Janice da Rosa Pureza

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.

Variability in neurocognitive performance: Age, gender, and school-related differences in children and from ages 6 to 12.

ABSTRACT Cognitive development in children presents peculiarities according to groups of age, gender, and type of school. Few studies have been investigating the effects of all these factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the main effects and the interactions of age, gender, and type of school in 419 children from ages 6 to 12 years old evaluated by the Child Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NEUPSILIN-Inf). Older children, children in private schools and girls presented better results. Interactions between all three independent variables were observed in different cognitive domains. The results highlight both the heterogeneity and the influence of multiple factors in children’s neuropsychological development.

Development and content validity of the CENA Program for Educational Training on the Neuropsychology of Learning, with an emphasis on executive functions and attention

Introduction The importance of executive functions (EF) in childhood development, and their role as indicators of health, well-being, professional and academic success have been demonstrated by several studies in the literature. FE are cognitive processes that aim to control and manage behavior to achieve specific goal and included skills planning, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, (executive) attention and the central executive component of working memory (WM). In the context of education, the EF are crucial for continued learning and efficient academic performance due to their involvement in several components of the educational process. Objective The aim of this article was to describe the development and content validity of the CENA Program for Educational Training on the Neuropsychology of Learning, with an emphasis on executive functions and attention. Methods The study involved seven specialists (four responsible for evaluating the program, and three involved in brainstorming), and was carried out in three stages: Background research: neuropsychology and education; Program development - author brainstorming and Evaluation by expert judges The goals, language and methods. Results CENA Program were considered adequate, attesting to its content validity as a school-based neuropsychological intervention. Conclusion Teacher training in school neuropsychology may be an important area for future investment and contribute to academic achievement and student development in the Brazilian education system.

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.