Memory in autism spectrum disorder: a meta-analysis of experimental studies

To address inconsistencies in the literature on memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), we report the first ever meta-analysis of short-term (STM) and episodic long-term (LTM) memory in ASD, evaluating the effects of type of material, type of retrieval and the role of inter-item relations. Analysis of 64 studies comparing individuals with ASD and typical development (TD) showed greater difficulties in ASD compared to TD individuals in STM (Hedges’ g=-0.53 [95%CI -0.90; -0.16], p=.005, I²=96%) compared to LTM (g=-0.30 [95%CI -0.42; -0.17], p<.00001, I²=24%), a small difficulty in verbal LTM (g=-0.21, p=.01), contrasting with a medium difficulty for visual LTM (g= -0.41, p=.0002) in ASD compared to TD individuals. We also found a general diminution in free recall compared to cued recall and recognition (LTM, free recall: g=-0.38, p<.00001, cued recall: g=-0.08, p=.58, recognition: g=-0.15, p=.16; STM, free recall: g=-0.59, p=.004, recognition: g=-0.33, p=.07). We discuss these results in terms of their relation to semantic memory. The limited diminution in verbal LTM and preserved overall recognition and cued recall (supported retrieval) may result from a greater overlap of these tasks with semantic long-term representations which are overall preserved in ASD. By contrast, difficulties in STM or free recall may result from less overlap with the semantic system or may involve additional cognitive operations and executive demands. These findings highlight the need to support STM functioning in ASD and acknowledge the potential benefit of using verbal materials at encoding and broader forms of memory support at retrieval to enhance performance

Examination of a Parent-Assisted, Friendship-Building Program for Adolescents with ADHD

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder that often contributes to impairment in multiple domains, including peer functioning. Specifically, youth with ADHD tend to have fewer friends and lower quality friendships, experience greater peer victimization, and engage in more inappropriate social behaviors than typically developing peers. Researchers have highlighted the need for long-term interventions that directly address peer difficulties, emphasize dyadic friendship-building, and include a parent component. Thus, the current pilot study will examine the effectiveness of PEERS, a parent-assisted, friendship-building program, at establishing mutual friendships and improving current peer relationships in adolescents with ADHD. Participants in the study included 20 adolescents with ADHD (ages 11-16) and their parents. At baseline, adolescents completed measures related to friendship quality, social knowledge, social self-efficacy, get-togethers, and peer conflict. They also participated in a brief observation task as a measure of social interaction behavior. Parents completed measures related to get-togethers and peer conflict. All families completed the Program for the Evaluation and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS), a 14-week intervention. Following the intervention, families completed post-treatment measures and responded to a question regarding the initiation of a new friendship. Analyses were conducted using a series of paired-samples t-tests examining differences from baseline to post-treatment. Results indicated that the majority of parents and adolescents reported the initiation of a new friendship over the course of treatment. Additionally, there was a significant improvement in adolescent social knowledge and a significant increase in hosted get-togethers. Effect sizes for these variables were large. While the remaining variables demonstrated changes in the expected direction, none of the analyses were significant. Effect sizes ranged from small to moderate. The current pilot study demonstrated that, following participation in PEERS, adolescents demonstrated improvement in several peer functioning variables. While some analyses were not significant, moderate to large effect sizes were established for some variables, indicating that small sample size may have contributed to non-significant results. A larger sample will allow for better understanding of the effectiveness of PEERS for youth with ADHD and may highlight components of the program that require modification in order to better target the ADHD population

Freedom from control

This thesis examines my directing and leaderships tactics during my time as an MFA in Directing candidate at the University of Texas at Austin and while leading three productions: The Bigot (William Glick), Dry Land (Ruby Rae Spiegel) and ENRON (Lucy Prebble). I will chart my evolving leadership practices and discuss how tactics that fit the masculine/feminine, powerful/powerless and control/freedom binaries are from a dated and male-coded hierarchical directing practice. This document envisions a new way of directing that moves from power to authentic authority and from being in control to being in charge.Theatre and Danc

Spartan Daily, April 23, 1968

Volume 55, Issue 109https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5054/thumbnail.jp

Attentional demand influences strategies for encoding into visual working memory

Visual selective attention and visual working memory (WM) share the same capacity-limited resources. We investigated whether and how participants can cope with a task in which these 2 mechanisms interfere. The task required participants to scan an array of 9 objects in order to select the target locations and to encode the items presented at these locations into WM (1 to 5 shapes). Determination of the target locations required either few attentional resources (“popout condition”) or an attention-demanding serial search (“non pop-out condition”). Participants were able to achieve high memory performance in all stimulation conditions but, in the non popout conditions, this came at the cost of additional processing time. Both empirical evidence and subjective reports suggest that participants invested the additional time in memorizing the locations of all target objects prior to the encoding of their shapes into WM. Thus, they seemed to be unable to interleave the steps of search with those of encoding. We propose that the memory for target locations substitutes for perceptual pop-out and thus may be the key component that allows for flexible coping with the common processing limitations of visual WM and attention. The findings have implications for understanding how we cope with real-life situations in which the demands on visual attention and WM occur simultaneously. Keywords: attention, working memory, interference, encoding strategie

Verbal Learning and Memory After Cochlear Implantation in Postlingually Deaf Adults: Some New Findings with the CVLT-II

OBJECTIVES: Despite the importance of verbal learning and memory in speech and language processing, this domain of cognitive functioning has been virtually ignored in clinical studies of hearing loss and cochlear implants in both adults and children. In this article, we report the results of two studies that used a newly developed visually based version of the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition (CVLT-II), a well-known normed neuropsychological measure of verbal learning and memory. DESIGN: The first study established the validity and feasibility of a computer-controlled visual version of the CVLT-II, which eliminates the effects of audibility of spoken stimuli, in groups of young normal-hearing and older normal-hearing (ONH) adults. A second study was then carried out using the visual CVLT-II format with a group of older postlingually deaf experienced cochlear implant (ECI) users (N = 25) and a group of ONH controls (N = 25) who were matched to ECI users for age, socioeconomic status, and nonverbal IQ. In addition to the visual CVLT-II, subjects provided data on demographics, hearing history, nonverbal IQ, reading fluency, vocabulary, and short-term memory span for visually presented digits. ECI participants were also tested for speech recognition in quiet. RESULTS: The ECI and ONH groups did not differ on most measures of verbal learning and memory obtained with the visual CVLT-II, but deficits were identified in ECI participants that were related to recency recall, the buildup of proactive interference, and retrieval-induced forgetting. Within the ECI group, nonverbal fluid IQ, reading fluency, and resistance to the buildup of proactive interference from the CVLT-II consistently predicted better speech recognition outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Results from this study suggest that several underlying foundational neurocognitive abilities are related to core speech perception outcomes after implantation in older adults. Implications of these findings for explaining individual differences and variability and predicting speech recognition outcomes after implantation are discussed