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Brain trauma and the myth of the resilient child: rebuffing conventional wisdom, new research shows that the youngest victims of brain injury are the least likely to recover. Use the data to win damages that will cover your client''s long-term care.

Article Excerpt
Litigating brain-injury claims presents trial lawyers with significant challenges. The difficulties are compounded when a case involves a plaintiff injured in infancy; these claims are notorious for their complexity and uncertainty. Several misconceptions exist about the nature of brain injuries in young children--even among plaintiff experts who sometimes agree with the defense that if a plaintiff was an infant when the injury occurred, he or she stands a better chance of recovering at least some of the lost brain function.

Specialists have long held that infants and young children who have suffered a brain injury will eventually "grow out of it." This assertion is accepted without question by most lawyers.

Known in the medical profession as the Kennard principle, this approach holds that children, due to their brain's neuronal plasticity (the ability of their nerve cells to change or adapt), have a greater capacity for neuronal organization than adults do. (1) The younger the child at the time of injury, the principle holds, the better the outcome.

But this principle has recently been disproved. It is now accepted by pediatric neurologists--although still not widely known--that children, especially infants and preschoolers up to age seven, have a substantially higher vulnerability to neurological trauma than adults do. Neuronal reorganization does not occur to the extent that pediatric specialists previously believed, and some long-term effects appear only after the child has reached adulthood. (2)

For the litigator, this new research requires a different approach to quantifying damages.

The Kennard principle

The theory that historically provided the basis for assessing pediatric brain injuries was pioneered by neurologist Margaret Kennard in the 1930s. By studying brain lesions in infant monkeys, she determined that the effects of brain injury were less deleterious if the injury was sustained early in life, when...

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