportion of words after 2 minutes, 30 minutes, and again after 7 days. We also examined whether accelerated long-term forgetting was related to attention or working memory skills. Among children who successfully learned the word list (i.e. 40 children with NF1, and 84 without NF1), those with NF1 remembered a similar proportion of information as children without NF1 after 2 and 30 minutes. However, after 7 days, children with NF1 remembered and recognized a fewer proportion of words than their peers without NF1. This suggests that some children with NF1 may initially learn and retain information (at a rate similar to their peers) but then forget it at a faster rate over time. In children with NF1, accelerated long-term forgetting was not associated with attention or working memory skills, however, was associated with general intellectual functioning.