Performance Of Normal Children Research Articles

Children and adolescents’ performance on a medium-length/nonsemantic word-list test

ABSTRACTWord-list learning tasks are among the most important and frequently used tests for declarative memory evaluation. For example, the California Verbal Learning Test-Children’s Version (CVLT-C) and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test provide important information about different cognitive-neuropsychological processes. However, the impact of test length (i.e., number of words) and semantic organization (i.e., type of words) on children’s and adolescents’ memory performance remains to be clarified, especially during this developmental stage. To explore whether a medium-length non-semantically organized test can produce the typical curvilinear performance that semantically organized tests produce, reflecting executive control, we studied and compared the cognitive performance of normal children and adolescents by utilizing mathematical modeling. The model is based on the first-order system transfer function and has been successfully applied to learning curves for the CVLT-C (15 words, semantically organized paradigm). Results indicate that learning nine semantically unrelated words produces typical curvilinear (executive function) performance in children and younger adolescents and that performance could be effectively analyzed with the mathematical model. This indicates that the exponential increase (curvilinear performance) of correctly learned words does not solely depend on semantic and/or length features. This type of test controls semantic and length effects and may represent complementary tools for executive function evaluation in clinical populations in which semantic and/or length processing are affected.

Brain cognitive functions in normal, ADHD and RD (Reading disable) children (A comparative study)

This research is purposed to compare cognitive functions between normal, ADHD and RD children. We selected three groups of 30 primary school students (normal, ADHD and RD) by available sampling. These groups were matched in age (8-9), IQ (96-116) and gender (Female and Male). We evaluated their brain cognitive functions by CAS (cognitive assessment system).The results showed that normal group's performances (Full Scale) were meaningfully better than ADHD and RD groups but, there were no meaningful differences between ADHD and RD subject groups. Also Normal children's performance in all four scales of PASS was meaningfully better than ADHD and RD children, but there was no meaningful difference between the average scores of four scales between ADHD and RD children.

Association Between a Functional COMT Polymorphism, Mental Retardation and Cognition in Qinba Area Children

Catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) plays an important role in the metabolism of neurotransmitters. Two alleles of the COMT gene as a result of a G/A transition in the exon 4 can lead to different COMT enzymatic activities. Much genetic research has revealed that this COMT functional polymorphism was related to human psychiatric disorders. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) methods were used to discern the relationships among the functional polymorphism of COMT, mental retardation (MR), and general cognitive ability of children. The results of the case-control analysis showed that there was no association between the frequencies of genotypes of COMT and MR ( x 2=0.776, P>0.05) or between the frequency of COMT alleles and MR ( x 2=0.335, P>0.05). COMT polymorphism was found in children whose intelligence quotient (IQ) was above 55. In normal children (IQ≥85), the frequencies of high-activity allele COMT H and the homozygote genotype COMT HH were 60.98% and 79.28%, respectively. Both were higher than those of the borderline group (46.67% and 70.67%, 0.10 > P>0.05). Therefore, the result of this study suggests that this functional polymorphism is not an important risk factor for MR, but the COMT HH genotype may have a positive effect on cognitive performance in normal children in the Qinba area.

Attentional differences between groups of preschool children differentiated by teacher ratings of attention and hyperactivity

This study aimed to extend earlier work (Wilding, Munir, & Cornish, 2001; Wilding, 2003) which showed that children (aged 6–15) who were rated by their teachers as having poor attentional ability made more errors on a visual search task than children rated as having good attentional ability. The present study used a simpler version of the search task which had previously been used to study attention in children with Fragile X syndrome (Scerif, Cornish, Wilding, Driver, & Karmiloff‐Smith, 2004) and studied performance in normal children from a younger age group. Children aged 3 and 4 were rated by teachers for attention and hyperactivity. Regression analyses, with verbal mental age (VMA), chronological age (CA), and attention rating as independent variables, found that children with higher VMA made fewer false alarms in visual searches, as did children given a better attention rating. However, none of the independent variables was related to time or distance travelled for correct responses. The relation between attention rating and error rate was non‐linear, with the error rate increasing once the attention rating fell below the mean. The results are discussed in relation to explanations of poor attention in terms of weak inhibition.

Relation of Attention Control and School Performance in Normal Children

This study examined the relation of attention control and school performance in a sample of 113 school children (51 boys, 62 girls), ages 9 to 12 years (M = 10.86, SD = 0.91). Children and parents completed the Attention Control Scale for Children, which measures children's ability to focus and shift attention, and also a scale for assessing symptoms of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Teachers provided a global rating of children's school performance. Analysis indicated that attention control correlated positively with school performance.

Comparação do desempenho de atividades funcionais em crianças com desenvolvimento normal e crianças com paralisia cerebral

To compare the pattern of self-care performance in normal children and children with cerebral palsy (CP). 142 normal children and 33 children with CP were evaluated by 22 items from the self-care scale of the PEDI functional test. Rasch methodology transformed scores into interval measures of difficulty from 0 to 100 (logit). Spearman rank correlation coefficient compared the order of logits in the two groups. Eleven items showed significant differences in the logit values received. Out of these, 7 items showed relative difficulty values greater in the group of children with CP and 4 items showed relative difficulty values greater among normal children. A significant correlation was observed in the order of the 22 items displayed in the two interval scales. The results suggest that the development of self-care functional activities may be influenced by the presence of CP. These results may support assessment and intervention strategies for children with neuromotor disorders.

Patterns of GH Output and Their Synchrony with Short-Term Height Increments Influence Stature and Growth Performance in Normal Children

GH is the principal hormone driving growth throughout childhood, but the mechanism by which changing GH secretion is translated into height (Ht) remains undefined. We previously demonstrated that variability in urinary GH (uGH) output over weeks is an important statistical determinant of stature in normal children. We now examine the relationship between the temporal pattern of uGH output and growth using approximate entropy (ApEn) in 29 healthy prepubertal children, monitored serially three times a week from September to June [13 males and 16 females; age, 5.7–7.8 yr; Ht sd score, −2.9 to +2.3; median, 85 measurements per subject]. ApEn is a measure of process irregularity, with low values indicating strong regularity or subpattern persistence and high values indicating greater irregularity. The bivariate extension of this method, cross (X)-ApEn, provides a measure of the strength of interaction between two paired time series (joint signal synchrony). Low values of X-ApEn indicate synchrony, whereas high values indicate asynchrony. Weekly Ht gain, weight (Wt) gain, and uGH output showed significant orderliness in 20 of 29, 26 of 29, and 29 of 29 subjects, respectively, with weekly changes in uGH output being significantly more ordered than Ht gain (P < 0.001) and Wt gain (P < 0.01). ApEn(GH) was positively correlated with Ht gain over the whole year (r = 0.42) and Ht velocity sd score (r = 0.42; both, P < 0.05). Thus, increased irregularity in successive weekly GH output was associated with increased Ht gain and growth rate. There was significant synchrony between Ht and uGH, Wt and uGH, and Ht and Wt in 16 of 29, 22 of 29, and 25 of 29 subjects, respectively, as measured by X-ApEn. The degree of synchrony between Ht and GH output[ X-ApEn(Ht:GH)] was inversely correlated with Ht sd score (r = −0.45) and Ht velocity sd score (r =− 0.40; both P < 0.05), indicating that increased joint signal synchrony between Ht and GH accompanies tall stature and increased growth rate. These results extend the concept that variability in GH output over time is an important determinant of growth in normal children by indicating that an irregular temporal pattern of GH contributes to growth. Furthermore, synchrony between GH output and short-term Ht increments is associated with tall stature and good growth.

Genetic and developmental factors in spontaneous selective attention: a study of normal twins

The Spontaneous Selective Attention Task (SSAT) is a visual word identification task designed to measure the type of selective attention that occurs spontaneously when there are multiple stimuli, all potentially relevant, and insufficient time to process each of them fully. These are conditions which are common in everyday life. SSAT performance is measured by word identification accuracy, first under a baseline divided attention condition with no predictability, then under a selective attention condition with partial predictability introduced via word repetition. Accuracy to identify novel words in the upper location which becomes partially predictable (P words) vs. the lower location which remains non-predictable (N words) can be used to calculate a baseline performance index and a P/N ratio measure of selective attention. The SSAT has been shown to identify an attentional abnormality that may be useful in the development of an attentional endophenotype for family–genetic studies of schizophrenia. This study examined age and genetic effects on SSAT performance in normal children in order to evaluate whether the SSAT has the potential to qualify as a candidate endophenotype for schizophrenia in studies of at-risk children. A total of 59 monozygotic twin pairs and 33 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs ranging from 10 to 18 years of age were tested on the SSAT, a Continuous Performance Test (CPT), a Span of Apprehension Test (SPAN) and a full-scale IQ test. Baseline performance on the SSAT, which was correlated with verbal IQ and SPAN performance, improved with age but showed no significant heritability. The P/N selectivity ratio was stable over the 10–18-year age range, was not significantly correlated with IQ, CPT, or SPAN performance, and its heritability was estimated to be 0.41. These findings suggest that the P/N selectivity ratio measured by the SSAT may be useful as a vulnerability marker in studies of children born into families segregating schizophrenia.© 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.

Performance of Normal Children on the Pediatric Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction for Balance

The purpose of this study was to collect and examine descriptive data on the Pediatric Clinical Test of Sensory Interaction for Balance (P-CTSIB) for children ages 6 to 9 years. To guide decisions regarding grouping of data, hypotheses were tested concerning differences among means for duration of stance for gender and for age. Because results were inconclusive, descriptive data for duration of stance and degrees of sway for each of the six P-CTSIB Feet-Together tests and each of the six P-CTSIB Heel-Toe tests are reported by gender and age category. Recommendations are made for clinical use of this test, and directions for future research are identified.

Normal and learning disabled children's central auditory processing skills: an experimental test battery.

The performance of normal children (N = 13) and learning disabled children (N = 26) on an experimental battery of central auditory processing (CAP) tasks was examined. The battery included low-pass filtered speech (LPFS), binaural fusion (BF), time-compressed speech (TC), and dichotic monosyllables (DM) tests. The learning disabled subjects were classified as having normal (LD/N) or significantly impaired (LD/LD) auditory perceptual skills on the basis of a pretest battery of auditory language tests. The normal (N/N) subjects and nonauditory learning disabled (LD/N) subjects tended to perform alike across measures. The auditorily impaired (LD/LD) subjects tended to perform significantly poorer than their normal agemates. The results emphasized the heterogeneity of the learning disabled population. In addition, the results suggested a potentially useful "at risk" criterion when a CAP test battery is used in the assessment of auditory perceptual impairment among children.

Normal Children's Performance on the McCarthy Scales, Kaufman Assessment Battery, and Peabody Individual Achievement Test

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the McCarthy Scale of Children's Abilities and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children for a sample of 51 normal children. Results revealed no significant difference between the McCarthy General Cognitive Index and the K-ABC Mental Processing Composite (t = .55, p &gt; .10), and these scores correlated significantly (r = .55, p = .001). The predictive validity of these instruments was examined using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (administered after a three-month interval). Multiple regression analyses revealed that the K-ABC Achievement scale was the best predictor of PIAT Total scores (R = .75), and none of the remaining K-ABC or McCarthy scales added significantly to the prediction. Implications of these and other findings are discussed.

Mentally retarded and normal children's performance on gross motor reaction- and movement-time tasks with varying degrees of uncertainty of movement.

This study evaluated the effect of uncertainty of movement, as a source of environmental stimuli, on the RT and movement time of 8- and 10-yr.-old mildly retarded and normal boys and girls during a 4.6-m run. With uncertainty of movement, retarded subjects (6 boys, 9 girls) displayed significant increases in both RT and movement time. For normal children (10 boys, 10 girls), no change in performance was noted as the task was simple. These results highlighted the notion of skill constancy and the importance of controlling potential stimuli during skill acquisition.

Facilitating cognitive performance in children: A comparison of strategy modeling and strategy modeling with overt self-verbalization

Children, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10 years old, were randomly divided into three training conditions—a strategy modeling condition, a strategy modeling with overt self-verbalization condition, and a control condition. The subjects in the two modeling conditions were given training on four cognitive tasks, a signal task, a match-to-standard task, a paired-associates task, and a twenty-questions task. A 6 (age) × 2 (sex) × 3 (treatment) × 2 (trial) analysis of variance was performed on each of the dependent variables associated with each of the four tasks. The results of these analyses indicate that both modeling conditions facilitated performance on the signal and match-to-standard tasks for all six age groups. However, the two modeling procedures facilitated performance on the paired-associates and twenty-questions tasks only in the three older age groups. Since the two modeling procedures did not differ in effectiveness, it was suggested that strategy modeling without overt self-verbalization is the more practical and efficient procedure for facilitating cognitive performance in normal children.

Effect of acoustic‐cue redundancy of perception of stop‐vowel syllables by language‐delayed children

Previous studies demonstrated that language‐delayed children have difficulty processing speech signals (such as stop‐vowel syllables) which incorporate brief‐duration acoustic cues [P. Tallal and M. Piercy, Neuropsychol. 12, 83–93 (1974)]. The present study was designed to determine whether the presence of multiple cues to the place feature in stop‐vowel syllables would make a speech processing task more or less difficult for language‐delayed children. Five‐ through eight‐year‐old language‐delayed and normal children were trained to respond nonverbally to three pairs of syllables. The three pairs were phonologically the same /ba/ and /da/), but the pairs differed in the number of acoustic cues present. Pairs 1 and 2 were synthesized with two and three formants, respectively. Pair 3 was produced naturally (with multiple cues). The normal children's performance did not change significantly from one pair to another. All syllables were 250 ms in duration with 40‐ms formant transitions. However, the language‐delayed children's performance was significantly below normal for the two‐formant ba/da pair (p < 0.001), for the three‐formant ba/da pair score differences were less highly significant (p < 0.01), and for the real‐speech pair there was no significant difference between groups. These results suggest that acoustic redundancy aids language‐delayed children in responding to rapidly changing portions of the speech signal. [Work supported by NINCDS.]

Visual scanning strategies of neurologically impaired, percepually imfaired, and normal children viewing the Bender-Gestalt designs

The purpose of the present study was to describe and compare the visual encoding processes and copying performance of normal children and children with perceptual and neurological disabilities viewing the Bender-Gestalt designs. The eye movements of these children were recorded as they examined the nine designs of the Bender-Gestalt test. In addition, protocols of the test were obtained in the standard way. Clear qualitative and quantitative differences in the scanning strategies were found among each of the three diagnostic groups. No differences were found in the reporductions of the designs for normals and perceptually impaired children. However, the designs of the neurologically impaired children were significantly different from those of either of the other two diagnostic groups. The results are discussed with respect to the use of eye movement data as a technique to examine visual perceptual deficiencies indepently of motoric functions. Encoding processes charactersitic of the three groups are inferred from their scanning strategies and the relationship between these encoding processes and psychosenory learning disabilities is discussed.

Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Competing Message Effects

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of competing auditory stimuli on the performance of children with learning disabilities as compared to the performance of normal children. Two groups of first gradE children were tested individually on three tasks under four listening conditions: (1) in quiet, (2) in 74 dB SPL broad band white noise (0 dB S/N), (3) in 64 dB SPL linguistic competing messages (+10 dB S/N), and (4) in 74 dB SPL linguistic competing messages (0 dB S/N). The recorded instructions for tasks I and II were delivered through a loudspeaker in front of the child at 0° azimuth. Three loudspeakers arrayed behind the child at azimuths of 135°, 180°, and 225° delivered competing auditory messages. The findings were: (1) linguistic competing auditory messages interfered with the performance of children with suspected learning disabilities but did not interfere with the performance of normal children; (2) competing auditory messages that are nonlinguistic did not interfere with the performance of either group.

Activity Level and Motor Inhibition: Their Relationship to Intelligence-Test Performance in Normal Children

Loo, CHALSA, and WENAR, CHARLES. Activity Level and Motor Inhibition: Their Relationship to Intelligence-Test Performance in Normal Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 967-971. Activity level was not found to be correlated with motor inhibition, impulsivity, or IQ, while motor inhibition was significantly correlated with IQ but not with impulsivity. Significant interactive effects for activity level and motor inhibition on intelligence-test performance were found. The lowest mean IQ was found in the low active, low motor inhibition group; a higher IQ was associated with an increase in activity level or an increase in motor inhibition.

Brain injury in the preschool child: some developmental considerations. 1. Performance of normal children.

Brain injury in the preschool child: some developmental considerations. 1. Performance of normal children.

The performance of normal children on the Randall's Island performance series.

The performance of normal children on the Randall's Island performance series.