Reply: Early plasticity versus early vulnerability: The problem of heterogeneous lesion mechanism

Sir, Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this submission. Lidzba and colleagues identify a number of concerns with respect to our paper recently published in Brain (Lidzba et al. , 2009). In particular, they question the validity and interpretation of our results, arguing that two factors—presence of epilepsy and bilaterality of lesions—have not been sufficiently considered in the study design. We agree with the authors regarding the importance of both of these factors in the outcome for children with brain disease or insult. As Lidzba et al. note, there is considerable literature to point to the impact of each of these factors. However, we would argue that, in fact, each of these factors has been carefully considered and incorporated into the design of …