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PubMed1995

Durable improvements in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance in schizophrenic patients.

We examined the potential reversibility of cognitive deficits of schizophrenic patients in performing the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a neuropsychological measure of frontal lobe performance. The sample comprised 34 DSM III-R schizophrenic patients, who were randomly assigned to one of three groups, viz. two experimental groups and one control group, and were tested on six consecutive occasions. The results show that schizophrenic patients, selected on their poor WCST performance, could dramatically improve their performances by an elaborate procedural test training. They were even able to sustain these improvements over a 2-week period. The addition of monetary reinforcement to the test training was less effective than training alone. This reinforcement had an inhibiting effect on the training. Our results suggest that frontal lobe deficits in schizophrenia can be reduced and that a central deficit in schizophrenic WCST performance is a stable dysfunction in concept formation. For now it remains to be seen that this deficit in concept formation is remediable.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Executive functions in children with dyslexia.

There is little data available concerning the executive functions of children with dyslexia. The small number of existing studies in this field focus on single aspects of these functions such as working memory. The aim of the present study was therefore to assess a variety of aspects of executive functioning in children with dyslexia. Forty-two children with dyslexia and 42 non-dyslexic children were examined using a neuropsychological test battery. The test battery consisted of standardised tests examining the assessment of working memory, concept formation, inhibition, flexibility, problem solving and fluency functions. Comparison between the test performance of non-dyslexic children and children with dyslexia revealed obvious difficulties of children with dyslexia in tests measuring working memory. Inhibition of inappropriate reactions was impaired in children with dyslexia in more demanding tests, but not in simple ones. Furthermore, children with dyslexia displayed impairments of both verbal and figural fluency functions. While in comparison to non-dyslexic children no disturbances of concept formation were observed, problem solving seemed to be partially impaired. The present findings suggest that children with dyslexia demonstrate impairments in a variety of executive functions. This should be considered in the development of new concepts in the treatment of dyslexia.

Attention↗
PubMed1984

Hypothesis-testing and nonlinguistic symbolic abilities in language-impaired children.

This study sought to clarify further the cognitive abilities of language-impaired children by examining their hypothesis-testing and nonlinguistic symbolic abilities. A discrimination learning task and a concept formation task were used to measure hypothesis-testing abilities, and a haptic (touch) recognition task was used to assess nonlinguistic symbolic abilities. Subjects were 10 language-impaired and 10 language-normal children matched for performance Mental Age. Measures of expressive and receptive language were also obtained from each child. The language-impaired children were found to perform significantly poorer than their MA controls on the haptic recognition task and on a portion of the discrimination learning task. No differences were found between the two groups' concept formation abilities. Correlational analyses revealed a particularly strong positive relationship between performance on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the haptic recognition tasks. It was speculated that this relationship was motivated by the symbolic demands of these tasks. One implication of this speculation is that a symbolic representational deficit might better explain the receptive language deficit than the expressive one.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Cognitive training and strategy behavior: comparative evaluation of 2 cognitive training programs].

Combining a non-comparative with a comparative evaluation, two modern programs for fostering inductive reasoning, namely the German version of the "Cognitive training for children" by Klauer and Phye (1994; Klauer 1989), and the "DenkMit" by Sydow and Meincke (1994), are compared to each other and to a control program which intends to enhance aspects of memory instead of inductive reasoning. The programs were performed with N = 49 children between six and eight years who had been postponed from regular school because of various reasons or who had been selected as especially in need for particular interventions from first classes. Besides the psychometric test often used for assessing inductive reasoning, i.e. three subtests of the German form of the Culture Fair Test by Cattell (Weiss a. Osterland 1980), tasks of concept formation were applied for assessing changes in strategic behavior of children--a type of task which has been used in connection with inductive reasoning since many years. Counter to expectations, the children whose memory was trained, showed changes in performance in the psychometric test in a similar size as the children whose inductive reasoning was trained. These effects are interpreted in terms of special attention directed to the children during the intervention situation. Moreover, it was found that despite the authors claim to the opposite the DenkMit did not cause any changes in visual perception. In contrast to the author's intentions, the "Cognitive Training for Children" did cause some substantive changes in the area of visual perception. The pattern of results with the concept formation tasks, however, overall indicates that the reasoning programs caused some changes in strategic behaviors of the children. Although these changes are not very impressive, they cannot be attributed to extraneous factors such as special attention.

Attention↗
PubMed2003

Executive skills in Klinefelter's syndrome.

Executive skills are those involved in concept formation, problem solving, switching tasks, inhibiting inappropriate responses, initiating rapid and fluent responses, planning and sustained attention. Different patterns of disorder amongst these skills have been found in several developmental abnormalities including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Turner's syndrome (TS). This study explored, for the first time, executive skills in children with Klinefelter's syndrome (KS), a sex chromosome abnormality in which there is one or more additional X-chromosomes. Intelligence in KS is normal but there is academic underachievement. A battery of executive tasks was administered, in a series of case studies, to three 10-year-old boys with KS and to controls matched for age, sex and intelligence. The results demonstrate that children with KS have impairments in executive skills. However, the pattern of impairment is task-specific. There is evidence from multiple tasks of impairment in inhibitory skills, for each case of KS. In contrast, concept formation, problem solving, task switching and speeded responding are normal. These results support theories that argue for distinct sub-components of executive skills within development that may develop relatively independently. The results have relevance for modelling both child and adult executive systems. They also confirm that an additional X-chromosome has highly selective effects upon the consequent cognitive phenotype seen in development.

Attention↗
PubMed2000

Cognitive decline in patients with Cushing's syndrome.

Chronic exposure to elevated glucocorticoid levels in Cushing's syndrome (CS), is associated with deficits in cognitive function and in emotion. The hippocampus plays a crucial role in the behavioral manifestations of the syndrome as it is richest in glucocorticoid receptors and is thus particularly vulnerable to glucocorticoid excess. The wide distribution of glucocorticoid receptors throughout the cerebral cortex, however, suggests that several cognitive functions can also be affected by the dysregulation of glucocorticoids. In this study, we investigated how an excess of glucocorticoid hormones affects cognitive processes. Nineteen patients with chronic hypercortisolemia due to CS were compared to healthy controls matched for age, sex, education, and occupation in tests of processing of visual and spatial information, memory, reasoning and concept formation, language and verbal functions, and attention. Multivariate and univariate analyses revealed overall differences in tests of treatment of visual and spatial information, reasoning and concept formation as well as in verbal and language performance, with poorer performance from CS patients. Differences were also observed in nonverbal aspects of memory and in attention tasks. The results suggest that chronic exposure to elevated levels of cortisol is associated with deficits in several areas of cognition, particularly those involving processing of selective attention and visual components. This study also shows that hormones play an important role in the modulation of cognitive function and that their influence on cerebral structure and function merits closer scrutiny.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Cognitive impairment in spinocerebellar ataxia type 8.

OBJECTIVES: Only a limited number of studies have investigated the cognitive performances of spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) patients. In none of the SCA8 studies have the neuropsychological test performances been the primary measures. The objective of the current study was to investigate the characteristics of cognitive deficits in SCA8. METHODS: Ten SCA8 patients and ten case-by-case matched control subjects underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological examination evaluating attention and information processing, concept formation, reasoning and executive functions, verbal production, memory and learning and visuoperceptual and -constructive functions. RESULTS: SCA8 patients demonstrated deficits primarily in attention and information processing, as well as in concept formation, reasoning, executive functions and verbal production. Visuoperceptual and -constructive functions, as well as most of the performances of memory were unaffected. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive impairments, especially those related to attention, information processing and executive functions, seem to be a clinical feature of SCA8 disease.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Neuropsychological impairment in 42 adolescents with sex chromosome abnormalities.

Sixty-seven adolescents participated in this protocol, including 42 with sex chromosome abnormalities and 25 controls. Results from a battery of neuropsychological tests indicated karyotype specific patterns of neuropsychological impairment: (1) 47,XXY boys had unimpaired intelligence but reduced abilities in verbal fluency and reading; (2) 47,XXX girls experienced reduced general intelligence accompanied by impaired scores on individual tests of attention, concept formation, spatial thinking, verbal fluency, and academic skills, while retention of memorized information was a relative strength; (3) among the 45,X girls average intelligence level was also reduced along with scores on tests of attention, concept formation, verbal fluency, spatial thinking, and academic skills, and an atypical pattern of hand dominance was identified; (4) test scores in the group of mosaic females did not differ from those of controls. Test scores and patterns of personal adaptation were quite variable in all groups; while eight nonmosaic propositi required intensive special education assistance in their public schooling, eight others have attended college.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2004

Nasality in Taiwanese.

This study used perceptual and articulatory data to investigate a language specific phonemic inventory, and allophonic rules for homorganic initial voiced stops versus homorganic nasal stops, and oral versus nasal vowels in Taiwanese. Four experiments were conducted: concept formation, gating, and two airflow studies. Results of a first nasal airflow study on syllable initial voiced stops and nasal stops showed that initial voiced stops were nasalized when preceded by a nasal consonant across a word boundary. Results of a concept formation experiment indicated that Taiwanese listeners grouped homorganic voiced stops and nasal stops into the same category. A gating experiment showed that subjects were insensitive to the phonetic differences between homorganic voiced stops and nasal stops. The presence or absence of nasality within the vowel nucleus was the crucial cue to the identification of oral and nasal syllables. A second nasal airflow study on vowel nuclei demonstrated that oral vowels were nasalized at their onset and offset when preceded or followed by a nasal consonant respectively. The distinction between oral and nasal vowels was maintained at the center of the vowel nuclei. By classifying homorganic initial voiced stops and nasal stops into the same category, Taiwanese speakers were able to ignore the phonetic difference between them and relied on the distinction between nasal vowel versus oral and nasalized vowel to distinguish between nasal versus oral syllables. Taiwanese speakers produced a clear distinction between oral and nasal vowels to retain the crucial role that oral versus nasal contrasts on vowel nuclei played during perception experiments. This study offers phonetic evidence to answer the controversial nasality issue in Taiwanese. Furthermore, a link was found between perception and extent of application of allophonic rules during production.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Object relations, affect management, and psychic structure formation. The concept of object constancy.

Object relations are central to contemporary structural theory. This paper first reviews the various ways in which the key concept object constancy has been used. To reconcile the apparent contradictions in definitions, the concept is viewed along a developmental continuum in which each step is defined by its functions. It is proposed that at its most mature stage, a capacity for affective self-regulation is achieved, a capacity that is central to characterological structure formation and optimal adaptation. Possible interferences with the achievement of mature object constancy are briefly explored.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Cognitive functioning after subarachnoid haemorrhage of unknown origin.

Twenty patients, who had sustained a proven subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) and in whom cerebral panangiography had failed to reveal any source of the bleeding (SAH-NUD), were subjected to a neuropsychological examination involving memory functions, spatial perceptual organization, visuoconstructive abilities, reasoning, perceptual speed and accuracy, and concept formation. Cognitive functioning in SAH-NUD patients was compared with normal reference values and also related to the cognitive performance of neurologically intact patients having sustained an aneurysmal bleeding (SAH-AN). SAH-NUD patients showed significant reduction of verbal learning and retention, and of abilities involving abstract attitude and concept formation, i.e., functions related to frontotemporal structures. In all other respects the performance of these patients approached normality. Unexpectedly, there were no significant differences in mean test scores separating SAH-NUD from aneurysmal SAH patients. Collapsing the patient groups produced an increased number of significant deviations from normality, which was interpreted as the effect of the contribution of a greater number of relatively more impaired SAH-AN patients. This was supported by the finding that the ratio of impaired individuals to total number of subjects differed in the groups; the proportion of individuals showing cognitive sequelae was larger among SAH-AN patients throughout all comparisons but one. Although SAH of unknown aetiology represents much less of a catastrophe as compared with haemorrhage of aneurysmal origin, it does not preclude cognitive disturbances. Thus, the presence of blood per se anywhere in the subarachnoid spaces appears to affect higher brain function(s).

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Card sorting performance in Parkinson's Disease: a comparison between acquisition and shifting performance.

In the present study we tested the hypothesis that learned irrelevance underlies the frequently observed poor performance of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients on card sorting tests. If learned irrelevance accounts for the poor performance of PD patients on card sorting tests, PD patients and control subjects (CS) will not differ in the acquisition phase, during which basic concept formation is assessed, but they will differ in the subsequent shifting phases. We presented three distinct card sorting tests with an identical format to 51 PD patients and 24 normal controls. The groups did not differ with respect to intelligence, memory, or attention. PD patients showed a slightly better performance in the acquisition phase. In the first shifting phase, the performance of PD patients was significantly poorer than that of control subjects after correction for basic concept formation. In the second shifting phase this difference disappeared. We conclude that learned irrelevance does not account for the poor performance of PD patients in card sorting tests. The results are discussed in terms of self-generation of problem solving strategies.

Age of Onset↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neuropsychological deficits in probands from multiply-affected schizophrenic families.

This study was designed to determine if schizophrenics from families with more than one psychotic relative show more severe neuropsychological deficits than schizophrenics with only one psychotic relative, non-familial schizophrenics, and a group of matched normal controls. Eighty-one schizophrenic-spectrum patients were divided into three groups on the basis of the presence of psychotic disorder among first- and second-degree relatives. The three groups of schizophrenics and the normal controls were compared for differences on a brief neuropsychological testing battery. The four groups showed significant multivariate differences. Patients from multiply-affected families showed significantly greater neuropsychological dysfunction on measures of abstract concept formation, visuomotor-coordination, and attention than patients from families that had only one psychotic relative. Schizophrenics from low-density families showed more severe deficits in fine motor-control than non-familial schizophrenics. These data suggest that abnormalities in those frontal systems that are likely to mediate fine motor control and abstract concept formation may be related to the degree of familial loading for psychotic disorder.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

[Comparison of nondominant unilateral and bilateral electroconvulsive therapy--clinical efficiency and side effects (author's transl)].

UNLABELLED: In a double-blind study 100 patients were treated either with conventional ECT or with unilateral ECT. The majority suffered from depressive illness, mainly endogenous depression. On average, they were hospitalized 41 days and unsuccessfully treated with antidepressants and other psychoactive drugs before ECT was given as a last treatment resort. ECT efficiency was evaluated by: (1) clinical evaluation, (2) AMP documentation, (3) the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and (4) the von Zerssen Mood Scale. Side effects were evaluated by a test (1) for vigilance (tachistoscopic threshold), (2) for verbal and visual memory, (3) for performance, (4) for concept formation, and (5) the Benton test. RESULTS: There was no difference in clinical efficiency between the two methods. As for side effects, unilateral ECT produced fewer organic brain syndromes and less impairment of verbal memory and performance. Total side effects were significantly less. There was no significant difference between the two methods with regard to vigilance, visual memory, and concept formation. One week after ECT, in both groups there was a significant increase in vigilance and visual memory in comparison to the results before ECT; the unilateral group also showed significant increase in verbal memory and concentration.

Adult↗