The Craniofacial Collaboration UK: Developmental Outcomes in 7- and 10-Year-Old Children with Metopic Synostosis

The Craniofacial Collaboration (CC-UK) is a shared initiative across the Psychology teams attached to 4 highly specialized craniofacial centers in the United Kingdom. The CC-UK aims to address key limitations in the existing craniofacial literature by analyzing data for homogenous samples of children with craniosynostosis. This article presents the fifth wave of CC-UK data collection, focused on 7- and 10-year olds who have undergone primary corrective surgery for metopic synostosis (MS). Data for children with sagittal synostosis and MS have previously been presented at 3 and 5 years. This paper continues to build on this with consideration to older age groups, presenting the first CC-UK analysis of cognitive assessment data using the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence - Second Edition. Results show that the majority of children with MS fall within the average ranges across behavioral and neurodevelopmental domains. However, several domains indicated a trend of heightened concern when compared with normative data, particularly for parent-reported outcomes, suggesting that there may be some subtle difficulties for children with MS. Consideration of how these findings compare with that of previous CC-UK analyses is explored. Further, implications for clinical practice and future research are considered, with the need for longitudinal analyses, as well as data from multiple perspectives (eg, school, parents, and self) at older age points to establish patterns over time. Through collaboration across the highly specialized craniofacial centers, the CC-UK hopes to work toward this goal moving forward.