Gender differences in memory and learning in children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) over a 4-year follow-up interval.

OBJECTIVE To examine demographic and disease predictors of memory and learning performance for children with diabetes and controls. METHOD Children with diabetes (N = 95) and demographically similar control children (N = 100) were administered the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) initially and 4 years later. RESULTS Unlike other groups, boys with diabetes did not make expected developmental gains on the learning trials of the RAVLT. Boys with diabetes showed a plateau in words learned from the primacy position, and girls with diabetes appeared to lose their relative gender advantage for verbal information. Longer disease duration predicted poorer learning over time. CONCLUSIONS Subtle difficulties were found in learning related to longer disease duration for a predominantly middle-class group of children with diabetes over a 4-year follow-up interval. It will be important to monitor children's educational development to help avoid a cumulative toll on classroom performance.