Patrícia Waltz Schelini

Brazilian Adaptation of the Woodcock-Johnson III Cognitive Tests

An adaptation of the standard battery of Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-III) for Brazilian children and youth was investigated. The sample was composed of 1094 students (54 percent girls), ages 7—17, living in Sao Paulo state (91 percent). Items from Brazilian school books as well as from the WJ-III Spanish version (Batería-R) were added to comprehension-knowledge tests. Brazilian words were adapted to the auditory tests according to syllabic division and stressed syllables. Items were examined through IRT and age differences through analysis of variance. Results indicated the need to remove items from all WJ-III subtests with the exception of the visual learning test. Analysis of Variance indicated significant age differences (p ≤ 0.001) for all tests. Thus, the importance of a Brazilian adaptation for the WJ-III was confirmed.

Criatividade e inteligência: analisando semelhanças e discrepâncias no desenvolvimento

Creativity and intelligence: analyzing developmental similarities and discrepancies. The similarities and discrepancies between intelligence and creativity were investigated as well as the impact of gender and educational level upon their development. The sample was composed of 172 students (91 women, 81 man), ages ranging from 7-17 years old. Intelligence was assessed through the Brazilian version of the WoodcockJohnson III tests, whereas creativity was evaluated through the Torrance tests of creativity. Results analyzed by MANOVA and ANOVA indicated significant effects of educational grade upon intelligence and creativity, and sex effects only on verbal creativity. No significant correlations were found between intelligence and creativity according to median results on intelligence tests. Factor analysis demonstrated the distinction among intelligence, verbal and figural creativity. On conclusion, creativity and intelligence were found as being independent constructs.

Estudo da estrutura fatorial da bateria multidimensional de inteligência infantil

Este trabalho teve como principal objetivo o estudo da estrutura fatorial da Bateria Multidimensional de Inteligencia Infantil, destinada a avaliacao intelectual de criancas de sete a doze anos, por meio de algumas capacidades incluidas no Modelo Cattell-Horn-Carroll. Os resultados demonstraram que, no que diz respeito as correlacoes entre os testes e a analise fatorial confirmatoria, parece ter havido, de maneira geral, uma concordância entre os dados obtidos e os estudos associados ao modelo teorico. Alem disso, a bateria mostrou-se capaz de avaliar fundamentalmente as capacidades de inteligencia cristalizada e velocidade de processamento cognitivo. A maior parte da variância dessas capacidades gerais foi explicada pelos testes destinados a mensura-las.

Bateria Multidimensional de Inteligência Infantil: desenvolvimento de instrumento

Resumo O estudo objetivou elaborar um conjunto de testes, denominado “Bateria Multidimensional de Inteligencia Infantil” ou BMI, para avaliar capacidades do Modelo Cattell-Horn-Carroll. Entre as capacidades avaliadas estao as de inteligencia cristalizada, inteligencia fluida, velocidade de processamento cognitivo, memoria a curto prazo, armazenamento e recuperacao associativa a longo prazo e conhecimento quantitativo. A BMI foi composta por nove testes, apresentados a duas amostras de participantes. A primeira foi formada por 240 criancas, com idade entre sete e 12 anos. Constituida para que novos itens fossem testados, a segunda amostra foi formada por outras 206 criancas. Os resultados demonstraram a influencia altamente significativa da idade sobre o desempenho dos testes. Os testes Informacao Geral, Inducao, Desempenho em Matematica, Vocabulario Geral e Vocabulario Ilustrado apresentaram elevados coeficientes de precisao. A analise dos indices de dificuldade e do poder discriminativo permitiu a selecao do conjunto mais adequado de questoes para compor a configuracao final da Bateria. Palavras-Chave: Inteligencia; Testes; Modelo Cattell-Horn-Carroll, Avaliacao psicologica. Multidimensional Battery for Children’s Intelligence: Development of an instrument

Análise da Validade e Precisão de Instrumento de Diferencial Semântico

This study assessed evidence of validity and precision of a semantic differential test that has been used to measure the transfer of meaning among equivalent stimuli. Participants were 196 college students who evaluated pictures of faces expressing emotions and also abstract pictures using an instrument comprised by 13 bipolar scales anchored by opposite adjectives. The factor analysis of the data evidenced the validity of the instrument. Values of alpha coefficients indicated that the factors extracted by this analysis have acceptable levels of precision, although one of the factors might be revised. It is discussed that the stimulus equivalence paradigm, an experimental model for symbolic relations, can benefit from instruments that provide valid measures of meaning transfer.

O uso de medidas intelectuais na análise do monitoramento metacognitivo de crianças

Metacognitive monitoring is one component of metacognition. It is assessed either through self-report instruments or judgments. The aim of the present study was to investigate metacognitive monitoring of children during the execution of three subtests of an intelligence battery, based on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll intelligence model. Participants answered the subtests and were asked to estimate their performance. Results indicate that participants already had metacognitive abilities in their repertoire, and some monitoring measures were significantly better for the subtest Performance on Mathematics. The data of this study are relevant in confirming information from the international literature using a Brazilian sample, and in discussing the importance of incentives for metacognitive training.

Eficácia de um programa de estimulação de capacidades intelectuais

Cattell-Horn-Carroll Model splits intelligence into ten general factors, broken down into specific factors. Studies in the area have discussed whether or not cognitive stimulation is possible through programs designed to do so. The aims of the present study were to develop tasks in order to stimulate three factors of Cattell-Horn-Carroll model - Fluid Intelligence, Crystallized Intelligence and Short-term Memory, to present a program comprised of these tasks, and to assess its efficacy. Program was developed during the course of thirteen sessions. Participants were 22 schoolchildren, age-range from 7 to 10 years, divided into two groups to perform activities. They were evaluated by Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III, School Performance Test and Ravens Colored Progressive Matrices during pre and post-test. Results showed significant rise in total score for Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III in all analyses; and in School Performance Test for crystallized intelligence and short-term memory, which seems to be indicative of program efficacy.

Monitoramento metacognitivo de adultos em processo de alfabetização em tarefas de memória, processamento e inteligência geral

Self-regulation refers to thoughts, feelings and actions that are planned and cyclically adapted so as to make the individual reach their goals. Within the self-regulation is the metacognitive monitoring, the ability with which the individual follows and evaluates their own cognition. The present study aimed to investigate the metacognitive monitoring of illiterate adults using the metacognitive judgement, a measure of the metacognitive monitoring, in cognitive tasks that evaluate the general factor of intelligence, processing speed and short-term memory. The relation between the real performance and the estimated performance was also investigated, in which cognitive task the real performance related more to the estimated performance. The participants of the study included 34 students in a literacy program for adults, from both genders, and age between 40 and 60 years old. The instruments utilized were: Initial Interview, R-1 Test and subtests Digit Symbol-Coding, Symbol Search and Digit Span from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III (WAIS III), and Judgement Register from 0 to 100. Results indicated that the real performance of the subjects were lower when compared to subjects with a greater level of education. According to the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, there was a significant correlation between the real performance and the estimated performance in the subtest Digit Symbol-Coding.

Escala de Identificação de Dotação e Talento: Estrutura e Consistência Internas

The study aimed to analyze the reliability and the evidences of validity based on the internal structure of the Scale of Giftedness and Talent Identification (Escala de Identificação de Dotação e Talento EIDT). The EIDT is answered by teachers of 4th, 5th and 6th years of elementary school, including 16 teachers who evaluated 433 students. The results indicated that 54.8% of the variance was explained. Exploratory factor analysis was used for the final version of the scale, which was composed of 55 items divided into three factors: 42 items in Factor 1, intellectual abilities, social abilities and creativity; seven in factor 2, psychomotor abilities and six in factor 3, artistic abilities. The Cronbach’s alpha for the total scale was 0.97. Factor 1 showed an alpha of 0.97, factor 2 of 0.89, and factor 3 of 0.83. It highlights the need for additional studies including the confirmatory factor analysis and the establishment of standards.

Styles of Counterfactual Thoughts in People with and without Signs of Depression.

People in a depressive state frequently believe that things could have happened differently in their lives, which is regarded as counterfactual thought. This study aimed to investigate whether the styles of counterfactual thought shown by people with indicating signs of depression and by people without any of those signs are different. Study participants were 42 adults divided into two groups: those with signs of depression and those without signs of depression. Five stories taken from newspapers and magazines and fictional scenarios were presented to the participants. After reading such stories, participants had to answer questions about how the narrated facts could have been different from what they actually were. Results indicated similar counterfactual thought styles in both groups (with and without depression signs). Most of the thoughts found were categorized as upward, subtractive, self-referent and that modified an aspect referred to action/inaction. A few significant differences between groups were observed, and most of them were obtained through directed modifications, in the last three stories. Some tendencies were shown in the group of people with signs of depression, such as those found for the subtractive category, t(40) = 2.33, p < .05, which can indicate a trend of possible failure in the preparatory function of CT, and in the hetero-referral function, t(40) = 1.97, p < .05, indicating a difficulty in thinking of different forms of action in the future. The removal of negative events may indicate that these experiences are not beneficial to peoples survival. These results may indicate some tendencies about how people in depressive states think about past events.