Writing patterns of the congenitally neurologically impaired adult.

The writing patterns of two adults diagnosed as having congenital neurological impairment were submitted to linguistic analysis. The written work of these persons was found to contain errors incompatible with those of undereducated native speakers of English but somewhat analogous to errors of aphasics: tense, plural, and possessive endings are absent; articles and prepositions are absent or are used incorrectly; subordinating words are absent or incorrectly used. Yet the oral performance of these persons was syntactically unremarkable. It seems, therefore, that congenital neurological damage can affect the written performance while leaving the oral performance comparatively intact.     

Facilitative effects of labeling on preschool children's copying of simple geometric forms

A total of 150 children between 2.5 and 5 yr. of age were tested on one of three conditions (one experimental and two control) of a copying task adapted from the 1982 Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration of Beery. In the experimental condition, the geometric forms were labeled with the names of familiar objects. Analysis of scores indicated that introduction of verbal labels on the copying task facilitated preschool children's ability to reproduce geometric forms. The effect was consistent across the ages tested but was limited in that facilitation was observed only for those forms just beyond the child's demonstrated level of mastery. These results suggested that the verbal labels evoked a representational context which provided children with additional information necessary for accurate reproduction of the forms. Two alternative interpretations of this finding are discussed.     

Neuropsychological evaluation of neurologically asymptomatic HIV-infected children

Forty-two children born to HIV positive mothers (29 infected at different stages of the disease, according to the Disease Control Classification Centers, and 13 noninfected) underwent evaluation using a battery of neuropsychological tests. Executive function impairments were present in all infected children, whereas memory and visuo-prassic deficits were evident only in those with full-blown AIDS. Language abilities and overall intelligence were spared. Performance of seroreverters was in the normal range. These findings suggest that even in neurologically asymptomatic children, neuropsychological evaluation can identify early impairment of specific cognitive functions. The findings are discussed in the light of the prognostic power of neuropsychological assessment for early signs of HIV neurological involvement.     

Permanently locked-in syndrome in the neurologically impaired neonate: report of a case of Werdnig-Hoffmann disease.

Echenberg, a physician and the chairman of a PEC (perinatal ethics committee) recounts a difficult case of an infant with congenital Werdnig-Hoffman disease, which is characterized by a severe, early-onset form of spinal muscular atrophy, secondary to progressive neurologic degeneration. The two-and-one-half-month-old girl was paralyzed and respirator dependent, but apparently mentally intact and aware. Her parents and other family members tried to avoid serious involvement in the case. The physicians caring for her were resigned to the futility of further treatment, but uncertain how to proceed. The infant's nurses, many of whom had bonded with the child, were strongly divided as to what course of action would be in her best interests, and who should make decisions about continuation or termination of life support. Echenberg summarizes the PEC meeting which was convened about this case, and reviews the issues involved.     

Effect of a mid-series anchor on absolute judgments of duration by schizophrenics, neurologically impaired, and normals.

36 normal, 36 schizophrenic, and 36 neurologically impaired Ss were compared for their ability to temporally discriminate brief auditory stimuli. The experimental task was the absolute judgment of 3, 5, or 9 stimuli ranging in duration from 0.10 to 1.90 sec. Half of the Ss in each group were "assisted" by the presentation of a repeated mid-series anchor. The interval between the presentation of the anchor and the variable stimuli was varied. With the addition of a mid-series anchor, normal Ss demonstrated an increase in information transmission and a decrease in response stereotypy; schizophrenics demonstrated a slight decrease in information transmission and a slight increase in response stereotypy; neurologically impaired Ss were essentially unaffected. Changes in interstimulus interval on the anchored judgment task did not influence information transmission.     

Visual recognition of biological motion is impaired in children with autism

Autistic children and typically developing control children were tested on two visual tasks, one involving grouping of small line elements into a global figure and the other involving perception of human activity portrayed in point-light animations. Performance of the two groups was equivalent on the figure task, but autistic children were significantly impaired on the biological motion task. This latter deficit may be related to the impaired social skills characteristic of autism, and we speculate that this deficit may implicate abnormalities in brain areas mediating perception of human movement.     

Factors of Problem Behavior in visually impaired children

The Behavior Problem Checklist was completed by teachers of 104 students in a residential school for the visually impaired. Four separate factor analyses were performed. Additional analyses were conducted to determine the effect on the factor structure of sex, race, and age. Three factors that correspond to dimensions found in earlier research and previously labeled conduct disorder, personality problem, and inadequacy-immaturity were found. Overall, the visually impaired children tended to have problem behavior patterns similar to other populations, and these patterns were largely independent of the visual handicap.This paper is an expanded version of a paper presented at the Third International Conference for Special Education (European Association for Special Education), Helsinki, Finland, August 1980. The authors shared equally in the production of this paper. First-author listing was decided by a chance procedure. We wish to thank Drs. Richard Hyer and Robert Fore and the staff of the Georgia Academy for the Blind for their cooperation.     

Early neuropsychological correlates of later clock drawing and clock copying abilities among school aged children.

Although widely used in empirical study and bedside neuropsychological evaluation of geriatric populations, there is little literature on clock copying and drawing among children. However, existing research suggests that clock drawing tests (CDTs) may be effective and efficient tools for assessing neurocognitive development in children. This paper reports data on clock drawing on demand (CDT-D) and clock drawing to copy (CDT-C) among a non-clinical sample of elementary school aged children and identifies predictive relationships between earlier measures of executive function, visuo-construction, and visual-motor coordination and CDT performance 3 years later. Similar to findings with adult samples, analyses revealed better performance on copying than on drawing. Longitudinal analyses indicate that general intelligence significantly predicted performance on both tasks. Visual-motor coordination only predicted performance on the drawing on demand subtest of the CDT.     

Electrophysiological correlates of impaired reading in dyslexic pre-adolescent children

In this study, event related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the extent to which dyslexics (aged 9-13 years) differ from normally reading controls in early ERPs, which reflect prelexical orthographic processing, and in late ERPs, which reflect implicit phonological processing. The participants performed an implicit reading task, which was manipulated in terms of letter-specific processing, orthographic familiarity, and phonological structure. Comparing consonant- and symbol sequences, the results showed significant differences in the P1 and N1 waveforms in the control but not in the dyslexic group. The reduced P1 and N1 effects in pre-adolescent children with dyslexia suggest a lack of visual specialization for letter-processing. The P1 and N1 components were not sensitive to the familiar vs. less familiar orthographic sequence contrast. The amplitude of the later N320 component was larger for phonologically legal (pseudowords) compared to illegal (consonant sequences) items in both controls and dyslexics. However, the topographic differences showed that the controls were more left-lateralized than the dyslexics. We suggest that the development of the mechanisms that support literacy skills in dyslexics is both delayed and follows a non-normal developmental path. This contributes to the hemispheric differences observed and might reflect a compensatory mechanism in dyslexics.     

Performance on a measure of category fluency in cognitively impaired elderly

Measures of verbal fluency are widely used in the assessment of cognitive functioning of the elderly. However, limited research has evaluated patterns (across specific timed intervals) of performance on tasks of language fluency in different forms of dementia. The current study investigated semantic fluency in 488 elderly individuals (249 with Alzheimer's dementia, 97 Vascular dementia, 97 Mild Cognitive Impairment and 45 cognitively intact) across 15-second intervals in an animal naming task using retrospective chart review. Normal controls produced significantly more exemplars and AD patients produced fewer animal names than the other groups. After the first 15- second time interval, the demented groups produced significantly fewer exemplars than the non-demented. At the end of 30 seconds it was possible to differentiate normal aging from MCI who no longer differed from the VaD group. Overall, it appears that the greatest and most clinically meaningful differences between the diagnostic groups were detected in the first three 15-second intervals. The present findings support the use of time intervals and total scores on tasks of verbal fluency in clinical settings and for research purposes.     

Performance on a measure of category fluency in cognitively impaired elderly

ABSTRACT

Measures of verbal fluency are widely used in the assessment of cognitive functioning of the elderly. However, limited research has evaluated patterns (across specific timed intervals) of performance on tasks of language fluency in different forms of dementia. The current study investigated semantic fluency in 488 elderly individuals (249 with Alzheimer's dementia, 97 Vascular dementia, 97 Mild Cognitive Impairment and 45 cognitively intact) across 15-second intervals in an animal naming task using retrospective chart review. Normal controls produced significantly more exemplars and AD patients produced fewer animal names than the other groups. After the first 15- second time interval, the demented groups produced significantly fewer exemplars than the non-demented. At the end of 30 seconds it was possible to differentiate normal aging from MCI who no longer differed from the VaD group. Overall, it appears that the greatest and most clinically meaningful differences between the diagnostic groups were detected in the first three 15-second intervals. The present findings support the use of time intervals and total scores on tasks of verbal fluency in clinical settings and for research purposes.     

The self-concepts of visually impaired and normally sighted middle school children

The self-concepts of visually impaired (n = 61) and normally sighted (n = 229) American school children in Grades 6, 7, and 8 were compared. Self-concept was measured with the Student Self-Assessment Inventory (SSAI; Muller, Larned, Leonetti, & Muller, 1984, 1986), which assesses children's self-knowledge, self-ideal, and self-esteem as related to physical maturity, peer relations, academic success, and school adaptiveness. Visually impaired students scored higher than normally sighted children on 5 of the 12 SSAI subscales, refuting the notion that visually impaired children have poorer self-concepts than normally sighted children.     

Comparison of balance and gait in visually or hearing impaired children

The study was planned to evaluate the effect of loss of hearing and vision on balance and gait in 60 children, 20 of whom had hearing loss (M age = 9.3 yr., SD = 0.9), 20 who were visually impaired (M age = 12.2 yr., SD = 2.5), and 20 controls with no disability (M age = 9.4 yr., SD = 0.6). Standing Balance subtests of the Southern California Sensory Integration Tests were used. Gait analysis was conducted on a powdered surface. When the gait analysis results of the three groups of children were compared, statistically significant differences were noted. Scores for the hearing impaired group were more like those of the control group than those of the visually impaired group. Results show that children with visual impairment had more problems with balance and gait than controls.