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Twenty-four members of a family with benign familial chorea underwent testing for evidence of intellectual impairment. Lower verbal intelligence was found in affected individuals compared to unaffected family members, as were deficits in verbal abstract concept formation. These results challenge the notion that benign familial chorea uniformly spares the intellect in all kindreds.
Waber's claim that individual differences in cognition reflect variations in rate of maturation was tested by correlating the performance of 50 right-handed females in verbal and spatial tasks with their age of onset of menstruation. No significant relationships emerged. This suggested that Waber's findings, obtained on adolescents who were still maturing, do not apply to subsequent cognitive outcomes during adulthood.
Four variations of programmed filmstrips were shown to deaf children to improve comprehension of the passive voice. The design included two training strategies that treated the passive voice either as a unitary structure or as a contrast to the active voice. Within strategies two orders of training were compared for the various types of passive sentences: (nonreversible, reversible, agent-deleted) and (agent-deleted, nonreversible, reversible). Six filmstrips were constructed for the two strategies and three types of passive. Evaluation tests were administered before, immediately after, and three months following training. Forty deaf children were selected from two age ranges, 9 to 12 and 13 to 16 years. Within age groups 10 subjects served under each of the four strategy-order conditions. Evaluation tests consisted of a multiple choice picture-sentence matching test and a performance test in which subjects acted out six passive sentences using toys. Performance test scores increased significantly after training and surpassed pretraining after three months. Highest scores were achieved on nonreversible passives followed by reversible and agent-deleted passives. Reversal of agent and object was the most frequent error. Strategy and order differences were not significant.
Since 1978, a prospective investigation has been underway to study the consequences of prenatal exposure to a number of widely used drugs. Data are presented describing some of the associations between maternal use of cigarettes and marijuana and effects upon the offspring beyond the newborn stage. At one month of age, prenatal cigarette exposure was associated with hypertonicity and increased nervous system excitation while prenatal marijuana exposure was associated with symptoms similar to mild narcotic withdrawal. At 12 months of age, maternal cigarette smoking was significantly associated with lower mental scores and altered responses to auditory items. At 24 months, similar associations were noted although the unique predictive power of maternal smoking was overshadowed by the influence of the postnatal environment. In the one and two year old offspring of the marijuana users, no association was noted between drug use and motor, mental or language outcome variables. At three years of age a dose response relationship between lower language scores, lowered cognitive scores and prenatal cigarette exposure was noted. At this age, some cognitive and language deficits were also observed with prenatal marijuana exposure. Overall, it appears that at one, two and three years of age, there are persistent effects of prenatal exposure to cigarettes but the effects of prenatal marijuana exposure, if present, are not as readily ascertained.
Historically nursing in New Zealand has not used any standardised means to classify practice. In a rapidly developing health information technology (IT) sector this raises serious questions about documentation processes, information management and knowledge development nursing. Recently the Nursing Council of New Zealand has redefined nursing practice, included documentation skills and information management as core competencies within the Registered Nurse and Nurse Practitioner Scopes of Practice (2004) and included information technology as core curricula content within pre-registration nursing programmes. This opinion paper will argue that continued lack of description and analysis of nursing practice in this country will enhance nursing vulnerability. It will background the extent of this issue and outline a project that aims to explore the contextual issues, test a language embedded with a clinical information system and develop a procedural framework to guide the implementation of automated means to describe, compare, examine and analyse nursing practices and processes within New Zealand. The framework will take into account the uniqueness of New Zealand nursing located within international positions and will be a first step toward using a standardised professional language embedded in clinical information systems.
Accurate reading of irregular words is generally assumed to require intact lexical reading mechanisms. A nonlexical mechanism is usually deemed insufficient for this type of stimulus processing. The maximum level of accuracy attainable by nonlexical means, however, has not been adequately evaluated. We now describe a patient with acquired dyslexia due to impaired lexical reading mechanisms who retained the ability to read irregular words. The patient's poor performance on tasks requiring lexical decision and access to word meaning provided evidence that his lexical mechanisms were impaired. Nevertheless, errors on irregular words became apparent only with special tests that circumvented the patient's ability to use his intact speaking vocabulary to ensure that reading responses were words. The results demonstrate that relatively accurate reading of irregular words is possible despite damage to lexical mechanisms and that this can be achieved by filtering potential responses through the speaking vocabulary.
Metaphor comprehension was investigated in 50 right-hemisphere damaged (RHD) patients and 38 control subjects in two experimental conditions: a visuo-verbal and a verbal test. In the visuo-verbal test, subjects had to match a metaphorical sentence with one of four pictures representing the correct metaphorical meaning, the literal meaning, a control metaphor and a control literal meaning. In the verbal test, a metaphorical sentence had to be matched to a correct written metaphorical interpretation, a literal or a control interpretation. On both tests, the number of correct metaphorical responses in the RHD group was lower than in the control group. However, RHD patients performed more poorly in the visuo-verbal than in the verbal condition. Interestingly, when they selected the wrong response, the RHD patients tended to select the literal one only in the visuo-verbal condition. Context does not seem to be responsible for the dissociation between the two tests. The influence of the RHD patients' major visuo-spatial deficits was also checked, to exclude their role in the tendency to be literal with visuo-verbal material. Results are discussed in the perspective of an integration deficit.
PURPOSE: To investigate the relation between the number and spatial distribution of language sites and specific patient-and epilepsy-related variables. METHODS: Patients with stimulation-induced reading or naming errors from anterior or inferior temporal cortex (i.e., atypical temporal language sites) were compared with those with language sites confined to Wernicke's area (WA) in the posterosuperior temporal and inferior parietal perisylvian area. In a consecutive series of 44 left hemisphere language dominant patients with complex partial seizures before left temporal lobectomy, correlations were compared between cortical language distribution and measures of cognitive function. RESULTS: Patients with atypical temporal language sites (group 1) had significantly fewer years of education that did patients with language sites in WA (group 2). Patients in group 1 had poorer verbal learning and fluency than did patients in group 2. Patients with IQ <80 were significantly more likely to have multiple sites where stimulation disrupted language than did patients with normal IQ. Number of language sites had significant negative correlations with full-scale IQ, and measures of confrontation naming, verbal fluency, and immediate verbal memory. CONCLUSIONS: Language cortex has a wider spatial distribution in epilepsy surgery patients with lower intelligence, poorer education, and worse verbal and memory skills.
Studies of Parkinson's disease (PD) have shown impaired temporal ordering but interpretation may be confounded by task requirements and the effects of medication. We examined item recognition and recency discrimination in PD in relation to treatment and performance on other tests. Patients showed increased response latency and impaired recency discrimination only at short retention intervals. The deficits were greater in chronically medicated patients but treatment with levodopa, bromocriptine or anticholinergic drugs did not affect performance of newly diagnosed cases. The short-term memory deficits correlated with scores on tests of working memory, attention and executive function. These results do not indicate a generalised temporal ordering deficit in PD but suggest that much of the cognitive impairment in the disorder arises from attentional deficits affecting short-term and working memory.
The capacity to access semantic memory and the efficiency of the memory search were studied in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) or multiple sclerosis (MS) using a modified version of the "Supermarket Test." PD and MS patients who performed normally on the Boston Naming Test generated as many specific exemplars and category labels as did controls, and these patients also searched their semantic memories as efficiently as controls. In contrast, PD and MS patients with impaired confrontational naming generated fewer specific exemplars, but a normal number of generic category labels. These naming-impaired patients searched their semantic memories less efficiently than controls. For both MS and PD patients, the efficiency of semantic memory search was significantly correlated with measures that reflect access to semantic memory (eg, performance on letter or category fluency tasks), but was not significantly related to measures of problem-solving ability derived from the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Inefficient search of semantic memory in MS and PD appears to arise from an inability to retrieve knowledge from semantic memory quickly or from the loss of information from semantic memory stores, rather than from impairment in the ability to formulate and deploy appropriate strategies for task solution.
This study aims at comparing performance among subjects along a series of tests dealing with verbal comprehension, verbal fluency, and reasoning. The subjects were, approximately, the same age. However theirs were different educational levels. The samples drawn were 180 male subjects, approximately 22-years old, distributed into 3 groups according to their education level, i.e. primary school, high school, and college. Three subtests, Verbal Meaning, Word Fluency, and Reasoning (SRA Primary Mental Abilities Test Ages 11 to 17-Form AH) with a high saturation of the above mentioned factors were administered. The results of the simple variation analysis on each subtest scores showed a significant principal effect on education although a strict covariation among scores and the subjects' education level were not detected.
Fifty-five subjects were drawn from a population of average kindergarden children. Their ages ranged between 3; 4 and 4; 11 years. Two vocabulary tests were administered individually in a quiet room to each subject. A new instrument for testing the active vocabulary (Subtest "vocabulary" of the K-ABC, 1991) was compared with an established one (AWST 3-6, 1979) to see whether they agree sufficiently for the new to replace the old. Raw scores were computed according to the test instructions for each correct response and transformed into normscores. These were compared, and both tests correlated with r = 0.69 (p = 0.0001). So, the K-ABC-Subtest "vocabulary" may be administered in the first diagnostic setting. The mean of the differences of both vocabulary tests is 0.1; yet, in some cases large differences between the results of both vocabulary tests are to be expected, because the differences vary in the broad range from -15.5 to +15.7 (= +/- 2 SD). Therefore the more detailed AWST 3-6 should be used to assess the amount of active vocabulary in children with a low norm score in the K-ABC-Subtest "vocabulary".
Twelve patients with endogenous depression and 13 health persons were investigated with the questionnaire FCZ KT (for measurement of temperament) and computerized Wiener Testsystem (for the evaluation of cognitive functions). Depressive patients expressed higher level of reactivity and a lower need for stimulation in comparison to a control group. In terms of temperamental characteristics (by FCZ KT test) the depressive group was less alert, more perseverative, less sensitive and more fatigued than the control group. The group with depression scored higher on scales measuring anxiety as a state and as a trait. No significant differences between the groups in physiological parameters measured by Wiener Testsystem were found.
In a previous study ( DiSimoni and Mucha , J. Aud . Res., 1982, 22, 265-270) 97 essentially normal pre-school children were given the Token Test for Children (TTC), a receptive language test of semantic function. The socioeconomic status (SES) of each parent was estimated on a 7-pt scale. Data were here further analyzed to show that while TTC scores were not correlated with SES for the whole group, in a subgroup of 33 Ss in 1-parent families (all mothers) the correlation was strong (p = 0.003) between TTC and maternal SES. Thus, receptive language comprehension varies not only with family SES but with important familial factor(s) beyond the power of this exploratory study to elucidate.
Responsibility for detection of hearing loss at the earliest possible age rests on the shoulders of the medical profession. Early detection and presentation of language through all available sensory channels, most notably the visual, are essential since deaf children of hearing parents, the vast majority of the deaf, characteristically remain grossly deficient linguistically despite years of special schooling. The deaf children of deaf parents, who are not as deprived linguistically since they learn a manual language at the normal age of language acquisition, tend to be less severely handicapped than the deaf children of hearing parents. Deafness is a hidden handicap in infancy although lack of vestibular function may delay motor milestones like sitting and walking but does not constitute a serious problem after they are achieved. The average 18 year old deaf student achieves a reading level comparable to that of a hearing fourth grader and the mathematical skills of a sixth grader. He is also deficient in science, social studies, and general information despite his average scores on nonverbal intelligence tests. Although many deaf students drop out of school before graduation and few go on to higher education, congenitally deaf adults are usually self-supporting and independent. Eighty per cent of the deaf marry hearing impaired persons. The deaf are greatly assisted by the cohesive deaf community existing in every sizable city which provides a social, recreational, and economic framework to their lives. As a result, delinquency and psychiatric illness are not higher among the deaf than the hearing, despite the difficulties they have dealing with the complexities of the hearing society.
Neuropsychologic assessment has long been an integral part of evaluation for surgical treatment of epilepsy. Neuropsychologic evaluation and consultation continue to be an important part of the assessment for operative intervention for epilepsy, but the role of neuropsychology has changed over time. At one time, neuropsychologic assessment assumed a diagnostic role in preoperative evaluation for epilepsy and also contributed to the lateralization and localization of the seizure focus. Sophisticated electroencephalographic techniques and especially neuroimaging have revolutionized the diagnosis and management in epilepsy surgical treatment centers. Although still helpful, neuropsychology no longer has a major role in lateralization or localization of seizure onset. This report describes neuropsychologic evaluation and its current role in surgical treatment of epilepsy. The characteristics and purposes of neuropsychologic assessment and Wada testing (intracarotid injection of amobarbital) are described. Current research on assessment of emotional adjustment and on its predictors before and after surgical therapy for epilepsy is reviewed. Finally, the risk for neuropsychologic decline after temporal lobectomy is discussed in light of recent research on preoperative memory, hippocampal pathologic lesions, and quantitative neuroimaging data.
Awareness of morae, which is believed to be the most important requisite for acquisition of kana reading, was investigated with a mentally retarded child. It has been maintained that awareness of morae is a requisite for learning to name each kana character, but the author proposes that the former is not necessary for the latter, but is required for reading comprehension. To test the hypothesis, the subject, who named most of kana characters but could not understand written words, was trained to segment words into morae and identify each morae in order to raise the level of his awareness of morae; and then he was tested for the comprehension of written words. It was found that the subject was not aware of morae at first, but through the training of moraic awareness he was led to comprehend written words. Thus it was concluded that awareness of morae is a requisite for reading comprehension.
Magnetic resonance imaging was utilized to determine the nature and rate of subcortical abnormalities in bipolar affective disorder. Nine of 19 bipolar patients and no controls demonstrated subcortical signal hyperintensities on blind evaluation of the images. There was no apparent change in the appearance of the hyperintensities in 7 of 7 subjects with abnormal magnetic resonance images who underwent repeated imaging at 1 year. Bipolar patients with abnormalities had a history of more hospitalizations and appeared more impaired on tests of fluency and recall when compared with bipolar patients without abnormalities or with controls. The possible etiology and significance of signal hyperintensities in bipolar affective disorder is discussed.