Relationships between number and space processing in adults with and without dyscalculia

A large body of evidence indicates clear relationships between number and space processing in healthy and brain-damaged adults, as well as in children. The present paper addressed this issue regarding atypical math development. Adults with a diagnosis of dyscalculia (DYS) during childhood were compared to adults with average or high abilities in mathematics across two bisection tasks. Participants were presented with Arabic number triplets and had to judge either the number magnitude or the spatial location of the middle number relative to the two outer numbers. For the numerical judgment, adults with DYS were slower than both groups of control peers. They were also more strongly affected by the factors related to number magnitude such as the range of the triplets or the distance between the middle number and the real arithmetical mean. By contrast, adults with DYS were as accurate and fast as adults who never experienced math disability when they had to make a spatial judgment. Moreover, number–space congruency affected performance similarly in the three experimental groups. These findings support the hypothesis of a deficit of number magnitude representation in DYS with a relative preservation of some spatial mechanisms in DYS. Results are discussed in terms of direct and indirect number–space interactions.     

Le consentement en droit médical

Medical law, which derogates from ordinary law, interests and questions by its particularities. However, the Mercier decision of 1936 seems to have denied this by forcing an ordinary “medical contract” between the doctor and his patient. But the medical relationship, far beyond a contractual logic, seems to be unable to blend into the civil law elements of contract law. As such, consent, keystone of this medical matter, does not meet the standards of contract law yet imposed by the Court of Cassation. This article aims to unravel and clarify the scope and regime of this consent not quite like the others.     

The Kind of Student You Were in Elementary School Predicts Mortality

We examined the association of self‐reported and teacher‐rated student characteristics assessed at the end of primary school with all‐cause mortality assessed through age 52. Data stem from a representative sample of students from Luxembourg assessed in 1968 (N = 2,543; M = 11.9 years, SD = 0.6; 49.9% female; N = 166 participants died). Results from logistic regression analyses showed that the self‐reported responsible student scale (OR = .81; CI = [.70; .95]) and the teacher rating of studiousness (OR = .80; CI = [.67; .96]) were predictive for all‐cause mortality even after controlling for IQ, parental SES, and sex. These findings indicate that both observer–rated and self–reported student behaviors are important life‐course predictors for mortality and are perhaps more important than childhood IQ.     

Children's working memory: Its structure and relationship to fluid intelligence

Working memory (WM) has been predominantly studied in adults. The insights provided by these studies have led to the development of competing theories on the structure of WM and conflicting conclusions on how strongly WM components are related to higher order thinking skills such as fluid intelligence. However, it remains unclear whether and to what extent the theories and findings derived from adult data generalize to children. The purpose of the present study is therefore to investigate children's WM (N = 161), who attended classes at the end of kindergarten in Luxembourg. Specifically, we examine different structural models of WM and how its components, as defined in these models, are related to fluid intelligence. Our results indicate that short-term storage capacity primarily explains the relationship between WM and fluid intelligence. Based on these observations we discuss the theoretical and methodological issues that arise when children's WM is investigated.     

Students' complex problem-solving abilities: Their structure and relations to reasoning ability and educational success

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) is considered to be a promising candidate for capturing higher order thinking skills that are emphasized in new educational curricula but are not adequately measured by traditional intelligence tests. However, little is known about its psychometric structure and its exact relation to intelligence and educational success—especially in student populations. This study is among the first to use a large and representative sample of secondary school students (N = 563) to examine different measurement models of CPS—that conceptualize the construct as either faceted or hierarchical—and their implications for the construct's validity. Results showed that no matter which way it was conceptualized, CPS was substantially related to reasoning and to different indicators of educational success. Controlling for reasoning within a joint hierarchical measurement model, however, revealed that the impressive external validity was largely attributable to the variance that CPS shares with reasoning, suggesting that CPS has only negligible incremental validity over and above traditional intelligence scales. On the basis of these results, the value of assessing CPS within the educational context is discussed.     

Childhood intelligence and adult health: The mediating roles of education and socioeconomic status

The longitudinal relation between childhood intelligence and various health outcomes in adulthood is now well-established. One mediational model that accounts for this relation proposes that intelligence has cumulative indirect effects on adult health via subsequent educational attainment and adult socioeconomic status (SES). The aim of the present study was to examine whether and the extent to which educational attainment and SES mediate the impact of childhood intelligence on three dimensions of adult health in Luxembourg, a country with high-quality universal public health care. We used data from 745 participants in the Luxembourgish MAGRIP study. At the age of 12, participants completed a comprehensive intelligence test. At the age of 52, they reported their educational careers, SES, and functional, subjective, and physical health status. Using structural equation modeling, we investigated the direct and indirect effects (via educational attainment and adult SES) of childhood intelligence on adult health. We found that higher childhood intelligence predicted better functional, subjective, and physical health in adulthood. These effects were entirely mediated via educational attainment and SES. The mediational processes differed depending on the health dimension under investigation: Whereas SES was crucial in mediating the effect of intelligence on functional and subjective health, educational attainment was crucial in mediating the effect on physical health. These findings held up when considering adult intelligence and were similar for women and men. Our results suggest that even excellent public health care cannot fully offset the cumulative effects of childhood intelligence on adult health. Further studies are needed to investigate the relative importance of different mediators in the intelligence–health relation while including a broader set of objective health measures.     

Steigerung des ?empowerment“ bei Angeh?rigen von schizophren Erkrankten

Objective

Enhancing empowerment is one of the aims of psychoeducational family interventions but it has never been examined in psychoeducational groups for relatives led by professionals. This study investigated the knowledge gain and the increase of empowerment of psychoeducational group programs for relatives in a naturalistic setting.

Methods

A total of 54 relatives of persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders took part in a psychoeducational group program of 8 sessions. A short questionnaire was used to assess the empowerment before and after the group programs. Knowledge gain was measured with the knowledge of illness about schizophrenia questionnaire (WFB).

Results

Among the participants of the psychoeducational groups the level of empowerment was significantly enhanced and the knowledge was significantly increased (p?<?0.01). The improvement of empowerment was independent of the knowledge gain and did not correlate with gender, age, education or group attendance.

Conclusions

Psychoeducational groups for family members not only reduce the rehospitalization rates of the ill relatives but also have additional positive effects on the family members themselves: better knowledge of the illness and enhanced empowerment. The findings emphasize the importance of psychoeducational groups for the relatives of persons with schizophrenia.