Relationship between the Brazilian version of the Montreal-Toulouse language assessment battery and education, age and reading and writing characteristics. A cross-sectional study.

Karina Carlesso Pagliarin,Gigiane Gindri,Karin Zazo Ortiz,Rochele Paz Fonseca,Yves Joanette,Maria Alice Mattos Pimenta Parente,Jean-Luc Nespoulous

doi:10.1590/1516-3180.2014.8461610

Abstract

There is growing concern about understanding how sociodemographic variables may interfere with cognitive functioning, especially with regard to language. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between performance in the Brazilian version of the Montreal-Toulouse language assessment battery (MTL-BR) and education, age and frequency of reading and writing habits (FRWH). Cross-sectional study conducted in university and work environments in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The MTL-BR was administered to a group of 233 healthy adults, aged 19 to 75 years (mean = 45.04, standard deviation, SD = 15.47), with at least five years of formal education (mean = 11.47, SD = 4.77). A stepwise multiple linear regression model showed that, for most tasks, the number of years of education, age and FRWH were better predictors of performance when analyzed together rather than separately. In separate analysis, education was the best predictor of performance in language tasks, especially those involving reading and writing abilities. The results suggested that the number of years of education, age and FRWH seem to influence performance in the MTL-BR, especially education. These data are important for making diagnoses of greater precision among patients suffering from brain injuries, with the aim of avoiding false positives.

Highlights

Interpretations on the findings from neuropsychological assessments of language tend to have significant bias because of difficulty in distinguishing between cognitive effects due to brain damage and biological and sociocultural traits, in patients examined.[1,2] there is growing concern about understanding how age, gender, race, education and socioeconomic status, among other factors, may interfere with cognitive functioning.[3,4,5,6]Among the abovementioned factors, education level and age are the ones highlighted in the literature as the core influences on cognition
There is still a lack of research on healthy participants, with the aim of comprehending the effect of each sociocultural and/or biological factor on linguistic and language-related abilities. In this context, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between the Montreal-Toulouse language assessment battery and education, age and frequency of reading and writing habits (FRWH), using a sample of neurologically healthy adults
The scores from 17 out of the 22 tasks were significantly correlated with education, while the scores from nine subtests achieved moderate positive correlations

Summary

Introduction

Education level and age are the ones highlighted in the literature as the core influences on cognition. Old age and low education level have been correlated with decreased performance.[7,8,9,10,11] this relationship is not always linear, given that there may be interactions between these factors, such as in naming and verbal fluency tasks, in which the effect of age is canceled when individuals are highly educated.[12,13,14] In addition, education is considered to be the cultural factor that has the greatest influence on cognition, there are limitations in analyses on this variable. Education level is generally based on the number of years of study, which addresses differences in the duration and not the quality of education

Methods

Results

Conclusion