Arlene I. Rattan

Measuring the Effects of Failure with Learning Disabled Children

The effects of failure on performance for children diagnosed as learning disabled (reading) and normal children were compared with a simple clinical measure. As hypothesized, learning disabled children stressed with failure scored significantly (p less than .05) poorer than stressed normals on a reading posttest. Learning disabled children were seen to have developed a learned helplessness response mode and experienced greater difficulty in recovering from failure than normal cohorts. The results were interpreted as lending support to the use of a clinical measure in assessing the role played by failure in childrens learning disorders.

Assessing the Commonality of the WISC-R and the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery with Learning-Disordered Children

The present investigation examined the neuropsychological constructs that underlie the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R). Data from administrations of the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery (HRNB) and WISC-R were gathered for 1,079 learning-disabled children. A multiple regression analysis was employed to examine the contribution of each HRNB measure in the prediction of individual WISC-R subtests. Overall, verbal auditory discrimination presented as the most salient underlying construct of the WISC-R Verbal subtests, followed by concept formation and nonverbal auditory discrimination. Neuropsychological measures of the HRNB that involved perceptual organization were found to play a key role in defining the underlying constructs of the WISC-R Performance subtests. Similar to the above procedure, a second analysis was performed to assess the neuropsychological underpinnings of Kaufmans three factors (Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Organization, and Freedom from Distractibility). Of the three factors, the HRNB measures explained similar amounts in the Freedom from Distractability (21%) and the Perceptual Organization (20.9%) factors in contrast to the Verbal Comprehension (7.3 %0) factor. Overall, these results indicate an interrelationship among several basic neuropsychological processes and higher-level cognitive functioning as represented on the WISC-R.

Children as Informants of Neuropsychological Symptomology: The Child Neuropsychological Symptom Inventory

Despite the rapid growth in child neuropsychology, there remains a paucity of measures which examine neuropsychological symptomology in children. In keeping with the need to understand the history and dimensions of childrens presenting problems, the present investigation assessed the utility of a self-report neuropsychological symptom inventory with children. Study I examined the internal consistency of the Child Neuropsychological Symptom Inventory (CNSI) while Study II examined the stability of childrens responses over a two week delay. Results indicate that the CNSI is a relatively stable instrument for assessing childrens self-report of neuropsychological symptomology. The data were interpreted as lending support for having children act as self-informants.