Unique designs,errors and strategies in the Five-Point Test: The contribution of age,phonemic fluency and visuospatial abilities in Italian children aged 6–11 years

Performances on the Five-Point Test of 161 Italian children aged 6 to 11 years were investigated, along with phonemic fluency, visual-motor integration, visual perception, motor coordination, visuospatial memory, and fluid intelligence. Five-Point Test accuracy was significantly related to phonemic fluency and visual-motor integration, while phonemic fluency was linked to motor coordination. The two fluency measures increased linearly with age, but the developmental progression of Five-Point Test accuracy was less influenced by age. Different age effects were also found on the relationship between fluid intelligence and the two fluency measures. The inspection of qualitative aspects of Five-Point Test performance (errors and strategies) suggested that strategy usage enhanced both productivity and accuracy in children; age-related changes were observed in the relationship between the number of errors and the total number of designs produced.     

Testing the age related differentiation hypothesis through the Wechsler’s scales

According to the age differentiation hypothesis (ADH), g becomes increasingly invested in specific abilities with age: with increasing age, g should account for a decreasing proportion of the variance in any particular cognitive test. However, there is no conclusive evidence concerning this important topic. Data from the Italian, Spanish, and American standardisation samples of the WPPSI and the WISC-R were analysed in the present study for testing the ADH. No changes in the proportion of variance associated with g in the 4–16 age range were found. This pattern does not change depending on the country. Therefore, the ADH is rejected: g seems to be very stable across age, and, thus, it seems to be an equally important component of intelligence test performance from early childhood to late adolescence.     

Writing abilities and the role of working memory in children with symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder

The writing abilities of children with ADHD symptoms were examined in a simple dictation task, and then in two conditions with concurrent verbal or visuospatial working memory (WM) loads. The children with ADHD symptoms generally made more spelling mistakes than controls, and the concurrent loads impaired their performance, but with partly different effects. The concurrent verbal WM task prompted an increase in the phonological errors, while the concurrent visuospatial WM task prompted more non-phonological errors, matching the Italian phonology, but not the Italian orthography. In the ADHD group, the children proving better able to cope with a concurrent verbal WM load had a better spelling performance too. The ADHD and control groups had a similar handwriting speed, but the former group’s writing quality was poorer. Our results suggest that WM supports writing skills, and that children with ADHD symptoms have general writing difficulties, but strength in coping with concurrent verbal information may support their spelling performance.     

Psychopathology and behavior problems in children and adolescents with Williams syndrome: Distinctive relationships with cognition

Several studies have documented the high prevalence of psychopathology and behavior problems in Williams syndrome (WS). However, the links between cognitive development and such symptoms need further clarification. Our study aims to expand current knowledge on levels of behavior problems and its links to cognition in a sample of Brazilian individuals with WS. A total of 25 children and adolescents with WS and their parents participated in this study. The participants’ IQs were assessed with the Wechsler Scales of Intelligence (for children or adults) and parental reports of psychopathology/behavior problems were collected using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). The presence of clinically significant attention problems was a main feature in our sample of children and adolescents with WS. In the children, higher IQ scores were found to be significantly associated with less externalizing problems, while in the adolescents cognitive abilities were found to be associated with less internalizing symptoms. These results provide further insight into the links between psychopathology and behavior problems and cognitive abilities in WS, and suggest the need to take age into consideration when analyzing such relationships.     

语音意识、命名速度和语素意识在汉语阅读发展中的作用

以123名小学四、五年级汉语儿童为研究对象,采用回归分析、结构方程模型探讨语音意识、命名速度和语素意识在阅读能力不同方面（准确性、流畅性和理解）的作用。结果显示,语音意识、命名速度和语素意识都是影响阅读能力的重要认知因素,但对不同方面阅读能力的作用存在差异：（1）语音意识、命名速度和语素意识均直接影响阅读准确性,且语素意识的贡献相对较大;（2）命名速度除直接影响阅读流畅性外,还通过阅读准确性的部分中介作用影响阅读流畅性,而语音意识和语素意识则通过阅读准确性的完全中介作用影响阅读流畅性;（3）语音意识、命名速度和语素意识对阅读理解均无直接影响,分别通过阅读准确性和阅读流畅性间接影响阅读理解。     

Evaluation of an intervention program for the reduction of bullying and victimization in schools

The present study evaluates the effect of an intervention program on the reduction of bullying and victimization in schools with a sample of 239 students aged 10–16 years old in Rome, Italy. The program deals with bullying and violence. It consists of three videos and a booklet that help students to develop the social cognitive competence skills to understand the negative consequences of aggressive behavior. The intervention was evaluated using an experimental design with pre‐test and post‐test analyses. Students were randomly allocated to experimental or control classes. Students completed a self‐report questionnaire in which they were asked to indicate on a 5–point scale how often they were victimized or bullied others. Victimization and bullying were assessed by using questions about specific types of actions, a composite measure of victimization and bullying, and a single question about victimization and bullying in general. Results showed that the program worked best for older students, but not for younger ones who in some cases reported an increased level of victimization after the intervention. For older students there was a decrease in victimization according to the sum of types of behavior for the experimental group, but an increase for the control group. The same result was found for direct victimization, having belongings stolen, and being called nasty names. Therefore, the program seemed to be beneficial for older students but possibly damaging for younger students. It is suggested that the program could have worked better with older students because of the cognitive skills it required. Younger students could have reported higher levels of bullying after the intervention because they became more sensitized to the topic of bullying. Aggr. Behav. 30:1–15, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Dream rebound of suppressed emotional thoughts: the influence of cognitive load

Initial evidence suggests that suppressing a thought prior to sleep results in subsequent dreaming of that thought. The present research examined the influence of cognitive load on dreaming following suppression. In Experiment 1, 100 participants received either a suppression instruction or no instruction for an intrusive thought prior to sleep, and subsequently completed a dream diary. Participants instructed to suppress reported dreaming about the target thought more than controls; dream rebound was predicted by poorer performance on a working memory task. In Experiment 2, 126 participants received either a suppression instruction or no instruction for an intrusive thought prior to sleep, and half of participants also had cognitive load of learning a 9-digit number. Participants receiving the suppression instruction under cognitive load reported greater dream rebound than other participants. These findings indicate that thought suppression prior to sleep leads to dream rebound, and this effect is enhanced by cognitive load.     

Thought dismissability in obsessive-compulsive disorder versus panic disorder

This study sought to better understand the persistence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by studying the dismissability of obsessional thoughts in individuals with OCD relative to the dismissability of panic-relevant thoughts in individuals with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia (PD/A). Individuals with a principal diagnosis of OCD (n = 25) or PD/A (n = 25) completed a thought replacement task in which they replaced a primary obsession (target thought for the OCD group) or a primary panic-relevant thought (target thought for the PD/A group), with a neutral thought, signaling when the target thought occurred and when the neutral thought was in mind. The OCD group had more target thoughts and appraised the recurrence of the target thought more negatively. Whereas mood state did not change in the PD/A group, it declined in the OCD group, and this change was predicted by negative appraisal of target thought recurrences, but not amount of time thinking the target thought. These findings suggest that in vivo appraisal of the recurrence of obsessions may be a unique, key mechanism in the persistence of OCD and that the identification and exploration of appraisal of thought recurrences may be an especially important target in its treatment.     

What is the deficit in phonological processing deficits: auditory sensitivity, masking, or category formation?

Although children with language impairments, including those associated with reading, usually demonstrate deficits in phonological processing, there is minimal agreement as to the source of those deficits. This study examined two problems hypothesized to be possible sources: either poor auditory sensitivity to speech-relevant acoustic properties, mainly formant transitions, or enhanced masking of those properties. Adults and 8-year-olds with and without phonological processing deficits (PPD) participated. Children with PPD demonstrated weaker abilities than children with typical language development (TLD) in reading, sentence recall, and phonological awareness. Dependent measures were word recognition, discrimination of spectral glides, and phonetic judgments based on spectral and temporal cues. All tasks were conducted in quiet and in noise. Children with PPD showed neither poorer auditory sensitivity nor greater masking than adults and children with TLD, but they did demonstrate an unanticipated deficit in category formation for nonspeech sounds. These results suggest that these children may have an underlying deficit in perceptually organizing sensory information to form coherent categories.     

Predicting academic success with the Big 5 rated from different points of view: Self‐rated,other rated and faked

Self‐ratings of personality predict academic success above general intelligence. The present study replicated these findings and investigated the increment of other‐ratings or intentionally distorted self‐ratings. Participants (N = 145) had to compile a personality questionnaire twice. First they were given neutral instructions. The second time they were asked to imagine a specific applicant setting. Furthermore, two peers rated each participant. Additionally, verbal, numerical and figural reasoning scores were obtained. Grades on a statistics exam obtained 2 months later served as the criterion. Results replicated prior findings and showed incremental validity for self‐ and other‐rated personality, which was stable after controlling for intelligence. Faking had no impact on the domain‐score level, but results on the facet‐score level were less encouraging. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.