The significance of age of onset for schizophrenia.
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Age of onset is the single most important characteristic of schizophrenia that could yield clues to its origin. To identify the age of onset, however, the onset of the pathological process must be determined. This process may have more than one component occurring at distinctly different times in the life of an individual. Nevertheless, many studies, using either the first appearance of psychosis or the age of first hospitalization, have found gender, familial, and other "age of onset" differences among patients with schizophrenia. These differences may aid in examining genetic mechanisms for schizophrenia. (+info)
Effects of a multifaceted training procedure on the acquisition and generalization of social behaviors in language-disabled deaf children.
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Effects of a multifaceted training procedure were assessed on the acquisition and generalization of social behaviors with 9 language-disabled deaf children. The training procedure consisted of (a) child training and (b) supervision, feedback, and goal setting directed by teachers and residential staff. Target behaviors were turn waiting, initiating interaction, and interacting with others. Procedures to promote generality of effects and to determine the social validity of the procedures were used. Data were collected within a multiple baseline design across behaviors. Results showed a functional relationship between introduction of the training procedure and increases in percentage of appropriate target behaviors for all 9 children. The effects were maintained throughout a 5- to 10-week follow-up period. (+info)
Francoise, a fifteen-year follow up.
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A fifteen-year follow up of the linguistic and cognitive profile of a woman, named Francoise, with standard trisomy 21. She had been studied in considerable detail between 1987 and 1991 by Rondal (1995) and found to have exceptionally good language abilities in advance of regular cognitive abilities for a person with Down syndrome. Francoise's psychological functioning has been deteriorating relatively rapidly over the last two years. A severe deterioration of her previously excellent receptive language abilities is documented in the present study. Productively, her on-line word finding is becoming problematic, mean length of utterance has halved compared with 15 years ago, and production of compound sentences is reduced. However, basic phonological and morphosyntactic skills are preserved. Francoise's changing profile during the latter years seems to mirror that documented in the first stages of Alzheimer disease in ageing adults in the general population. (+info)
Validation of the Brazilian Children's Test of Pseudoword Repetition in Portuguese speakers aged 4 to 10 years.
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The phonological loop is a component of the working memory system specifically involved in the processing and manipulation of limited amounts of information of a sound-based phonological nature. Phonological memory can be assessed by the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep) in English speakers but not in Portuguese speakers due to phonotactic differences between the two languages. The objectives of the present study were: 1). to develop the Brazilian Children's Test of Pseudoword Repetition (BCPR), a Portuguese version of the CNRep, and 2). to validate the BCPR by correlation with the Auditory Digit Span Test from the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. The BCPR and Digit Span were assessed in 182 children aged 4-10 years, 84 from Minas Gerais State (42 from a rural region) and 98 from the city of S o Paulo. There are subject age and word length effects causing repetition accuracy to decline as a function of the number of syllables of the pseudowords. Correlations between BCPR and Digit Span forward (r = 0.50; P +info)
Phonological memory and vocabulary learning in children with focal lesions.
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Eleven children with early focal lesions were compared with 70 age-matched controls to assess their performance in repeating non-words, in learning new words, and in immediate serial recall, a triad of abilities that are believed to share a dependence on serial ordering mechanisms (e.g.,; ). Results for the experimental group were also compared with other assessments previously reported for the same children by. The children with brain injury showed substantial impairment relative to controls in the experimental tasks, in contrast with relatively unimpaired performance on measures of vocabulary and non-verbal intelligence. The relationships between word learning, non-word repetition, and immediate serial recall were similar to those observed in several other populations. These results support previous reports that there are persistent processing impairments following early brain injury, despite developmental plasticity. They also suggest that word learning, non-word repetition, and immediate serial recall may be relatively demanding tasks, and that their relationship is a fundamental aspect of the cognitive system. (+info)
The influence of a working memory load manipulation on language production in schizophrenia.
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The present study examined the hypothesis that working memory deficits contribute to both negative thought disorder and some components of formal thought disorder (discourse coherence and fluency deficits) in individuals with schizophrenia. We examined the language produced by 44 patients with either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder during baseline and a dual-task condition designed to decrease working memory capacity. Results indicated that decreasing working memory capacity significantly increased negative thought disorder, but not discourse coherence or fluency deficits. However, both negative thought disorder and discourse coherence deficits were significantly correlated with working memory deficits. In addition, increases in negative thought disorder and discourse coherence deficits in the dual-task condition were negatively correlated, consistent with the hypothesis that these two types of language deficits may reflect alternative manifestations of working memory deficits. (+info)
Defining a role for the subthalamic nucleus within operative theoretical models of subcortical participation in language.
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OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of bilateral, surgically induced functional inhibition of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) on general language, high level linguistic abilities, and semantic processing skills in a group of patients with Parkinson's disease. METHODS: Comprehensive linguistic profiles were obtained up to one month before and three months after bilateral implantation of electrodes in the STN during active deep brain stimulation (DBS) in five subjects with Parkinson's disease (mean age, 63.2 years). Equivalent linguistic profiles were generated over a three month period for a non-surgical control cohort of 16 subjects with Parkinson's disease (NSPD) (mean age, 64.4 years). Education and disease duration were similar in the two groups. Initial assessment and three month follow up performance profiles were compared within subjects by paired t tests. Reliability change indices (RCI), representing clinically significant alterations in performance over time, were calculated for each of the assessment scores achieved by the five STN-DBS cases and the 16 NSPD controls, relative to performance variability within a group of 16 non-neurologically impaired adults (mean age, 61.9 years). Proportions of reliable change were then compared between the STN-DBS and NSPD groups. RESULTS: Paired comparisons within the STN-DBS group showed prolonged postoperative semantic processing reaction times for a range of word types coded for meanings and meaning relatedness. Case by case analyses of reliable change across language assessments and groups revealed differences in proportions of change over time within the STN-DBS and NSPD groups in the domains of high level linguistics and semantic processing. Specifically, when compared with the NSPD group, the STN-DBS group showed a proportionally significant (p<0.05) reliable improvement in postoperative scores achieved on the word test-revised (TWT-R), as well as a reliable decline (p<0.01) in the accuracy of lexical decisions about words with many meanings and a high degree of relatedness between meanings. CONCLUSIONS: Bilateral STN-DBS affects certain aspects of linguistic functioning, supporting a potential role for the STN in the mediation of language processes. (+info)
Pre-placement screening in international adoption.
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BACKGROUND: The number of child adoptions from abroad is increasing, but the adverse living conditions of these children prior to the adoption raise questions on their medical and neurodevelopmental status, particularly since there are no guidelines for pre- or post-adoption medical evaluation. OBJECTIVES: To describe the condition of a cohort of young children who were candidates for adoption in East European orphanages and foster homes, and to determine those attributes associated with a family's decision to adopt or refuse a particular child. METHODS: Eighty-two young children, median age 11 months, were evaluated by Israeli pediatricians in Eastern Europe between 3 weeks and 6 months prior to their adoption. The evaluation consisted of comprehensive medical and neurodevelopmental testing on site using a battery of standardized assessment tools, and observation of free play and social interactive behaviors recorded on videotape. Laboratory tests included complete blood count, chemistries, serology screening, and metabolic and genetic testing. RESULTS: The children were growth-retarded. Medical problems were classified as resolved (pneumonia and diarrhea) in 32.8%; or ongoing, such as hepatitis B and C, failure to thrive, organomegaly, and visual and hearing disorders, in 14.8%. Neuromotor status was grossly abnormal in 13.4%. Twenty-two percent of the children were rejected for adoption by families in Israel. Factors associated with the adoption decision were performance skills on developmental testing (P = 0.0001), present medical status (P = 0.002), and weight (P = 0.016). CONCLUSIONS: Pre-placement comprehensive screening of children eligible for foreign adoption, which includes developmental screening, helps to identify a wide variety of strengths and impairments in a child's background before the adoption procedure is finalized. A family's decision to adopt or not was associated with the child's performance on Bayley Scales, weight, and current medical status, but not with language delays, serious past medical history or suspect family background. (+info)