Geise Machado Jacobsen

Effects of age and school type on unconstrained, phonemic, and semantic verbal fluency in children

ABSTRACT Biological and cultural factors have been found to have a significant influence on cognitive development and performance in neuropsychological instruments such as verbal fluency tasks (VFT). Variations of traditional VFT, involving unconstrained word production and increased retrieval times, may provide further data regarding the executive, attentional, mnemonic, and linguistic abilities involved in VFT. As such, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of age and school type on the performance of 6- to 12-year-old children in unconstrained, phonemic, and semantic VFT. The VFT were administered to 460 participants. The effects of age and school type on verbal fluency (VF) performance were analyzed using a two-way analysis of variance, followed by Bonferroni post-hoc tests (p ≤ .05). A repeated-measures analysis was also used to evaluate VF performance over time (p ≤ .05). Main effects of age and school type were identified on all measures (effect sizes ranged from .05 to .32, p ≤ .05). VF scores increased with age and were higher among private school students. The influence of age on VFT may be associated with the development of executive functions. The impact of type of school on VF performance may be explained by the greater availability of cognitive stimulation (semantic knowledge) provided by private schools and families with better socioeconomic levels.

Contributions of the ecological approach to the neuropsychology of executive functions

Neurocognitive assessment involves several different types of processes, techniques and instruments. Traditionally, clinical and/or standardized methods have been the most extensively used in neuropsychological research and clinical practice. Ecological instruments are characterized by the standardized administration of tasks with similar cognitive demands to those observed in everyday situations. Although executive functions are often required in daily living tasks, the lack of a consensus as to their theoretical defi nition has posed several hurdles to their assessment and rehabilitation. The aim of this paper was to present the contributions of an ecological neuropsychological approach to assessment, rehabilitation, and neuroimaging, while discussing the theoretical implications of these processes on the neuropsychology of executive functions. This was achieved through a non-systematic review of classical and contemporary literature on ecological assessment tools. The use of an ecological approach has contributed to the understanding and assessment of functional impairment, as well as to the development of rehabilitation programs focusing on practical daily living activities, allowing for a clearer understanding of the neural correlates of complex environmental and individual factors, and for a more thorough reassessment of the validity of theoretical models of executive functions .

Avaliação da linguagem e do processamento auditivo na caracterização neuropsicológica do TDAH: Revisão Sistemática

O objetivo foi identificar estudos que investigaram o processamento auditivo (PA) e linguistico na avaliacao clinica e/ou neuropsicologica de criancas/ adolescentes com TDAH. Buscamos em base de dados PubMed de 2000 a 2012 pela sintaxe [language or linguistic] AND [auditory processing or auditory perception] AND [attention deficit or hyperactivity]. Os abstracts foram analisados por double blind review com terceiro juiz para consenso. De 202 resumos, foram analisados 17 artigos completos, com 15 incluidos; 46,67% dos estudos avaliaram a linguagem (palavra e sentenca), 33,33%, PA (integracao binaural, processamento temporal e figura-fundo auditiva) e 13,33%, ambos. O transtorno de leitura foi a comorbidade mais prevalente (46,67%). Em geral, o desempenho linguistico e de PA nao foram analisados para fins neuropsicologicos especificos, mas apenas para identificar comorbidades.

Executive processing in children on verbal fluency tasks: The predictive role of child age and parental education.

Recent studies have found associations between parental education and child cognitive abilities. The influence of child age and parental education on executive development is still not well understood, especially on the cognitive processes underlying performance on unconstrained, phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks (VFT). The goal of the present study was to investigate whether child age and parental education predict child executive functioning on VFT. Unconstrained (UVF), phonemic–orthographic (PVF), and semantic (SVF) VFT were administered to 144 healthy participants, aged between 6 and 12 years. Results were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficients and multiple linear regressions. The model that best accounted for the variance in verbal fluency scores included child age and paternal education (UVF: R2 = 0.51, p ⩽ .01; SVF: R2 = 0.45, p ⩽ .01). The influence of child age and parental education on verbal fluency performance may be explained by the increased cognitive stimulation received at home and at school by children who attended school for longer periods and whose parents had higher levels of education.

Clustering and switching in unconstrained, phonemic and semantic verbal fluency: the role of age and school type

ABSTRACT We investigated the role of age and school type on clustering and switching in verbal fluency tasks (VFTs) with Brazilian children. The children were administered unconstrained, phonemic and semantic VFTs with a duration of 150 or 120 s, respectively. Both age and school type influenced all variables and in terms of performance over time. Older children and private school students outperformed the remainder of the sample, with the first 30 s of each VFT usually being the most productive. Although the size of the clusters produced did not differ between groups, the types of clusters did show some variations, with semantic clusters being the most frequent. Our results revealed strong correlations between switching ability and word production in all three VFTs. In conclusion, the executive functions known as planning and cognitive flexibility play a crucial role in word production by organising and facilitating the recall of lexical information from memory.

Aportes del enfoque ecológico a la neuropsicología de las funciones ejecutivas

Neurocognitive assessment involves several different types of processes, techniques and instruments. Traditionally, clinical and/or standardized methods have been the most extensively used in neuropsychological research and clinical practice. Ecological instruments are characterized by the standardized administration of tasks with similar cognitive demands to those observed in everyday situations. Although executive functions are often required in daily living tasks, the lack of a consensus as to their theoretical defi nition has posed several hurdles to their assessment and rehabilitation. The aim of this paper was to present the contributions of an ecological neuropsychological approach to assessment, rehabilitation, and neuroimaging, while discussing the theoretical implications of these processes on the neuropsychology of executive functions. This was achieved through a non-systematic review of classical and contemporary literature on ecological assessment tools. The use of an ecological approach has contributed to the understanding and assessment of functional impairment, as well as to the development of rehabilitation programs focusing on practical daily living activities, allowing for a clearer understanding of the neural correlates of complex environmental and individual factors, and for a more thorough reassessment of the validity of theoretical models of executive functions .

Contribuições da abordagem ecológica na neuropsicologia das funções executivas

Neurocognitive assessment involves several different types of processes, techniques and instruments. Traditionally, clinical and/or standardized methods have been the most extensively used in neuropsychological research and clinical practice. Ecological instruments are characterized by the standardized administration of tasks with similar cognitive demands to those observed in everyday situations. Although executive functions are often required in daily living tasks, the lack of a consensus as to their theoretical defi nition has posed several hurdles to their assessment and rehabilitation. The aim of this paper was to present the contributions of an ecological neuropsychological approach to assessment, rehabilitation, and neuroimaging, while discussing the theoretical implications of these processes on the neuropsychology of executive functions. This was achieved through a non-systematic review of classical and contemporary literature on ecological assessment tools. The use of an ecological approach has contributed to the understanding and assessment of functional impairment, as well as to the development of rehabilitation programs focusing on practical daily living activities, allowing for a clearer understanding of the neural correlates of complex environmental and individual factors, and for a more thorough reassessment of the validity of theoretical models of executive functions .

Perseveração na Tarefa Geração Aleatória de Números para Crianças

Observam-se deficits inibitorios em varios quadros neurologicos e psiquiatricos, podendo aumentar a frequencia de respostas perseverativas. Nao ha uma padronizacao dos criterios para avaliar a perseveracao. O estudo 1 visou a obter dados preliminares de ate quantas casas a repeticao de um numero pode ser considerada uma perseveracao na tarefa Geracao Aleatoria de Numeros (GAN). O potencial discriminativo dos pontos de corte foi investigado pela comparacao entre TDAH e saudaveis (Estudo 2). Os instrumentos foram: questionario de dados sociodemograficos e de saude, Questionario Abreviado de Conners, Matrizes Progressivas Coloridas de Raven e o GAN. Participaram criancas com idades de 6 a 12 anos (Estudo 1: n= 60; Estudo 2: transtorno de deficit de atencao/hiperatividade (TDAH), n=9 e controles, n=18). As criancas levaram em media 4,97 (dp=1,78) caselas para repetir um numero. O criterio que considera perseveracao como a repeticao de um numero ate cinco caselas apos a sua ultima evocacao diferenciou TDAH de controles. Portanto, esse parece ser o criterio mais sensivel para avaliar a perseveracao.