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Biomedical subjects

A J North

Publications and source records attributed to A J North.

27 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1986

Discourse performance in older adults.

Thirty-three elderly women, whose mean age was 76.2 years, and eighteen middle-aged women, whose mean age was 45.6 years, were assessed on a number of linguistic discourse tasks. The women were well educated, and most of them were or had been engaged in the teaching profession. Each woman was given narrative discourse tasks involving recall of stories, summarizing stories, giving the morals of the stories, procedural discourse tasks, interview to assess cognitive functioning and communicative abilities, and the following cognitive tests: Block Design, Symbol-Digit, Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices, and Word Fluency. The findings were that the older group generally performed more poorly than did the middle-aged group on most of the discourse tasks and cognitive tests. Within the older group, measures of quality of discourse were generally negatively related to age and positively related to scores on cognitive tests.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1983

Production of procedural discourse in aphasia.

The abilities of a group of 15 moderately impaired aphasics and 15 normals to produce procedural discourse are described. The experimental tasks included producing four procedures of varying levels of complexity. The data were analyzed in terms of sentential grammar, discourse grammar, and subjective ratings of content and clarity of language. The results showed that aphasics produced well-structured discourse. The language of the aphasics' discourse was reduced in both complexity and amount, but was not qualitatively different from the language produced by the normals. The reduction of language in the procedures reflected selective reduction of hierarchically organized information. The investigation suggests that aphasics are capable of manipulating different types of information and that they might be helped in this by utilizing instrumental scripts which are representation of knowledge underlying procedures.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Production of narrative discourse in aphasia.

The study described the abilities of a group of 15 moderately impaired aphasics and 15 normals to produce narrative discourse. The experimental tasks included telling stories, summarizing stories, and giving morals to stories. The data were analyzed in terms of sentential grammar, discourse grammar, and subjective ratings of content and clarity of language. The results showed that aphasics produced well-structured discourse. The language of the aphasics' discourse was reduced in both complexity and amount, as compared to that produced by normals. The reduction of language reflected selective reduction of hierarchically organized information. The findings of the study confirm the results of previous research on mildly impaired aphasics, which also showed preservation of discourse structure with selective reduction of information.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

A study of repeat visits to a psychiatric emergency room.

The authors examined the records of 3,824 patients making their first visit to a psychiatric emergency room of a teaching hospital. Data on the patients who made repeat visits (17.7 percent) were analyzed to determine variables that may correlate with repeating for follow-up periods of 90 and 360 days. Although no factors present in the initial visit allowed a useful level of prediction of repeat visits, psychiatric history, cognitive difficulties, and a diagnosis of more severe psychopathology were validated as correlates of repeating. Results suggested there were two subgroups of repeaters: those who repeated within 30 days and who were distinguished from nonrepeaters solely by their previous psychiatric contact, and those who repeated after 30 days and who appeared chronically ill and afflicted with profound psychological, social, and economic problems. Implications for the emergency room are discussed.

Emergency Services, Psychiatric↗
PubMed1981

Competence in independently living older adults: assessment and correlates.

Twenty-seven independently living older adults (18 women and 9 men) ranging in age from 65 to 87 years were interviewed in order to assess their competence. "Competence" was defined as effectiveness in dealing with the problems and opportunities characteristic of one's environment. Each participant completed the Block Design and Similarities subtests of the WAIS and the Associate Learning subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale. Each participant was required to produce three samples of procedural discourse and one of narrative discourse. Participants were rated for competence on the basis off the interview and for quality of interview, procedural, and narrative discourse. The reliability of the competence rating was estimated as .70 for a single rater and as .90 for the average of four raters. Competence correlated significantly with most of the cognitive measures and with each of the three quality of discourse ratings.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reliability and validity of the Diabetes Family Behavior Scale (DFBS).

The Diabetes Family Behavior Scale (DFBS) was designed to measure diabetes-specific family support. The purposes of this study were to refine the scale and to assess reliability and criterion validity in terms of relationship to metabolic control. The DFBS was administered to 321 children and adolescents with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). Blood was drawn for determination of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Based on an item-analysis procedure, the DFBS was revised to include 47 items with two subscales, one to reflect guidance-control and one to reflect warmth-caring. Acceptable internal consistency was found for the DFBS total score (.86), and for the guidance-control (.81) and warmth-caring (.79) subscales. There was a statistically significant relationship in the expected direction between DFBS total score and HbA1c (r = -.12, P < .03), and between the guidance-control subscale and HbA1c (r = -.17, P < .002).

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Individual differences in cognitive functioning in the elderly - phenomena and interpretation.

Residents (N = 27) of a Jewish home for the aged were given a battery of twenty-five tests of cognitive abilities. Participants included people carrying a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome. Subsets of tests were designed to measure immediate sequential memory, ability to handle categories, and ability to execute motor patterns. There were marked individual differences among participants. Poorer performance was associated with carrying a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome and with a number of other background variables. There was empirical evidence that immediate sequential memory and ability to handle categories can be discriminatively measured. A wide variety of qualitative behavioral phenomena was described. The findings were interpreted in terms of an information-processing model.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Use of discourse analysis for evaluation of the condition of patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type].

The study was concerned with the ability to discourse in a group of 10 patients with minor or moderately severe disturbances in Alzheimer disease and in a control group of healthy subjects. The aim the study was to answer the question whether patients with this disease have language deficits, and if they have, then at what level they appear and what is their influence on the communication ability. The experimental task included production of a narrative and a procedural discourse. The results were analysed from the standpoint of grammar of clauses and their informative contents. The analysis showed that the patients had no deficit in respect to the extent of the discourse, its complexity and grammar correctness. However, errors were found in the contents of the discourse. In particular, the discourse of the patients had a greater number of irrelevant and incorrect propositions. The possible explanation of the demonstrated deficit pattern is discussed stressing the importance of progmatic and cognitive factors. The conclusion is that language disorders in these patients should not be regarded as a type of aphasia.

Aged↗