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Intermittent hypoxia can evoke persistent increases in ventilation (V (E)) in neonates (i.e. long-term facilitation, LTF) (Julien et al., 2008). Since prenatal nicotine (PN) exposure alters neonatal respiratory control (Fregosi and Pilarski, 2008), we hypothesized that PN would influence LTF of ventilation (V (E)) in neonatal rats. An osmotic minipump delivered nicotine 6 mg/kg per day or saline to pregnant dams. V (E) was assessed in unanesthetized pups via whole body plethysmography at post-natal (P) days 9-11 or 15-17 during baseline (BL, 21% O(2)), hypoxia (10 x 5 min, 5% O(2)) and 30 min post-hypoxia. PN pups had reduced BL V (E) (p<0.05) but greater increases in V (E) during hypoxia (p<0.05). Post-hypoxia V (E) (i.e. LTF) showed an agex treatment interaction (p<0.01) with similar values at P9-11 but enhanced LTF in saline (30+/-8%BL) vs. PN pups (6+/-5%BL; p=0.01) at P15-17. We conclude that the post-natal developmental time course of hypoxia-induced LTF is influenced by PN.

Response to Intervention (RTI) models of diagnosis and intervention are being implemented rapidly throughout the schools. The purposes of invoking an RTI model for disabilities in the schools clearly are laudable, yet close examination reveals an unappreciated paucity of empirical support for RTI and an overly optimistic view of its practical, problematic issues. Models are being put into practice without adequate research and logistical support and neglect the potential negative long-term impact on students with disabilities. Many implementation problems exist: (a) the vagaries of critical details of the model in practice; (b) the lack of consideration of bright struggling readers; (c) the relativeness, contextual, situation dependent nature of who is identified; (d) the worrisome shortcomings of the RTI process as a means of diagnosis or determination of a disability; and (e) the apparent lack of student-based data to guide effective choice of approaches and components of intervention. Practiced as a model of prevention, the authors agree with the concept of RTI. As the authors witness its application to disability determination sans the benefit of a reliable and valid empirical basis, the potential benefits to some children with disabilities remain an unproven hypothesis while the potential detriment to some children with disabilities remains a very real possibility.

The peer-review process is an invaluable service provided by the professional community, and it provides the critical foundation for the advancement of science. However, there is remarkably little systematic guidance for individuals who wish to become part of this process. This paper, written from the perspective of reviewers and editors with varying levels of experience, provides general guidelines and advice for new reviewers in neuropsychology, as well as outlining benefits of participation in this process. It is hoped that the current information will encourage individuals at all levels to become involved in peer-reviewing for neuropsychology journals.

Fletcher and Vaughn (this issue) describe recent changes to federal laws governing special education eligibility for specific learning disabilities focusing on what is commonly known as response to intervention (RTI). We are concerned about what appears to us as a selective review of empirical support for RTI and a consequently overly optimistic view of many practical issues surrounding the implementation of RTI models that neglects the potential negative long-term impact on the range of students with and without a learning disability. These include (1) the lack of a firm evidence base reflected in vagaries and ambiguity of the critical details of the model in practice; (2) the worrisome shortcomings of the RTI process as a means of diagnosis or determination of a disability; (3) the contextual, situation-dependent nature of who is identified; (4) the seeming lack of consideration of bright struggling readers in the RTI process; and (5) the apparent lack of student-based data to guide the most effective choice of approaches to, and specific components of, intervention.

A learning disability (LD) is a neurobiological disorder that presents as a serious difficulty with reading, arithmetic, and/or written expression that is unexpected, given the individual's intellectual ability. A learning disability is not an emotional disorder nor is it caused by an emotional disorder. If inadequately or improperly evaluated, a learning disability has the potential to impact an individual's functioning adversely and produce functional impairment in multiple life domains. When a learning disability is suspected, an evaluation of neuropsychological abilities is necessary to determine the source of the difficulty as well as the areas of neurocognitive strength that can serve as a foundation for compensatory strategies and treatment options.

The present study was undertaken to identify if activation of the dorsomedial hypothalamus (DMH) elicits augmented breaths (ABs). DMH disinhibition in urethane anesthetized rats produced both an increase in baseline respiratory rate (RR) and an increase in the number of ABs. The increase in RR was associated with a decrease in both the time of inspiration (T(i)) and expiration (T(e)) and the peak change in RR was observed 5 min post DMH activation. In contrast, the increase in ABs was greatest during the first 1.25 min, and both T(i)s of the ABs did not change significantly from pre-injection values. The T(e) of the ABs did decrease but remained significantly greater than the T(e) of the normal breath during DMH disinhibition. Our results support the hypothesis that the central neural pathway involved in the maintenance of normal respiratory pattern may be distinct from pathways involved in the generation of ABs.

Two case reports are presented that illustrate the use of a new assessment instrument of executive skills, the Test of Verbal Conceptualization and Fluency (TVCF), as a component of a clinical neuropsychological assessment. The cases presented include the assessment of a patient at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and a patient with subtle signs of executive dysfunction subsequent to a mild head injury. Both patients had high levels of education and occupational status. The TVCF demonstrated clinical sensitivity to central nervous system (CNS) insult and results similar to those obtained with other established measures of executive functioning.

When children experience learning difficulties, an appropriate evaluation of abilities and skills can provide the foundation for an accurate diagnosis and useful recommendations. When comprehensive information about a child's brain-related strengths and weaknesses is necessary to understand potential sources of the problem and implications for functioning, a neuropsychological evaluation is most often the best choice. This paper was written to help parents, educators, health care providers, and third-party payors to understand the nature of neuropsychological assessment and to choose the type of evaluation that will furnish relevant information for the child's educational planning.

In this study, the authors examined the stability of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989) code types in a sample of 94 injured workers with a mean test-retest interval of 21.3 months (SD = 14.1). Congruence rates for undefined code types were 34% for high-point codes, 22% for 2-point codes, and 22% for 3-point codes. The data provide tentative evidence suggesting that defined code types are more stable than undefined code types. Cohen's kappa, a statistic that controls for chance agreement, was calculated for each clinical scale for both 2-point and 3-point code types. Only 2 of the 20 kappa coefficients were not significant at the p = .05 level.

The nature of practice effects on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WISC-III) Performance Scale was examined for 51 middle-class White children ages 11 to 13 years. The participants were tested twice on the six WISC-III Performance subtests (mean interval = 13 days) to determine whether the gain scores were significantly related to the children's ability level, memory, learning ability, and attention and motivation. Measures of these constructs were administered during the initial evaluation. Results indicated that retest gains on the separate subtests were uncorrelated with each other. Multiple regression analyses yielded some significant and meaningful results (e.g., a measure of long-term memory was a significant predictor of gains on Object Assembly), but, in general, few meaningful relations were yielded in these analyses.

Symptom exaggeration or fabrication occurs in a sizeable minority of neuropsychological examinees, with greater prevalence in forensic contexts. Adequate assessment of response validity is essential in order to maximize confidence in the results of neurocognitive and personality measures and in the diagnoses and recommendations that are based on the results. Symptom validity assessment may include specific tests, indices, and observations. The manner in which symptom validity is assessed may vary depending on context but must include a thorough examination of cultural factors. Assessment of response validity, as a component of a medically necessary evaluation, is medically necessary. When determined by the neuropsychologist to be necessary for the assessment of response validity, administration of specific symptom validity tests are also medically necessary.

Although past research has provided an initial examination of maturational trends of frontal lobe functioning, it has not yielded a unifying developmental model. The purpose of this study was to generate a model representing the maturation of frontal lobe function as determined principally through neuropsychological tests. A meta-analytic review of the literature on the development of frontal lobe functioning was conducted. Journal articles were identified through an initial search of PsycInfo, Medline, and ERIC for the years 1984-2004 using key words executive function*, frontal function*, development*, and age. Analyses of effect size differences across age groups assisted in determining the developmental patterns for commonly used measures of frontal functioning by providing a common metric of growth. Age-related increases across the different frontal functions were averaged providing overall age-related increases in performance. A plot was made of the development of frontal lobe functioning using the mean effect size of change in performance across age groups. The model of the development of frontal lobe functioning suggests a staging of development that begins in early childhood with the maturation of frontal functioning and continues, although at a decreased rate, into adolescence and early adulthood.

A critical review of the 24-step procedure of Miller and Rohling's (in press) proposed standardization of clinician's use of neuropsychological assessment batteries is presented. Each step is examined for statistical sources of invalidity. It was concluded that parts of the procedure are quite vulnerable to between-battery variability that cannot be easily estimated or controlled, leading to significant errors in analysis and classification. A second fatal flaw is the failure to distinguish in the procedures between standard error measurement and standard error of the estimate in calculations in several steps. The purpose of the process remains viable, however, and is an important contribution toward the improvement of clinical diagnosis.

Physical trauma to the brain has always been known to affect brain functions and subsequent neurobiological development. Research primarily since the early 1990s has shown that psychological trauma can have detrimental effects on brain function that are not only lasting but that may alter patterns of subsequent neurodevelopment, particularly in children although developmental effects may be seen in adults as well. Childhood trauma produces a diverse range of symptoms and defining the brain's response to trauma and the factors that mediate the body's stress response systems is at the forefront of scientific investigation. This paper reviews the current evidence relating psychological trauma to anatomical and functional changes in the brain and discusses the need for accurate diagnosis and treatment to minimize such effects and to recognize their existence in developing treatment programs.

The multidimensional nature of the frontal lobes serves to organize and coordinate brain functionings playing a central and pervasive role in human cognition. The executive processes implicated in complex cognition such as novel problem solving, modifying behavior as appropriate in response to changes in the environment, inhibiting prepotent or previous responses, and the implementation of schemas that organize behavior over time are believed to be mediated by the frontal regions of the brain. Overall, the functioning of the frontal lobes assists individuals in goal directed and self-regulatory behavior. Additional theories of frontal lobe functioning have focused on its involvement in temporal, or time-related domains. The organizational and strategic nature of frontal lobe functioning affects memory processes by enhancing the organization of to-be-remembered information. Among the specific memory systems presumed to be based on anterior cerebral structures is the temporal organization of memory. An essential component of memory that involves temporal organization is sequential ordering entailing the ability to judge which stimuli were seen most recently and the temporal ordering of events in memory. Focal lesion studies have demonstrated the importance of the frontal lobes on retrieval tasks in which monitoring, verification, and placement of information in temporal and spatial contexts of critical importance. Similarly, frontal lobe damage has been associated with deficits in memory for the temporal ordering, or sequencing, of events. The acquisition of abilities thought to be mediated by the frontal lobes, including sequential memory, unfolds throughout childhood, serving to condition patterns of behavior for the rest of the brain. Development of the frontal regions of the brain is known to continue through late adolescence and into early adulthood, in contrast to the earlier maturation of other cortical regions. The developmental patterns of the frontal lobes are thought to involve a hierarchical, dynamic, and multistage process.

Gender differences among children and adolescents were examined on 14 separate measures of short-term memory. A nationally stratified sample of 1,279 children and adolescents, 637 males and 642 females, ranging in age between 5 and 19 years, were assessed on the 14 subtests of the Test of Memory and Learning (TOMAL). Factor structure of the TOMAL was determined to be invariant as a function of gender. Using age-corrected deviation scaled scores calculated at 1-year intervals, results of a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed only two significant differences in absolute scores across gender on the 14 memory subtests. A profile of normal variations in patterns of memory test performance across gender revealing relative strengths for females on verbal tasks and males on spatial tasks is presented for clinical use and future normative comparisons.

Profile stability involves the consistency of a set of scores over time. That is, does a profile of scores change on retesting and does this change affect clinical decisions? While psychologists routinely examine the reliability of individual scores, little research has examined the stability of a profile or set of scores. The first study described in this paper examined potential measures of profile stability using a simulation computer program. The results suggest that several measures show promise in this context, particularly Cattell's coefficient of pattern similarity (r(p)), salient variable similarity index (S), and the D(2) coefficient. In the second study, selected measures of profile stability were applied to Wechsler test-retest data. The results suggest that profiles composed of IQ and index scores demonstrate acceptable stability and can be usefully interpreted in clinical and research situations. However, subtest score profiles are inherently less stable and provide little useful clinical information.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES III) was designed to provide national estimates of the health and nutritional status of the United States population aged 2 months and above. A Youth data subset includes individuals from ages 2 months to 16 years totaling 13,944 individuals. Lanphear, Dietrich, Auinger, and Cox [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Reports, Public Health Report 2000, Vol. 115, p. 521] examined these data and concluded that deficits in cognitive and academic skills associated with lead exposure occur at blood lead concentrations of less than 5microg/dl. Attempts to replicate and extend these findings reveal serious shortcomings in the NHANES III data that center around missing data, odd distributions of blood lead levels as well as cognitive and academic scores, and potential inaccuracies in the data collection itself. A review of these issues is presented along with a series of empirical analyses of the data under multiple sets of assumptions leading to the conclusion that the NHANES III data are inherently inadequate for use in addressing neurodevelopmental issues. Policy issues and scientific issues related to cognitive and other neurodevelopmental phenomena should not be considered on the basis of the NHANES III Youth dataset.

Two premorbid IQ estimation procedures were compared in a normal, non-brain-impaired sample and a clinical sample of known brain-impaired individuals. The methods used for comparison were the purely demographically based regression index (DI) developed by and the Oklahoma Premorbid Intelligence Estimate (OPIE) equation by, which uses demographic information combined with current performance tasks. The data for the normal sample were gathered from the WAIS-R standardization sample of 1880 subjects. The clinical sample was 100 patients with known cognitive impairment who had been referred to a private neuropsychology practice. The DI appeared to provide the most clinical utility as an estimate of premorbid IQ in a cognitively impaired sample. Significant differences between the two methods for specific locations of brain injury were not observed.

Ardila (Neuropsychol. Rev. 12: 3, 2002) criticizes the Policy Statement from the Houston Conference on Specialty Education and Training in Clinical Neuropsychology (Hannay et al., Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 13: 157-250, 1998) as possessing deficiencies in the training of clinical neuropsychologists in three fundamental knowledge areas: the history of the discipline, neuropsychological syndromes, and neuropsychological theory. These problems are seen here as a result of a more pervasive problem associated with the Houston Conference training model's emphasis on technical skill over science and the attempt to micromanage the training of the clinical neuropsychologist at the administrative level.

The methods and conclusions of Van den Broeck (in this issue) are evaluated from two perspectives: (a) statistical considerations and (b) theoretical models of IQ and achievement, specifically reading achievement. We consider the statistical model proposed by Van den Broeck for the regression-based discrepancy model (RDM) to be either irrelevant or conceptually inconsistent with current models of IQ and achievement. The resulting simulation produced exemplar cases that are not realistic in terms of practice. The theoretical representations of IQ and achievement were, in our understanding, inconsistent with contemporary models of either. We suggest that acceptable models support the use of the RDM as it has been proposed by us and by others as one component of the determination of the presence or absence of a learning disability.

Attention is a complex process whose disturbance is considered a core deficit in a number of disorders [e.g., Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia]. In 1956, Rosvold and colleagues [J. Consult. Psychol. 20 (1956) 343.] demonstrated that the continuous performance test (CPT) as a measure of sustained attention was highly sensitive to brain damage or dysfunction. These findings have been replicated with various populations and with various versions of the CPT. The CPT is now cited as the most frequently used measure of attention in both practice and research. Across studies, results are consistent with models of sustained attention that involve the interaction of cortical (frontal, temporal, parietal), subcortical (limbic, basal ganglia), and functional systems including the pathways between the basal ganglia, thalamus, and frontal lobes. Right hemisphere involvement (asymmetric response) is also evident across multiple studies. As such, the CPT demonstrates sensitivity to dysfunction of the attentional system whether this is due to diffuse or more focal damage/dysfunction or in conjunction with any specific disorder. CPT performance can be viewed as symptom specific (attentional disturbance), but it is not disorder specific (e.g., ADHD). Implications for neuropsychological interpretation of CPT results are presented.

An increasing number of treatment plans for individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as other disorders, include stimulant medication. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of stimulant medications on attention and impulsivity as measured by continuous performance tests (CPTs). The effect of other stimulants (e.g., caffeine, nicotine) on CPT performance was examined as well. Although various versions of the CPT were used in the studies reviewed, the research supports improvements in CPT performance with stimulant treatment. Implications for the use of CPTs in evaluating the effects of medications on attention are discussed. Also presented are implications for control of common substances like nicotine or caffeine when CPT is used and interpreted as a measure of attention.

Historically, the focus for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been on children, with considerable research and many opinions available in this area. More recently, the focus has been expanded to include ADHD in adults. Assessment of ADHD in adults is complicated by the high rate of co-occurring disorders as well as symptom overlap with a number of disorders. One popular family of measures for the assessment of attention and executive control is the continuous performance test (CPT). A review of the available research on CPTs reveals that they are quite sensitive to CNS dysfunction. This is both a strength and a limitation of CPTs in that multiple disorders can result in impaired performance on a CPT. The high sensitivity of CPTs is further complicated by the multiple variations of CPTs available, some of which may be more sensitive or demonstrate better specificity to ADHD in adults than others. If CPTs are to be used clinically, further research will be needed to answer the questions raised by this review.

Neuropsychologists are asked frequently to address the issue of the cause of a variety of central nervous system problems that may affect higher cortical function. One such issue is the relationship of maternal smoking to adverse reproductive outcomes involving neocortical insult including mental retardation, learning disabilities, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other insults that may be related to prolonged hypoxic states in utero. The instant paper develops the issue of causation as a scientific inquiry, reviews several traditional, applicable models, and critiques these models. An additional model of motility is proposed and discussed. The issue of the relationship of maternal smoking to adverse reproductive outcomes is then addressed from a review perspective along with new empirical analyses, the latter demonstrating that researchers tend to draw causal conclusions independent of whether the respective design of their studies would support conclusions about the causation of an event. Causal conclusions in the absence of causal designs have often lead to incomplete and incorrect conclusions. It is necessary to match conclusions not only to the outcomes of a research project but also to its design and accompanying limitations.

The purpose of the current study was to build on the emerging effort to produce a meaningful typology of child behavior for school-aged children. The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC) Parent Rating Scales for Children (PRS-C) norming data were collected for 2029 6- to 11-year-old children at 116 sites representing various regions of the United States. The PRS-C has 130 items that are rated by the parent on a 4-point scale of frequency, ranging from "never" to "almost always". The Ward method of cluster analysis was used to identify the initial centroids or cluster seeds in this norming sample. An iterative clustering method, a K-means procedure, was used to refine the Ward cluster solution. A nine-cluster solution was selected based on both rational and empirical considerations. The resulting clusters were labeled adapted, physical complaints/worry, average, well-adapted, minimal problems, attention problems, internalizing, general psychopathology-severe, and disruptive behavior problems. The nine-cluster solution is similar to those of Achenbach (1991), Thompson, Kronenberger, and Curry (1989), and other researchers. At the same time, some significant differences exist. The resulting typology points the way toward future cluster studies of child psychopathology and normal behavioral development by delineating additional research and theoretical directions.

Error patterns have been found to be sensitive to cognitive status, but the relationship between aging and error patterns remains unclear, and may differ as a function of gender, education, and whether a task is verbal or nonverbal. The present study examined the error patterns of normal elderly individuals on a verbal measure of set-shifting and rule induction to determine whether demographic variables, that is, age, gender, and education, influenced test performance. The sample of 109 individuals, 38 males and 71 females, ranging in age from 54 to 89 years with 6 to 19 years of education, was assessed on the Classification subtest of the Test of Verbal Conceptualization and Fluency, a verbal measure of set-shifting and rule induction. Subjects' protocols were scored for perseverative, nonperseverative, and random errors, tabulated, and analyzed. Multivariate analysis of covariance with education as the covariate as well as other statistical tests revealed nonsignificant relationships between error scores and age, gender, and education. Years of education, however, showed a significant correlation with a reduction in random responses. Results are interpreted based on Horn's (1978) fluid-crystallized explanations of changes in intelligence with advancing age.

Extensive clinical, psychometric, and neuroimaging data are presented and interpreted with regard to a 35-year-old, White male college graduate who was exposed to severe carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. The patient was comatose for 21 days following the exposure. Several other people, who were in the same room as the patient, died due to the toxic effects of the CO. The patient was employed premorbidly as a systems level lead computer programmer. The patient received medical and neuropsychological follow-up for 3 years post-CO exposure. Neuropsychological evaluations revealed a gradual, but incomplete recovery of general intellectual function. The patient continued to exhibit severe memory deficits with some evidence for small additional memory decline over time. Characteristic and permanent vestibular and gait disturbances were also noted, along with a variety of neuropsychological deficits that improved over time with the exception of memory function. The patient also experienced significant affective and personality changes. Neuroimaging studies reveal a generalized cortical atrophy as shown by significantly enlarged ventricles and a ventricle-to-brain ratio that exceeded 4 standard deviations above the norm. The observed atrophic changes are consistent with CO-induced anoxic type injury, which was also accompanied by bilateral lesions of the globus pallidus, caudate, and hippocampus. Despite obtaining average levels of general intellectual functioning over time, significant memory impairments, depression, and personality disturbances severely impaired the patients' vocational recovery and ability to return to work.

Using 2 separate large samples of children (N1 = 957 and N2 = 3,885) and 1 smaller sample of adolescents and adults (N3 = 416), 3 studies of item selection for measurement of anxiety were conducted to determine if item selection differed across gender when traditional psychometric methods were applied. Applying a common set of item selection rules for males and for females, the same items were selected for inclusion on various measures of anxiety with differing item-response formats with comparable internal consistency reliability obtained using separate gender and combined gender samples. Standard psychometric methods indicate anxiety is measured in males and females about equally well and by essentially the same items.

The estimation of premorbid ability levels has been debated for some time. Some of the difficult issues involved are reviewed here and comments provided on certain approaches, some of which tend to be popular for reasons of convenience and false beliefs of their accuracy, and some that are less well-known. Demographic estimation procedures in particular tend to fare better than believed in some research. An additional approach is recommended for further research, one that is equally applicable to children and adults, and that takes maximum advantage of the known relationships among IQ and genetic and environmental variance in intellectual development.

Our knowledge of the human brain has increased more during the past 40 years than at any other time in history. Of particular interest have been the findings of a correspondence between cognitive functions and individual structures of the brain. Similar from a gross anatomical point of view, the hemispheres of the brain have been shown to serve specialized cognitive functions. This work offers an overview of the cognitive aspects of cerebral lateralization as a context for considering this issue, followed by a review of specific self-report techniques in the appraisal of lateral preference.

The 1956 adaptation for children of Taylor's Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, was revised to meet current psychometric standards. A 73-item revision draft was administered to 329 school children from grades 1 to 12. Based on item-analysis criteria for rbis > or = .4 and .30 < or = p < or = .70, 28 anxiety items were retained along with 9 of the original 11 Lie scale items. A cross-validation sample of 167 children from grades 2, 5, 9, 10, and 11 produced a KR20 reliability estimate of .85. Anxiety scores did not differ across grade or race. Females scored significantly higher than males. For the Lie scale, significant differences appeared by grade and race. No sex differences were obtained on the Lie scale. The resulting scale appears useful for children in grades 1 to 12 and may aid in future studies of anxiety as well as assisting the clinician in the understanding of individual children.

Racial differences on mental test scores are some of the most well-documented findings in the study of individual differences, yet only in the past 10 years have neuropsychologists undertaken serious examination of ethnic and related demographic concomitants of neuropsychological test performance. The present study examined performance differences for blacks and whites on 14 separate measures of short-term memory. Using a nationally stratified (gender, race, age, SES, region, and community size) population proportionate sampling plan, 168 black and 983 white children and adolescents (ages 5 years to 19 years) were tested. Age corrected deviation scaled scores (mean of 10 and SD of 3) were calculated at 1 year intervals using the method of rolling weighted averages. In sharp contrast to typical findings with intellectual and most other aptitude measures, only one significant difference occurred across race on any of the 14 measures of memory.

The practice of combining forward and backward memory span, as represented so prominently on the various Wechsler Scales, to arrive at a composite score for clinical interpretation is examined historically and actuarially using a large (N = 1,342) nationally stratified random sample of children from ages 5 years through 19 years. Past literature does not support the additive nature of forward and backward memory span as elements of a common process. Factor analyses of forward and backward recall using both digits and letters indicate that the two memory processes are distinct as well and should not be combined for clinical interpretation.

Many devices are used in child assessment and treatment as communication aids, projective tools, and symbolic means of interaction. None are as hotly debated in their application among mental health professionals as dolls with genital details. Anatomically detailed (AD) dolls are often used in sexual-abuse evaluation and treatment with children, but such applications are controversial. This article is the product of a working group formed to review AD doll research and practice. This article reviews historical use of dolls in clinical inquiry and research on sexual behaviors in children, normative use of AD dolls in nonreferred children, differences in children's play behavior and emotional reactions to AD dolls, and memory and suggestibility issues relating to AD-doll use. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Following a brief history of Digit Span, a review of 27 articles, selected from 76, addresses the question of whether to scale Digits Forward and Backward separately. The review begins with studies involving Digits Forward, followed in turn by studies of Digits Backward and of both subtests. Finally, the loadings of four TOMAL subtests, Digits Forward and Backward and Letters Forward and Backward, undergo examination in the context of two, three, and four factor promax solutions, with corresponding varimax solutions provided for comparison. The analysis leads to several conclusions. Though Digits Forward and Backward show similarities, they load differently in the three and four factor solutions; Digits Backward also displays a spatial element, and perhaps a transformative element, not apparent in Digits Forward. Moreover, the differences between the two measures have important neurologic and diagnostic implications.

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) was factor analyzed at ages 6 12 through 16 12 years of age (n = 200 per age group). The study replicated analyses conducted by Kaufman (1975) with the WISC-R using comparable subtests across the two scales. As in the WISC-R study, a three-factor structure emerged as consistent across the age range of the WISC-III: Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Organization, and Freedom from Distractibility. The results of the study are discussed in terms of their clinical utility with useful statistics for the interpretation of the WISC-III presented.

Gender comparisons on the WAIS-R were made for 1,480 adults from the standardization sample, ages 20-74 years, to determine whether men and women differ in their age-related patterns of change on tests of fluid and crystallized abilities. Multivariate analyses of covariance and univariate analyses of covariance were conducted, covarying education, to examine the age + gender interactions. These interactions tended to be nonsignificant and trivial for the WAIS-R Verbal and Performance scales and the 11 subtests, which suggests that both men and women maintain their crystallized abilities through old age, but show early, rapid declines in fluid ability. These results were interpreted in terms of the literature on aging and intelligence, gender differences in cognitive abilities, and gender differences in V-P patterns for patients with unilateral brain damage.

Factor analyses of WAIS-R standardization data for samples grouped by sex and race (Black-White) produced congruent factors for the various samples and offered good support for Wechsler's two-scale division of the subtests. The factor structures for males and females produced some interesting differences across the age range that were related to sex-related findings in studies of patients with unilateral brain damage. Additionally, Black males and Black females seemed to use different strategies for solving Wechsler's verbal and nonverbal subtests.

The use of cocaine and its smoked derivative, crack, is increasing in America. Among those affected are neonates of women who use cocaine during pregnancy. This paper examines the potential effects of maternal cocaine use upon the developing fetus emphasizing neuropsychological and behavioral effects including those that typically persist into early childhood and beyond. Empirical research should continue to explore the effects of maternal cocaine use focusing on whether or not the many detrimental effects of cocaine use during pregnancy are transient, directly teratogenic, or indirect and due to prolonged hypoxia.

This study investigated Inglis and Lawson's (1982) hypothesis that sex differences in research on unilateral brain damage is a function of the way females solve nonverbal problems. They argued that females, to a greater extent than males, use verbal strategies when solving Wechsler's Performance subtests. From this hypothesis, it follows that Verbal and Performance IQs should correlate significantly higher for females than for males. This possibility was explored using standardization data from the WAIS-R for ages 16-74. No sex differences in the correlations were noted, arguing against the Inglis-Lawson hypothesis.

The relationship between latency to first response and lateral eye movements was investigated for 52 preschool and primary grade children. Latency to respond correlated significantly with number of eye movements observed for each child. Significantly greater latency occurred for spatial questions than for verbal reasoning questions. Methodological and theoretical implications of latency to first response in relation to the study of conjugate lateral eye movements are briefly described.