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Use of the Arizona Battery for Communication Disorders of Dementia in the UK.

The Arizona Battery for Communication Disorders of Dementia (ABCD) (Bayles & Tomoeda, 1993) was given to groups of young and old normal subjects and to subjects with moderate Alzheimer's disease in the UK. Very few significant differences were found between their raw scores and those of the original standardisation sample in the USA, which makes the ABCD an appropriate test to use in the UK. Although some subjects commented on several of the test stimuli, cultural differences in pictures and vocabulary did not produce notable effects on test performance and so alterations to test materials are not required for the test to be used in the UK.

Adult↗

[Validation of the Child Speech Test using the Heidelberg Speech Development Test with six-year-old preschool children].

We present and discuss results from researches to validate a new test for diagnosing speech-competences of preschool children KISTE. 41 children (6;0-6;11) were tested both with KISTE and HSET. Correlations, factor- and clusteranalysis showed that the structure of both tests is different and that KISTE has a good differential validity for both aspects of speech: communicative and structural.

Child↗

Learning disability in children with postmeningitic cochlear implants.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of learning disability on measures of auditory perception, receptive language development, and sequential organization in children with postmeningitic cochlear implants. DESIGN: Retrospective study. Follow-up ranged from 12 months to 7 years. SETTING: Tertiary care center. PATIENTS: Ten pediatric patients with cochlear implants, 5 with documented learning disability. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Pediatric cochlear implant test battery performance. RESULTS: Children with learning disability showed slower progress, more inconsistencies, and lower test scores than their partners without learning disability. CONCLUSION: Learning disability is not a contraindication to cochlear implantation, but preoperative counseling must be available to families and support personnel about preoperative achievements and expectation for these children.

Child↗

Use of cognitive state predicates by language-impaired children.

Two studies of the use of cognitive state predicates by children with specific language impairment (SLI) were conducted. Study I analysed longitudinal language samples collected from 26 children with SLI and 25 children with normal language (NL) development, aged 4;4 and 2;11, respectively, at Time I. Study II analysed samples from SLI children with more severe delays at an earlier language stage. There were 10 SLI children and 10 NL children, aged 4;11 and 2;8, respectively, matched by MLU. All cognitive state predicates were identified using both broad and narrow definitions. In Study 1, the SLI children used cognitive state predicates less frequently than their mental age peers, and with no greater frequency or variety than their younger, language peers. In Study II, children with SLI used more predicates referring to communication events, but there were no further group differences. These findings are discussed as they relate to two current psycholinguistic issues: the possible dissociation of grammar and the lexicon, and the role of language in the development of children's theory of mind.

Age Factors↗

A characterization of the prosodic loss in Parkinson's disease.

Prosodic contours in the verbal output of 30 patients with Idiopathic Parkinson's disease were contrasted to those of fifteen age-, sex-, and educationally matched normal subjects. All subjects were tested for language disorder, dementia, depression, and the comprehension of linguistic prosody. The striking disorder of prosody in Parkinson's disease relates to motor control, not to a loss of the linguistic knowledge required to make prosodic distinctions. It appears that prosody, language and the motor planning of speech are integrated at a basal ganglia level.

Aged↗

Olfactory performance during childhood. I. Development of an odorant identification test for children.

Because there has been no suitable diagnostic instrument for evaluation of olfaction in children, we designed an odorant identification test for that purpose. We screened 40 microencapsulated odorants ("scratch 'n' sniff" cards) by randomly grouping them into 40 overlapping sets of five odorants each. Forty-one children, 4 and 5 years of age, tried to identify each test odorant, selecting their responses from among five photographs depicting the substances in the set of odorants. We used the results to select a subset of five odorants (baby powder, bubble gum, candy cane, fish, and orange). To determine how well these odorants could be identified by normal children, we tested another 134 subjects, 3 1/2 to 13 years of age. For children 3 1/2 years to 5 years 4 months of age, the mean (+/- SEM) percentage of correct responses increased from 66% +/- 8% to 92% +/- 2%. Thereafter the mean percentage of correct responses remained at a plateau of about 90%. The 10th percentile for the percentage of correct responses tended to be higher for girls than for boys throughout childhood. We concluded that this set of five odorants can be correctly identified by most normal children 5 years of age or older. The performances of three older subjects with Kallmann syndrome were all subnormal, but the overall efficacy of the test for evaluating children with olfactory deficits needs to be determined.

Age Factors↗

Facilitating the acquisition of UNDER by means of IN and ON--a training study in Polish.

Forty Polish children aged between 1;8 and 2;3 were trained over two training sessions in the comprehension of the preposition POD [UNDER]. In the experiment, two variables were manipulated: a within subjects variable of SITUATION and a between subjects variable of LINGUISTIC INPUT. The effect of situation could be found in all trained groups, showing that children's understanding in familiar and transfer situations differed significantly from the performance of the control group in the post-test. The results further suggest that depending on the type of a situation, the linguistic task requires different word learning abilities from a child.

Case-Control Studies↗

Prediction of global outcome with acute neuropsychological testing following closed-head injury.

Delaying assessment until emergence from post-traumatic amnesia increases completion rates, but this practice causes variable time delays from the date of injury to testing, which can complicate the interpretation of research findings. In the current study, the performance of 105 head injury survivors on simple tests of language comprehension and attention was used to predict global outcome. It was hypothesized that 1 month performance on these measures would aid in the prediction of Disability Rating Scale (DRS) and Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) scores collected at 6 months post injury. Only raw scores on the modified Test of Complex Ideational Material accounted for a significant amount of the variance in DRS scores (4.4%) above that accounted for by age, education, Glasgow Coma Scale score, and pupil response. However, testability at 1 month post injury on all four tests consistently accounted for a larger portion of the variance in DRS scores (10.1-13.2%) and significantly improved prediction of GOS scores. Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test scores collected at 1 month post injury accounted for substantially less variance in DRS scores (7.7-8.4%). Neuropsychological data, including the testability of patients, collected uniformly at 1 month following injury can contribute to the prediction of global outcome.

Adolescent↗

Working memory and discourse production abilities following closed-head injury.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the relationship between working memory (WM) and narrative discourse production in individuals with closed head injury (CHI). It was hypothesized that those individuals with higher performance on tests of WM would demonstrate better performance on measures of discourse production. RESEARCH DESIGN: Correlation coefficients were calculated among five discourse measures from two story narratives and scores from three sub-tests of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS). METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Fifty-five individuals with moderate-to-severe CHI were studied. Participants included 16 females and 39 males ranging in age from 16-69. Narrative discourse samples were elicited from all participants under two conditions: story retelling and story generation. MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: The results revealed a number of modest, significant correlations (r=0.29-0.39, p<0.05) between sub-tests of the WMS and measures of discourse production. CONCLUSIONS: Results supported the hypothesis. Story elicitation task differences, limitations of using simple memory span tests as indices of WM and clinical implications of the relationship between WM and discourse production are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Does parents' evaluation of developmental status at school entry predict language, achievement, and quality of life 2 years later?

OBJECTIVE: We studied the accuracy of the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) at school entry in predicting academic, language, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) outcomes 2 years later. DESIGN/METHOD: Prospective population study in elementary schools in Melbourne, Australia. Base Population. A total of 1591 school entry children who participated in a separate cross-sectional study. Cases. One hundred seventy-three children randomly selected from those with significant parental developmental concerns. Controls. One hundred twenty-nine children without significant parental development concerns. Predictors (1997). Parents completed all 10 PEDS items; teachers completed 5 PEDS items. Outcomes (1999). The PEDS and the Child Health Questionnaire (parents) and the Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills-Revised and the Renfrew Action Picture Test of language (children). Odds ratios (ORs) were calculated for low outcome scores, defined as >1.0 standard deviation below the mean or <16th centile. RESULTS: At outcome, case parents reported more "significant" concerns on the PEDS than did control parents (65% vs 26%, OR 5.3), but mean language and academic scores were only slightly lower for case children. Parent-reported self-help and school skills concerns predicted low language (ORs 2.1-2.8) and academic (ORs 1.3-6.6) scores. Teacher concerns about early school skills predicted low academic scores (ORs 3.7-4.7). However, sensitivity and specificity values were modest. Baseline developmental concerns predicted poor scores on a number of domains of HRQoL 2 years later. CONCLUSIONS: Although individual developmental concerns at school entry variably predict later academic and language scores, sensitivity and specificity values would not support use of the PEDS as a stand-alone screen to detect later problems.

Age Distribution↗

Does babbling sound native? Listener responses to vocalizations produced by Swedish and American 12- and 18-month-olds.

Previous studies of infants' babbling have reported contradictory results as to the extent and timing of discernible phonetic influences of the ambient language. In the present experiment, five experienced phoneticians were asked to listen for ambient language effects on vocalizations produced by American and Swedish 12- and 18-month-olds (with 8 children in each language and age group), and to motivate their decisions in terms of word or phonetic cue perception. Group results indicated that listeners did not perceive effects of ambient language on pure babbles for either of the two age groups, whereas a clear effect appeared in both age groups given a more liberal definition of babbling. This is taken to suggest that results of ambient language listening tests may depend crucially on judgments of vocalizations' word status. As compared to the group trends, listener responses to individual children's vocalizations did not indicate that a majority of either 12- or 18-monthers were sufficiently native-sounding to be reliably identified on the basis of ambient language. A closer analysis of listeners' use of phonetic cues indicated that one single phonetic property, the grave tonal word accent, was discerned by most listeners in vocalizations produced by the Swedish 18-monthers; this property was also discerned by one listener in vocalizations produced by Swedish 12-monthers. This result is consistent with the generally held belief in the primacy of tonal features in phonetic acquisition, and with experimental evidence indicating that Swedish mothers tend to enhance word accent contours in baby talk. In the final section of the paper, the results are discussed with a view to reconcile competing theories of babbling development, notably the 'babbling drift' and the 'independence' hypotheses.

Child Development↗

Validation of the "CAGE" alcoholism screening test in a Brazilian psychiatric inpatient hospital setting.

A Portuguese version of the CAGE alcoholism screening test was administered to 68 alcoholic and 46 non-alcoholic male inpatients in a Psychiatric Hospital in São Paulo. The Portuguese text of the 14 questions, 4 of which were CAGE questions, is provided. When a score of two positive responses to any of the 4 CAGE questions was taken as a positive test result, the sensitivity of the test was 88% and the specificity was 83%. Increasing the cut-off point to 3 positive responses decreased the sensitivity to 81% and increased the specificity to 94%. The importance of cut-off points is discussed. The similarity between our data and results obtained with the English language CAGE test in other countries suggests that the CAGE questionnaire could be a useful tool for screening alcoholics in Brazil. The need for further validation studies in non-hospital populations is discussed.

Adolescent↗

Comparative study of early childhood high-function autism and developmental mixed receptive-expressive language disorder.

Verbal cognitive profile and general social functioning were compared between two groups of children aged 5 to 7 years, one with high-function autism and the other with developmental mixed receptive-expressive language disorders. The two groups, totaling 50 children, were matched for age and non-verbal IQ (mean, 90). Both groups had impaired verbal cognitive profile and social adaptive functioning, with no statistically significant differences between the two groups. The implications of our findings are discussed. Current preschool and early childhood medical-educational intervention programs in Taiwan must design and implement curricula in which children with language delay, whether autistic or/not, can develop essential social skills.

Autistic Disorder↗

Estimation of premorbid intelligence: the word accentuation test-- Buenos Aires version.

We have sought to adapt and validate a NART-like Spanish test, the Word Accentuation Test (WAT: Del Ser, Montalvo, Espinosa, Villapalos, & Bermejo, 1997) to estimate acquired intelligence in local normal older adults. The test requires examinees to read aloud infrequent, irregularly stressed Spanish words, a situation that presumably requires lexical knowledge. Results in a sample of 74 participants show that the revised WAT (i.e., the WAT for Buenos Aires) has good concurrent validity with the WAIS Vocabulary subtest and number of years of formal education, as well as high internal consistency. Performance on this test was dissociated from age, memory, or frontal/executive measures.

Aged↗

The Word Accentuation Test - Chicago.

A reading test for Spanish speakers in the United States was developed called the Word Accentuation Test-Chicago. The construction and validation of this 40 item test was modeled after reading tests developed in Spain and Argentina, and is based on irregular accentuation of words. The Word Accentuation Test-Chicago was validated on 45 community participants using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III in Spanish. Better reading performance was associated with higher intelligence test performance, with an additional 5% of the variation in intelligence score accounted for by reading performance after controlling for age and education. These results indicate that the Word Accentuation Test-Chicago is a psychometrically sound measure of Spanish reading ability that is robustly related to general cognitive ability.

Adult↗

Depression and cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.

Neuropsychological deficits including cognitive impairment as well as depression are among the most frequent and important mental disorders found in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). It has never been determined, however, whether there is a specific relationship between cognitive impairment and depression. A consecutive series of patients with PD was therefore examined for the presence of depression and neuropsychological deficits. Severity of depression was found to be the single most important factor associated with the severity of cognitive impairment. When PD patients with major depression were compared with an age and stage-matched group of nondepressed patients with PD using a neuropsychological battery, major depressed patients performed significantly worse than the nondepressed patients on all aspects of neuropsychological function tested. These impairments were most pronounced on frontal lobe tasks.

Cognition↗

Unilateral pallidotomy versus bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation in PD--a comparison of neuropsychological effects.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the cognitive and behavioural effects of unilateral pallidotomy and bilateral subthalamic nucleus (STN) stimulation. METHODS: After baseline examination 34 patients were randomly assigned to unilateral pallidotomy (4 left-sided, 10 right-sided) or bilateral STN stimulation (n = 20). At baseline and six and twelve months after surgery we administered neuropsychological tests of language, memory, visuospatial function, mental speed and executive functions. Also a depression rating scale, and self and proxy ratings of memory and dysexecutive symptoms were administered. RESULTS: Six months after surgery, the STN group and the pallidotomy group differed significantly in change from baseline in number of errors on two tests of executive functioning. After 12 months the STN group reported less positive affect compared with baseline than the pallidotomy group. One patient in the STN group showed an overall cognitive deterioration due to complications. CONCLUSIONS: Although we need larger groups to draw firm conclusions, our results suggest that bilateral STN stimulation has slightly more negative effects on executive functioning than unilateral pallidotomy.

Deep Brain Stimulation↗

The Children's Test of Nonword Repetition: a test of phonological working memory.

This article presents findings from the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep). Normative data based on its administration to over 600 children aged between four and nine years are reported. Close developmental links are established between CNRep scores and vocabulary, reading, and comprehensive skills in children during the early school years. The links between nonword repetition and language skills are shown to be consistently higher and more specific than those obtained between language skills and another simple verbal task with a significant phonological memory component, auditory digit span. The psychological mechanisms underpinning these distinctive developmental relationships between nonword repetition and language development are considered.

Case-Control Studies↗