Lilian Cristine Hübner

Development of the Brazilian version of the Child Hayling Test

Introduction: The Hayling Test assesses the components of initiation, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and verbal speed by means of a sentence completion task. This study presents the process of developing the Brazilian version of the Child Hayling Test (CHT) and reports evidence of its content validity. Methods: 139 people took part in the study. The adaptation was performed by seven translators and 12 specialist judges. An initial sample of 92 healthy children was recruited to test a selection of sentences adapted from previous adult and pediatric versions of the instrument, and a sample of 28 healthy children was recruited for pilot testing of the final version. The instrument was developed in seven stages: 1) translation, 2) back-translation, 3) comparison of translated versions, 4) preparation of new stimuli, 5) data collection with healthy children to analyze comprehension of the stimuli and analyses by the authors against the psycholinguistic criteria adopted, 6) analyses conducted by judges who are specialists in neuropsychology or linguistics, and 7) the pilot study. Results: Twenty-four of the 72 sentences constructed were selected on the basis of 70-100% agreement between judges evaluating what they assessed and level of comprehensibility. The pilot study revealed better performance by older children, providing evidence of the instruments sensitivity to developmental factors. Conclusions: Future studies employing this version of CHT with clinical pediatric populations who have frontal lesions and dysfunctions and in related areas are needed to test functional and differential diagnoses of preserved or impaired executive functions.

Consciência fonológica e desenvolvimento da escrita na síndrome de Down: um estudo de caso longitudinal

The aims of this study were to: verify performance advances in phonological awareness and writing skills in a child with Down syndrome speaking Brazilian Portuguese; identify which phonological awareness skills developed; analyze the influence of working memory skills on performance in phonological awareness tasks; verify the participant’s performance in phonological working memory tasks and verbal and execution intelligence. The child was seven years old at the onset of the study and was receiving mainstream schooling. Phonological awareness and writing skills were assessed at three time points (T1, T2, T3) during a period of 4 years and 8 months. The Phonological Awareness: Sequential Evaluation Instrument (CONFIAS) was used to assess phonological awareness. In T1 and T2, writing skills were also evaluated using the same instrument. At T3 we used the writing subtest of the Child Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NEUPSILIN-INF). At T1 phonological working memory was evaluated using the word span task and at T3 we used the non-words subtest of the NEUPSILIN-INF. To evaluate verbal and performance intelligence quotient (T3) we used the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI). Progress in writing skills and phonological awareness were identified throughout the study. Some skills in syllabic awareness also improved, but tasks that required handling of the phonemic constituents and rhyming awareness remained difficult for the patient. The participant demonstrated good performance in repeating real words. Word span of real words was superior to pseudowords span. The ability to memorize real words seemed to have improved the patient’s performance on phonological awareness tasks. The general intelligence quotient was considered borderline. It is believed that in this case, linguistic and cognitive abilities, such as verbal vocabulary, phonological working memory and intellectual capacity, influenced the performance on phonological awareness tests and enabled the child to learn written language.

Narrative Discourse in Young and Older Adults: Behavioral and NIRS Analyses

Discourse comprehension is at the core of communication capabilities, making it an important component of elderly populations’ quality of life. The aim of this study is to evaluate changes in discourse comprehension and the underlying brain activity. Thirty-six participants read short stories and answered related probes in three conditions: micropropositions, macropropositions and situation models. Using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), the variation in oxyhemoglobin (HbO2) and deoxyhemoglobin (HbR) concentrations was assessed throughout the task. The results revealed that the older adults performed with equivalent accuracy to the young ones at the macroproposition level of discourse comprehension, but were less accurate at the microproposition and situation model levels. Similar to what is described in the compensation-related utilization of neural circuits hypothesis (CRUNCH) model, older participants tended to have greater activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex while reading in all conditions. Although it did not enable them to perform similarly to younger participants in all conditions, this over-activation could be interpreted as a compensation mechanism.

A neurolinguistic approach to the narrative text: a theoretical perspective

The narrative text permeates human experience. However, narrative understanding is not a simple task, since its comprehension goes through different levels, as proposed by Kintsch; Van Dijk (1978, 1983), Van Dijk (1992, 2010), Kintsch (1998), Kintsch; Rawson (2013), in The Model of Text Processing. From the perspective of Neurolinguistics, we bring the following questions: How narrative text is processed by the cerebral hemispheres? What do experimental neuroimaging studies tell us about it? Which brain areas are embedded in the processing of narrative? In order to discuss these issues based on the literature, and to offer theoretical background for research in this field, we bring contributions from Linguistics and Neurosciences about how the cerebral hemispheres cooperate to process the narrative text.

Abordaje neurolingüístico del texto narrativo: un enfoque teórico

The narrative text permeates human experience. However, narrative understanding is not a simple task, since its comprehension goes through different levels, as proposed by Kintsch; Van Dijk (1978, 1983), Van Dijk (1992, 2010), Kintsch (1998), Kintsch; Rawson (2013), in The Model of Text Processing. From the perspective of Neurolinguistics, we bring the following questions: How narrative text is processed by the cerebral hemispheres? What do experimental neuroimaging studies tell us about it? Which brain areas are embedded in the processing of narrative? In order to discuss these issues based on the literature, and to offer theoretical background for research in this field, we bring contributions from Linguistics and Neurosciences about how the cerebral hemispheres cooperate to process the narrative text.

ABORDAGEM NEUROLINGUÍSTICA DO TEXTO NARRATIVO: UM ENFOQUE TEÓRICO

The narrative text permeates human experience. However, narrative understanding is not a simple task, since its comprehension goes through different levels, as proposed by Kintsch; Van Dijk (1978, 1983), Van Dijk (1992, 2010), Kintsch (1998), Kintsch; Rawson (2013), in The Model of Text Processing. From the perspective of Neurolinguistics, we bring the following questions: How narrative text is processed by the cerebral hemispheres? What do experimental neuroimaging studies tell us about it? Which brain areas are embedded in the processing of narrative? In order to discuss these issues based on the literature, and to offer theoretical background for research in this field, we bring contributions from Linguistics and Neurosciences about how the cerebral hemispheres cooperate to process the narrative text.