Search

The early reading capacity of seven-year-old children subjected to four phonological, two simple span and two complex span tasks depends on the association of simple and complex memory spans and phonological awareness. Regression texts indicate that phonological awareness and reading associated memory spans cause the shared and distinctive levels of changes in cognitive reading capacity.

Three experiments test the hypotheses that the increase in memory span with age is determined by (i) identification time or (ii) articulation time. Experiment 1 matches 5- and 7-year-old children on the time taken to identify words given in a span test and finds that this does not equate span. Experiment 2 matches 5-and 7-year-old children on their articulation rates for individual words in a span test and finds that this is not sufficient to equate span performance. Experiment 3 matches 5- and 7-year-old children on their articulation rates for repeating a word three times and finds significant age effects in span scores for unfamiliar but not for familiar words. It is concluded that the developmental increase in span cannot be explained by differences in identification time, nor by the hypothesis that articulation time is the sole or major cause. It is argued that the development of span with age depends on a combination of factors which include familiarity and time to repeat a word more than once.

Individuals with ID (Intellectual Disabilities) are compared with typically developing peers of the same chronological age (CA), more marked differences in performance. Differences in performance between the groups were quite marked on several question types, supporting previous findings that those with ID have certain vulnerabilities as potential witnesses compared with peers of the same CA.

The ability to produce a well-structured, coherent narrative account is essential for successful everyday communication. Research suggests that autistic people may find this challenging, and that narrative assessment can reveal pragmatic difficulties in this population that are missed on sentence-level tasks. Previous studies have used different methodologies to assess spoken narrative skills in autism. This review systematically examined these approaches and considered their utility for assessing narrative coherence. Keyword database searches were conducted, with records screened by two independent reviewers. Eligible studies (n = 59) included specified frameworks for evaluating structure/coherence in spoken narrative accounts by autistic participants of any age. Studies were categorised according to the type of narrative scoring scheme used, and strengths and limitations were considered. Over 80% of included articles reported observational cross-sectional studies, with participants generally matched on age and cognitive ability with non-autistic comparison groups. The most common approaches involved coding key elements of narrative structure ('story grammar') or scoring the inclusion of pre-determined 'main events'. Alternative frameworks included 'holistic' rating scales and subjective quality judgements by listeners. Some studies focused specifically on 'coherence', measuring diverse aspects such as causal connectedness and incongruence. Scoring criteria varied for each type of framework. Findings indicated that solely assessing story structure ignores important features contributing to the coherence of spoken narrative accounts. Recommendations are that future research consider the following elements: (1) context, (2) chronology, (3) causality, (4) congruence, (5) characters (cognition/emotion), and (6) cohesion; and scoring methods should include rating scales to obtain sufficiently detailed information about narrative quality. • Spoken narrative skills can be an area of challenge for autistic people of all ages. • Narrative research typically uses macrostructure frameworks (e.g., story grammar). • Macrostructural analysis ignores some important elements for coherent storytelling. • Few previous studies have directly investigated narrative coherence in autism. • Key features: context, chronology, causality, congruence, characters, and cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There is a long-held view that verbal short-term memory problems of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) might be due to a deficit in verbal rehearsal. However, the evidence is inconclusive and word length effects as indicator of rehearsal have been criticised.Aim& Method: The aim of this multi-site European study was to investigate verbal rehearsal in adolescents with mild ID (n=90) and a comparison group of typically developing children matched individually for mental age (MA, n=90). The investigation involved: (1) a word length experiment with non-verbal recall using pointing and (2) 'self-paced' inspection times to infer whether verbal strategies were utilised when memorising a set of pictorial items.Results: The word length effect on recall did not interact with group, suggesting that adolescents with ID and MA comparisons used similar verbal strategies, possibly phonological recoding of picture names. The inspection time data suggested that high span individuals in both groups used verbal labelling or single item rehearsal on more demanding lists, as long named items had longer inspection times.Conclusions: The findings suggest that verbal strategy use is not specifically impaired in adolescents with mild ID and is mental age appropriate, supporting a developmental perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the development of phonological recoding in short-term memory (STM) span tasks among two clinical groups with contrasting STM and language profiles: those with Down syndrome (DS) and Williams syndrome (WS). Phonological recoding was assessed by comparing: (1) performance on phonologically similar and dissimilar items (phonological similarity effects, PSE); and (2) items with short and long names (word length effects, WLE). Participant groups included children and adolescents with DS (n=29), WS (n=25) and typical development (n=51), all with average mental ages around 6 years. The group with WS, contrary to predictions based on their relatively strong verbal STM and language abilities, showed no evidence for phonological recoding. Those in the group with DS, with weaker verbal STM and language abilities, showed positive evidence for phonological recoding (PSE), but to a lesser degree than the typical group (who showed PSE and WLE). These findings provide new information about the memory systems of these groups of children and adolescents, and suggest that STM processes involving phonological recoding do not fit with the usual expectations of the abilities of children and adolescents with WS and DS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Executive functioning (EF) deficits are well recognized in developmental dyslexia, yet the majority of studies have concerned children rather than adults, ignored the subjective experience of the individual with dyslexia (with regard to their own EFs), and have not followed current theoretical perspectives on EFs.Aims and Methods: The current study addressed these shortfalls by administering a self-report measure of EF (BRIEF-A; Roth, Isquith, & Gioia, 2005) and experimental tasks to IQ-matched groups of adults with and without dyslexia. The laboratory-based tasks tested the three factors constituting the framework of EF proposed by Miyake et al. (2000).Results: In comparison to the group without dyslexia, the participants with dyslexia self-reported more frequent EF problems in day-to-day life, with these difficulties centering on metacognitive processes (working memory, planning, task monitoring, and organization) rather than on the regulation of emotion and behaviour. The participants with dyslexia showed significant deficits in EF (inhibition, set shifting, and working memory).Conclusions and Implications: The findings indicated that dyslexia-related problems have an impact on the daily experience of adults with the condition. Further, EF difficulties are present in adulthood across a range of laboratory-based measures, and, given the nature of the experimental tasks presented, extend beyond difficulties related solely to phonological processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provided a detailed analysis of verbal fluency in children with language difficulties, and examined the relative contributions of executive functioning (executive-loaded working memory, switching, inhibition) and language ability to verbal fluency performance. Semantic and phonemic fluency, language, and executive functioning tasks were completed by 41 children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 88 children with typical development. Children with SLI showed difficulties with most aspects of verbal fluency (rates of output, errors, switching) relative to typical children. Language ability predicted nearly every aspect of phonemic fluency performance and some aspects of semantic fluency performance. The relationships between verbal fluency and executive functioning were modest: inhibition was related to error scores on the phonemic fluency task, but relationships with executive-loaded working memory and switching were absent. Educationally, these results emphasise the underlying importance of language abilities in generation tasks like verbal fluency, but point to the importance of inhibition skills for error monitoring. Interventions to improve search and generation abilities have the potential to offer broader benefits in the classroom for children with language difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hebb repetition learning is a form of long-term serial order learning that can occur when sequences of items in an immediate serial recall task are repeated. Repetition improves performance because of the gradual integration of serial order information from short-term memory into a more stable long-term memory trace.Aims: The current study assessed whether adolescents with non-specific intellectual disabilities showed Hebb repetition effects, and if their magnitude was equivalent to those of children with typical development, matched for mental age.Methods: Two immediate serial recall Hebb repetition learning tasks using verbal and visuospatial materials were presented to 47 adolescents with intellectual disabilities (11-15 years) and 47 individually mental age-matched children with typical development (4-10 years).Results: Both groups showed Hebb repetition learning effects of similar magnitude, albeit with some reservations. Evidence for Hebb repetition learning was found for both verbal and visuospatial materials; for our measure of Hebb learning the effects were larger for verbal than visuospatial materials.Conclusions: The findings suggested that adolescents with intellectual disabilities may show implicit long-term serial-order learning broadly commensurate with mental age level. The benefits of using repetition in educational contexts for adolescents with intellectual disabilities are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We examine the development of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory in Williams (WS) and Down (DS) syndromes. [•] We use the developmental trajectories method in order to do this. [•] We compare the performance of the two clinical groups with a typically developing group. [•] Both clinical groups showed the expected modality-specific performance impairments. [•] Both types of STM skill in both groups developed at a typical rate. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Children with intellectual disability (ID) were given a comprehensive range of executive functioning measures, which systematically varied in terms of verbal and non-verbal demands. Their performance was compared to the performance of groups matched on mental age (MA) and chronological age (CA), respectively. Twenty-two children were included in each group. Children with ID performed on par with the MA group on switching, verbal executive-loaded working memory and most fluency tasks, but below the MA group on inhibition, planning, and non-verbal executive-loaded working memory. Children with ID performed below CA comparisons on all the executive tasks. We suggest that children with ID have a specific profile of executive functioning, with MA appropriate abilities to generate new exemplars (fluency) and to switch attention between tasks, but difficulties with respect to inhibiting pre-potent responses, planning, and non-verbal executive-loaded working memory The development of different types of executive functioning skills may, to different degrees, be related to mental age and experience. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Performance on three verbal measures (story recall, paired associated learning, category fluency) designed to assess the integration of long-term semantic and linguistic knowledge, phonological working memory and executive resources within the proposed ‘episodic buffer’ of working memory () was assessed in children with intellectual disabilities (ID). It was hypothesised that children with ID would show equivalent performance to typically developing children of the same mental age. This prediction was based on the hypothesis that, despite poorer phonological short-term memory than mental age matched peers, those with ID may benefit from more elaborate long-term memory representations, because of greater life experience. Children with ID were as able as mental age matched peers to remember stories, associate pairs of words together and generate appropriate items in a category fluency task. Performance did not, however, reach chronological age level on any of the tasks. The results suggest children with ID perform at mental age level on verbal ‘episodic buffer’ tasks, which require integration of information from difference sources, supporting a ‘delayed’ rather than ‘different’ view of their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to investigate executive functions in adults with intellectual disability, and compare them to a closely matched control group longitudinally for 5 years. In the Betula database, a group of adults with intellectual disability (ID, n =46) was defined from measures of verbal and non-verbal IQ. A control group, with two people for every person with intellectual disability (n =92), was chosen by matching on the following criterion in order of priority: IQ higher than 85, age, sex, sample, level of education, and years of education. Three types of tasks of executive functions were included on two occasions, with 5 years between testing sessions: The Tower of Hanoi, executively loaded dual task versions of word recall, and verbal fluency. Adults with ID showed significant impairments on verbal fluency and on the executively loaded dual task word recall task (at encoding but not at recall). There were no group differences on the Tower of Hanoi. No significant differences between the two test occasions were found. The results are interpreted in terms of individuals with ID having problems with speed of accessing lexical items and difficulties with working memory-related executive control at encoding, which includes shifting between tasks. There are, however, not necessarily problems with inhibition. The dual task results additionally imply that the adults with intellectual disability were more sensitive to strategy interruptions at encoding, but that dividing attention at recall did not have such detrimental effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims: Autistic children often recall fewer details about witnessed events than typically developing children (of comparable age and ability), although the information they recall is generally no less accurate. Previous research has not examined the narrative coherence of such accounts, despite higher quality narratives potentially being perceived more favourably by criminal justice professionals and juries. This study compared the narrative coherence of witness transcripts produced by autistic and typically developing (TD) children (ages 6-11 years, IQs 70+).Methods and Procedures: Secondary analysis was carried out on interview transcripts from a subset of 104 participants (autism = 52, TD = 52) who had taken part in a larger study of eyewitness skills in autistic and TD children. Groups were matched on chronological age, IQ and receptive language ability. Coding frameworks were adopted from existing narrative research, featuring elements of 'story grammar'.Outcomes and Results: Whilst fewer event details were reported by autistic children, there were no group differences in narrative coherence (number and diversity of 'story grammar' elements used), narrative length or semantic diversity.Conclusions and Implications: These findings suggest that the narrative coherence of autistic children's witness accounts is equivalent to TD peers of comparable age and ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children with and without autism watched a mock crime event involving two actors. • A week later, they were asked to identify these 'perpetrators' from identification lineups. • We found that autistic children performed fairly similarly to the non-autistic children. • Yet identification performance in both groups was low. • Future research should identify how to support identification performance in autistic and non-autistic children. Although there is increasing interest in the capabilities of children with autism at different stages of the criminal justice process, there is little research into how well this group perform when asked to identify perpetrators from identification lineups. This is despite theoretical and empirical literature suggesting that autistic children experience face recognition memory difficulties. As part of a broader study into eyewitness memory skills, 50 children with autism and 162 children with typical development (TD) (all with IQs > 69) watched a mock crime event (either live or on a video) involving two male perpetrators. One week later, their eyewitness identification skills were compared, with children asked to identify the perpetrators from two ecologically valid video lineups. The children were also assessed on a standardised face memory task. When asked to identify perpetrators in the video lineups, in many respects the autistic children performed at an equivalent level to the TD children. This was despite the TD children outperforming the autistic children on the standardized face memory task. These preliminary findings suggest that group differences between autistic and TD children may not always emerge on an ecologically valid, real world eyewitness identification lineup task, despite autistic children showing poorer performance on a standardized face memory task. However, as identification performance in both groups was low, it remains important for future research to identify how to scaffold eyewitness identification performance in both children with and without an autism diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "Executive Functions in Adults With Developmental Dyslexia" published in the previous issue is presented.

Abstract: Williams (WS) and Down (DS) syndromes are characterised by roughly opposing ability profiles. Relative verbal strengths and visuospatial difficulties have been reported in those with WS, while expressive language difficulties have been observed in individuals with DS. Few investigations into the executive function (EF) skills of these groups have examined the effect of verbal/visuospatial task type on performance. Analogous verbal and visuospatial measures were administered to these populations within four EF domains: executive-loaded working memory (ELWM), inhibition, fluency and set-shifting. Performance in both groups was compared to that of typically developing (TD) children using regression techniques controlling for potentially influential cognitive/developmental factors. Individuals with WS showed the expected relative visuospatial difficulties, as indicated by poorer performance than TD individuals, on tests of ELWM and fluency. Individuals with DS displayed the expected relative verbal difficulty in the domain of set-shifting. In addition, each population showed pervasive deficits across modality in one domain; ELWM for individuals with DS, and inhibition for individuals with WS. Individuals with WS and DS showed EF difficulties in comparison to a TD group, but, their executive performance was affected by EF task type (verbal/visuospatial) and EF domain in different ways. While the findings indicated that EF in these populations is characterised by a range of specific strengths and weaknesses, it was also suggested that the relative verbal/visuospatial strengths associated with each population do not consistently manifest across EF domains. Lastly, syndrome specificity was indicated by the differences in groups’ performance patterns. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Little is currently known about borderline intellectual functioning (BIF), a condition characterized by an intelligence quotient between one and two standard deviations below the average, that affects about 14% of the population.Aims: The present study aimed to analyze the intellectual profile of school-aged children with BIF.Method and Procedure: The WISC-IV was administered to 204 children with BIF attending Italian primary and lower secondary school, and their profile was compared with that of a control group of typically developing (TD) children.Results: The WISC-IV profile of the children with BIF differed from that of the TD children, and the former's performance was worse than the latter's in all the measures considered. The children with BIF also showed significant differences between the four main factor indices, scoring lowest for working memory, while the TD control group's profile was flat (as expected on the grounds of standardization criteria). No differences were found between the profiles of children with versus without a comorbid neurodevelopmental disorder.Discussion: Our results support the hypothesis that individuals with BIF have a characteristic profile with specific weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]