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Copyright of Panamerican Journal of Neuropsychology / Cuadernos de Neuropsicología is the property of Cuadernos de Neuropsicologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El objetivo de la investigación fue validar una prueba de detección temprana de dificultades de lectura (Cuetos y Suárez-Coalla) en una muestra de niños chilenos de cuatro años. La prueba incluye seis tareas que evalúan los componentes de procesamiento fonológico: a) Discriminación de fonemas con cinco pares de palabras para que los niños reconozcan si suena igual o diferente; b) Identificación de fonemas, se presenta un sonido y el niño lo repite y luego reconoce si ese sonido está en otras palabras; c) Segmentación de sílabas, se identifica cada sílaba de una palabra; d) Repetición de pseudopalabras, el niño repite palabras que no existen porque han sido inventadas; e) Repetición de dígitos de diferentes tamaños sin cometer errores, las series oscilan entre uno y cinco dígitos; f) Fluidez verbal, se presenta el nombre de un animal y el niño debe repetir todos los animales que se le ocurran, en un tiempo limitado. Los resultados confirman que la prueba es aceptable en términos de estructura y componentes de la conciencia fonológica (identificación y discriminación de fonemas, segmentación de sílabas, repetición de dígitos y pseudopalabras, fluidez verbal) como predictores de la lectura. Los indicadores estadísticos de validez y fiabilidad fueron muy similares en la muestra española y en la chilena. Los aspectos de carácter lingüístico, tales como la redacción de las instrucciones y los enunciados de los reactivos, no han necesitado ser modificados. Así lo informaron los terapeutas que aplicaron la prueba a los niños en los diversos centros educativos; y la observación sistemática de los investigadores confirman que la tarea se desarrolló sin ninguna dificultad significativa.

Language is being systematized as an area of clinical research because it contains features that function as a biomarker for the prediction of psychosis. The aim of the study was to contrast two types of continuity features such as connection, iteration, and referential distance, and, on the other hand, those of verbal fluency, understood as the presence of aberrant pauses. Clinical interviews of 10 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, 10 CHR and 10 healthy controls were analyzed. For the analysis of referentiality, sentence windows were selected and for verbal fluency, 15 minutes of speech were considered. The results suggest the presence of abnormalities in referentiality and verbal fluency among the CHR population. These similarities are found in terms of occurrence and similarity to those of the schizophrenia group, which supports our hypothesis that they are predictive biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objetivo: Superado el paradigma de la inteligencia como predictor único del rendimiento académico, se estudia la influencia de otras variables como el razonamiento, fluidez verbal, funciones ejecutivas, motivación y autoestima. Método: Para ello, se sirvió de un diseño de investigación de carácter exploratorio e incidental en una muestra de 132 sujetos de 6 a 9 años. Se administraron diferentes instrumentos, como las pruebas RAVEN, Lectura Eficaz, Brief II, MAPE II y Escala Coopersmith respectivamente. Resultados: Los resultados señalan que el modelo predictivo formado por razonamiento, fluidez verbal, funciones ejecutivas y autoestima explica un 55.4% de los resultados académicos. Como variables mediadoras emergen la autoestima, sobre variables tanto de carácter cognitivo como motivacional, y las funciones ejecutivas sobre variables emocionales y motivacionales. Discusión: Esto supone implicaciones teóricas y prácticas de carácter educativo con implicaciones prácticas en las aulas de primaria para la implementación de planes de desarrollo de la autoestima y las funciones ejecutivas.

Copyright of Revista Educa UMCH is the property of Universidad Marcelino Champagnat and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The verbal fluency task is a measure of cognitive flexibility and search strategy within the lexicon and semantic topic. The use of organizational strategies was tested in healthy Spanish children divided in two groups: group 1 of younger children and group 2 of older children introducing different letters and semantic categories. Semantic fluency was greater than phonological fluency in both age groups. In addition, older children showed better performance of both fluencies than younger children. From the phonological analyses, younger children evoked more word with the PMR letter group than with the FAS one. Moreover, an improvement of semantic fluency associated with the animal's category faced to meals and drink was observed only in the younger children group. In respect to organizational strategies, older children used more switches specifically in FAS group and more clusters for the meals or drinks category compared with the older children group. The relationships between the number of words evoked and the number of clusters and switches for both VF tasks were significant and positive. These data suggest that the type of letter and the semantic category employed in the VF evaluation modulate the verbal fluency performance in both groups of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of HOW: A Colombian Journal for Teachers of English is the property of Asociacion Colombiana de Profesores de Ingles and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology is the property of Editorial of the University of Almeria (Spain) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar el impacto de una intervención escolar en control inhibitorio llevada a cabo dentro de diversas aulas de segundo ciclo de primaria (9-11 años) que tenían alumnos con Trastorno del Desarrollo del Lenguaje (n = 5) o dislexia (n = 4) y sus compañeros de aula sin dificultades (n = 6). El diseño siguió un modelo pre-post intervención con las variables dependientes fluidez verbal, memoria fonológica y control inhibitorio. La intervención consistió en ocho sesiones de 10 minutos a todo el grupo clase, dos por semana durante cuatro semanas, más una sesión larga de 1 hora en grupo pequeño en medio de las sesiones, en las que se realizaba actividades basadas en diferentes tareas de control inhibitorio (“Stroop”, “Go-no go”, “Plots”, “Simon”,…). Los niños con TDL y dislexia mostraron una puntuación más baja en memoria fonológica antes de la intervención. La intervención sólo tuvo efecto en una leve mejora en todos los grupos en la memoria fonológica. Sin embargo, las comparaciones entre los grupos post-intervención mostraron puntuaciones significativamente más bajas en el grupo TDL respecto a los otros dos en fluencia verbal y control inhibitorio, que pueden indicar una posible mejoría de los grupos de dislexia y sin dificultades en estas variables. En conclusión, la intervención tuvo un escaso efecto, especialmente en el grupo con TDL. Se requieren más trabajos con un mayor número de participantes y de sesiones de intervención para poder corroborar la falta de efecto específico sobre el control inhibitorio y la fluencia verbal en los grupos intervenidos.

Copyright of Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology is the property of Editorial of the University of Almeria (Spain) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder marked by hallucinations, delusions, cognitive deficit, apathy, and thinking disorders. Speech disturbance is one of the main diagnostic criteria during acute periods of schizophrenia. In addition, abnormalities of brain language areas have been consistently described in schizophrenic individuals. The aim of this study was to describe the linguistic performance and cerebral activity during sentence production using word pairs with high or low semantic relatedness. Material and methods: We recorded electrical brain activity (electroencephalography [EEG]) of 15 healthy men and 11 men with disorganized schizophrenia while they were producing sentences with high and low relatedness word pairs. Results: The results showed significant differences; participants in both groups had significant longer latencies to produce sentences with low than with high relatedness word pairs. Furthermore, sentences formed with low relatedness pairs were significantly longer than those formed with high relatedness word pairs in both groups. EEG parameters also showed differences; in healthy subjects, we found enhancement of absolute alpha rhythm over the occipital leads during the period preceding sentence production with high relatedness word pairs. Conclusion: In contrast, in schizophrenia patients producing sentences with high relatedness word pairs, it was theta and beta rhythms that were enhanced in frontal regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Verbal fluency is a task of executive functions and involves verbal semantic fluency and verbal phonemic fluency, consisting of the ability to create, produce, express, relate words and know their meaning. OBJECTIVE: To analyze performance in phonemic and semantic verbal fluency in patients diagnosed with learning disorder. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A descriptive cross-sectional study including patients with learning disorder. All were evaluated with the Child Neuropsychological Evaluation in the tasks of phonemic and semantic verbal fluency. Tests of measures of central tendency were carried out and graphs of ranges were constructed considering the scores obtained vs the stipulated scores as normal in the evaluation instrument. RESULTS: There were included 192 patients. Diversity in patient performance was found, according to the diagnosis of learning disorder and the patient's age. CONCLUSIONS: It would be important to promote stimulation for the development of phonemic and semantic verbal fluency, as well as to rethink the therapeutic intervention of executive functions in patients with learning disorder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Signos is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A suggestion for acquiring core principalship competencies within and through groups is made, analyzing the context, and taking into account university extension, and peculiarities of Cuban higher education. Theoretical (historical-logical and systemic-structural), empirical, analytic-synthetic, and inductive-deductive methods of research were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objetivo: Comparar dos sistemas de puntuación para un test de fluidez verbal con el Modelo de Escalas de Calificación. Método: Se analizaron datos de 289 participantes, de los cuales 92 habían sido diagnosticados con Parkinson. Las puntuaciones se calcularon con dos sistemas de categorización: un procedimiento convencional y otro basado en percentiles. Resultados: Las puntuaciones Rasch procedentes de percentiles dan lugar a categorías adecuadas y medidas fiables; la correlación con las puntuaciones del test Minimental es evidencia de validez concurrente. Tras controlar estadísticamente el efecto de la edad, las medidas Rasch procedentes de percentiles discriminan entre ambos grupos, lo que evidencia validez predictiva. Conclusiones: El análisis de los dos procedimientos permite recomendar el uso de las categorías basadas en percentiles.

El propósito de esta investigación fue evaluar la creatividad de los estudiantes de educación básica y superior de Huancayo. Para ello, se ejecutó una investigación aplicada, se empleó el método descriptivo con un diseño descriptivo comparativo. Se trabajó con una muestra de 371 estudiantes. Se obtuvieron 201 estudiantes de educación secundaria y 170 estudiantes del nivel superior. El instrumento aplicado fue una prueba para Evaluar Indicadores Básicos de Creatividad Revisada y Modificada (EIBC-RM). Los resultados mostraron que no existen diferencias entre los estudiantes de educación básica y superior de Huancayo en la variable creatividad y en sus indicadores de fluidez verbal, flexibilidad y organización. Pero, si existe diferencias en el indicador de originalidad a favor de los estudiantes de educación superior.

El propósito de este artículo es dar a conocer una idea general de lo que trata el método de Respuesta Física Total basada en narración de historias, los principios sobre los cuales éste se fundamenta y de cómo éste funciona en un salón de clase, donde se enseña una lengua extranjera. El artículo, por una parte, presenta una revisión histórica del método TPR_Storytelling, puesto que ésta contextualiza y permite entender su enfoque, al igual que su influencia en la producción oral en la lengua extranjera, así como el desarrollo de la fluidez en los aprendientes de la misma, quienes pueden ser indistintamente niños o adultos. Por otra parte, éste muestra un contraste en su desarrollo metodológico, en el que se destaca algunos hallazgos parciales logrados hasta ahora en la investigación en curso, particularmente en relación con los pasos didácticos que se siguen en los contextos de enseñanza norteamericano y colombiano una lengua extranjera. El artículo se basa en la investigación adelantada por los autores de este artículo, tanto con niños como con adultos, entre los que se cuenta a estudiantes universitarios, cuya área mayor de interés es el inglés, en el programa de Licenciatura de Idiomas, y en particular a profesores de inglés en la escuela primaria, quienes por mandato legal deben enseñarlo, pese a que no estén cualificados para ello. La revisión teórica hace parte del proyecto de investigación en mención e incluye la consideración tanto del factor afectivo como del cognoscitivo en el aprendizaje.

ENGLISH:Repetitions, pauses, silences, unfinished or truncated statements, gestures, doubts and noises are normal phenomena in oral communication and important resources for any user to make clear the meaning of a given expression, to emphasize the emotion of a statement, to create participation spaces for the interlocutor, or simply to breathe.However these phenomena don´t always increase quality to the speech, and their excessive or repeated presence in the user generates noise or interference within the communication. This text points out the moments in which the oral phenomena may affect positively or negatively the speech quality according to the context and the speaker's intention. SPANISH:Las repeticiones, pausas, silencios, alargamientos, enunciados truncados o inconclusos, gestos, vacilaciones y ruidos son fenómenos normales dentro de la comunicación oral y constituyen recursos importantes que usa el hablante para precisar el significado de una expresión, para multiplicar la emotividad de un enunciado, para generar espacios de participación con el interlocutor, o simplemente para respirar. Sin embargo, estos fenómenos no siempre aportan calidad al discurso, y su presencia reiterada o excesiva por parte del hablante, genera ruidos o interferencias en la comunicación. Este texto señala los momentos en los cuales los fenómenos orales pueden incidir positiva o negativamente en la calidad del discurso de acuerdo con el contexto y la intencionalidad del hablante.

Copyright of Panamerican Journal of Neuropsychology / Cuadernos de Neuropsicología is the property of Cuadernos de Neuropsicologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Katharsis is the property of Institucion Universitaria de Envigado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study investigated the performance of children from the Brazilian Northeast region, from 7 to 10 years in phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks. The participants were 102 subjects (62 girls and 40 boys) who performed three phonemic and three semantic fluency tasks. The results were submitted to correlational and variance analysis to investigate the influence of the variables age and gender on the subjects performance. There was no effect of gender on the results. Significant contrasts between age groups were found, and better performance was observed on phonemic tasks. Also, the performance in this task changed along development, in contrast to what happened with the semantic fluency. The findings seem to be in accordance to neurodevelopmental aspects, taken into account that explicit memory systems show more precocious maturational course, with earlier consolidation, in comparison to the executive functions and frontal lobes, which go on developing until adult ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Las funciones ejecutivas son habilidades cognitivas que permiten la regulación y planificación de la conducta. En relación a los niños, se ha documentado que éstos pueden verse afectados por las carencias del contexto social. El objetivo del estudio es determinar si existen diferencias estadísticamente significativas en las funciones ejecutivas de adolescentes con distinto grado de marginación social. Se realizó un estudio transversal con 120 estudiantes de bachillerato pertenecientes a un sector de marginación media-alta y 120 pertenecientes a un sector de baja marginación. Se evaluaron las características sociodemográficas y la percepción de los riesgos contextuales de vecindario y escuela. Finalmente, se evaluaron las funciones ejecutivas con base en el Test de Clasificación de Cartas de Wisconsin, la torre de Londres, tarea tipo Go-No Go, prueba de memoria de la escala Weschler y un test de fluidez verbal. Los datos se analizaron en el paquete estadístico SPSS. Se realizó estadística descriptiva para las variables sociodemográficas. Además, fue aplicada la prueba t de Student para determinar si existen diferencias significativas entre los grupos. Los resultados mostraron que los adolescentes con mayor grado de marginación social, tienen un reducido ingreso mensual, menos años de escolaridad paterna/materna y escasa habilidad en las pruebas de funciones ejecutivas en comparación con los jóvenes que viven en el sector de menor marginación social, quienes presentaron mejores puntajes en las pruebas de funciones ejecutivas y menor percepción de riesgos contextuales.

Introduction. The Verbal (VF), Semantic (SF) and Phonemic Fluency (PF) tests are commonly used in clinical practice. Having different alternative tests, that could also allow for the effect of demographic variables, would improve their use as screening tests, making it possible to differentiate patients with or without Alzheimer's disease (AD). Aims. (1) To compare the discriminatory ability of the SF tasks "things in a house" and "food" versus the task "animals" among patients with the AD (n = 50) and healthy subjects (n = 50). (2) To compare the use of the phonemes such as "P", "M" and "R" as an alternative and/or parallel task to the phonemes "F", "A" and "S". (3) To assess the combined use of both tasks with the demographic variables for the screening of AD patients and the healthy ones. Results. Both semantic and phonemic categories indicate similar results, high correlation, support the criteria validity and allow for their use in a parallel way. Among all the different roles assessed, the most successful in screening correctly 91% of the evaluated subjects is the one that includes tasks such as "things in a house", the phonemes "A" and "S" and the age and schooling time variables. Conclusion. The parallel use of VF and PF, plus the demographic variables improve the discriminatory ability of the VF tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El declive progresivo en el lenguaje se ha descrito en trabajos neuropsicológicos sobre Alzheimer y Deterioro Cognitivo Leve (DCL). Nuestro objetivo es investigar este declive en las fases iniciales, así como sus manifestaciones y las diferencias lingüísticas entre personas en riesgo de desarrollar DCL (RDCL) y sin deterioro. En nuestro estudio, participaron 36 personas mayores de 65 años, evaluadas con 31 subpruebas agrupadas en ocho áreas: fluidez, comprensión, expresión, lectura, escritura, memoria, organización perceptiva y velocidad de procesamiento. Nuestros análisis han mostrado diferencias significativas entre personas en RDCL y sin deterioro en pruebas verbales, pero no en pruebas manipulativas. Todos los participantes con DCL incipiente puntuaron más bajo en las ocho áreas. Nuestros resultados ponen de manifiesto la relevancia del estudio de las habilidades lingüísticas en personas en RDCL. Delimitar estos cambios neuropsicológicos permitirá diseñar programas de intervención adecuados que incidan en las áreas más deterioradas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Syntactic competence development initiates during preschool age, an important component on this phenomena is active verb utilization, and morphology-semantic-verb acquisition. Recent approximations have outlined the importance of cognitive dependency-interaction during child development, for example the importance of executive control for verb selection (mapping) and efficient verb-utilization; as well as the importance of verb-semantics for cognitive processing; however at the national and the international context, developmental studies on verb-fluency and verb-morphology during verb-fluency paradigms are to date insufficient. In this article a basic review is presented on the characteristics of verb active utilization and verb-fluency in preschoolers and older children, outlining the utility for the field of developmental neuropsychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multidomain mild Cognitive Impairment (mMCI) patients have similar difficulties than those observed in the initial stages of Alzheimer disease. Many studies have explored language abilities in MCI, but few have focused in grammatical comprehension. This study explores the differences between mMCI patients and controls using a complete neuropsychological battery, it tries to find out if vocabulary and grammatical comprehension in both groups are predicted by naming and verbal fluency, and seeks the best subset of sentence structures to classify the subjects. There were significative differences between groups in verbs and in grammatical comprehension. Linear regression revealed that verb and sentence comprehension are independent of naming and verbal fluency performance in mMCI patients. In the control group verb comprehension is predicted by intrusions in verbal fluency, and the comprehension of sentences containing two propositions seems to be related to control processes and recognition errors. Two sentence structures, that do not fit to syntactic canonical order in Spanish, are especially useful for subjects' classification. mMCI patients have a specific deficit affecting grammatical comprehension that doesn't seem to depend on their low performance at lexical-semantic level. In healthy elders, verb and grammatical comprehension are related to control processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Verbal fluency tests (VFTs) are considered semantic cognitive tasks. They demand the retrieval of words under different semantic, phonologic, and grammatical conditions. The measures most commonly used to assess word recall in VFTs are: (1) the number of words produced, (2) categorical and phonological association between words, (3) switching between clusters, and (4) the time at which the words are evoked. These measures involve quantitative (1), qualitative (2 and 3), and temporal (4) analyses. In this study, semantic and phonological VFTs were administered to a child population (8-12 years) in Granada (Spain), in order to: (1) review traditional VFT measures, (2) update temporal indices, and (3) introduce combinations, in an effort to more precisely establish the role of executive control. Topics widely-discussed in the literature include two crucial cognitive processes that underlie VFT performance: semantic processing and executive control, which have been associated with activity in temporal and frontal brain regions, respectively. One of the major challenges in the study of these processes is to distinguish between their separate contributions to VFT execution using obtained data. Measures of switching and clustering have traditionally been used to this end, however they do not take into account the time at which the words are evoked. These measures have also been criticized because their final scores are interrelated and exposed to biases difficult to control. Considering temporal measures important, we evaluated the role of five executive control variables (attentional control, cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, switching, and sustained control) and their relationship with combined quantitative, qualitative and temporal measures. Time variables were included by placing each word evoked on a sixty-second timeline of verbal production. This way we were able to simultaneously calculate the clustering and switching of words, and their temporal positions. All of these results were associated with executive measures using predictive association statistical techniques. Significant results were found among those measures that emphasized the combination of temporary and qualitative cluster measures. We were also able to reliably isolate the participation of executive functions such as inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility in the combination of spurts and clusters words. This was determined with Multiple Regression Analysis scores, entering the executive functions as independent variables and each of the verbal fluency measures as dependent variables. For example, an R² of .41 (.000) was obtained for the abovementioned combination of spurted - clustered words in the phonological VFT letter P, entering Trail Making B and Trenerry's Color-Word version of the Stroop task (Lezak, 1995) as predictor variables. When compared, these values clearly exceed those obtained with traditional quantitative and qualitative measures. We discussed these results in relation to the possibility of developing a more precise executive control index for VFTs, specifically for the rapid transition from one word to another related word. As far as we know, only switching (shifting between clusters of words) has been considered an executive control index in VFTs. Here we propose the combination measures described. Possible cognitive mechanisms related to these findings are discussed. Future research must contemplate: (1) a greater sample size, because only 61 participants were studied here, (2) using other technical measures to determine clustering and switching, (3) improving the executive function measures, (4) including other VFTs, such as letter exclusion or action fluency, and (5) extending the procedure to an adult population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper evaluates the evolution and deterioration of semantic memory in a healthy population and in people with Alzheimer's disease. Using a categorical semantic fluency test, we evaluated the frequency of production of copies of four basic semantic categories belonging to the domains Living Things (LT) and Non-Living things (NLT). The sample consisted of 80 subjects classified in four groups: children, young adults, healthy elderly persons and elderly people with Alzheimer's disease. The results showed a greater production by young adults in the domains LT and NLT, followed by children and the elderly healthy and, finally, the elderly Alzheimer's disease patients. Regarding gender, females showed a better performance but only in the sample of healthy people. Furthermore, the number of errors was considered: the group with a higher number of errors was the children's, mainly due to the inclusion of non pertinent elements (overgeneralization). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To analyze the relationship, by comparison and correlation, between executive function (EF) and intellectual capacity (IC) in clever children (CC) and Average Intelligence Quotient children (AIQC), aged 7 to 11 years, and living in Medellín - Colombia. Patients and Methods: a non-randomized sample of 62 children was selected. The sample was constituted by two independent groups, according the IC. EF tasks were administered to both groups. Results: CC had statistically significant higher performance on phonological verbal fluency test (PVFT) (p < 0,05), with a modest effect size (0,65). A statistically significant, but low (r = 0,267, p = 0,03), correlation between PVF and verbal IQ was found. Conclusion: EF appeared as a non IQ-related ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous to appearance of motor alterations in Huntington's disease (HD), there can be a discreet cognitive deterioration. During the first decade of evolution of the disease, Mini-Mental State Examination and IQ test may be normal and application of highly sensitive tests become necessary in prediction of anomalies. The cognitive deterioration of HD subjects with less than 10 years evolution was studied using the tests of Verbal Fluency, Symbol Digit Modalities and the entire 3 parts of the Stroop test. A transversal analysis in 61 subjects was employed to seek for correlations of results in these tests and time of evolution of disease and motor deterioration. In the 52 subjects that finished every subsequent evaluation, rates of six-month, yearly and eighteen-month change were estimated. All cognitive tests were significantly related to the motor subscale and time of evolution. Correlation of results in the Stroop test with motor scale produced a Pearson's correlation coefficient of -0.76 for word reading (part A), -0.68 for color naming (B) and -0.64 for interference test (C). Time of evolution was more highly related to the 2 remaining tests. The longitudinal study did not set in evidence any significant change with the exception of the quick reading section of Stroop A test, which showed 7 points deterioration in 18 months. This test turned out to be more sensitive than the other complex tasks for detection of any deterioration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the frontal inhibition account of hypnosis, many of the phenomena traditionally associated with hypnosis, such as the suspension of reality testing and loss of planning functions, come about because hypnosis produces decrements in frontal lobe performance. In line with this view, previous studies investigating the frontal inhibition account of hypnosis have found that phonemic fluency performance declines with hypnotic induction, but only for high hypnotizables. However, these studies were limited by their use of small restricted samples and suggestion based measures of hypnotizability. The aim of the present study was to attempt to investigate this effect using a sample which included a full range of hypnotizability, and dividing the phonemic fluency task into its frontal (switches) and temporal (cluster size) components. In addition, depth reports were used to assess the influence of hypnotic induction instead of suggestion based measures of hypnotizability. Results showed that overall, hypnosis had a negative effect on frontal aspects of the fluency task, and a positive effect on temporal aspects of the task; however, whilst the resulting changes partly differentiated those of medium depth from the other groups, they did not differentiate between subjects of high and low hypnotic depth. High hypnotic depth, however, was related to better phonemic fluency performance in the nonhypnotic condition. An explanation in terms of divided attention is proposed, the importance of adequate sampling in neuropsychological studies of hypnosis emphasized, and problems for the frontal inhibition account of hypnosis are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teniendo en cuenta la distinción que hace Thurstone (1938), entre la comprensión y la fluidez verbal, este trabajo considera la estructura factorial de esta última, con el fin de determinar sus principales dimensiones de covariacion, fundamentándose para ello, en la hipótesis de Yela (1975), sobre la organización de la inteligencia verbal y en la técnica del análisis factorial.