Memory consolidation in developmental disorders

The relationship between memory and adaptive functioning was studied in sample of 268 children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD, n = 83), autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 62), velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS, n = 21), and low birth weight (LBW, n = 38) and neurotypicals (n = 64). Children with ASD and VCFS demonstrated a relative weakness in facial and visual memory, while no between-group differences were found during the auditory verbal learning task of the TOMAL. Learning curve analyses showed that after the first trial of the visual span test, all groups performed at the same level, but the performance of the clinical samples dropped after each subsequent trials. However, during the delayed recall, no between-group differences were evident. On the word memory test, the groups were significantly different after the first trial, but during delayed recall their performance converged. When memory functioning was used to predict academic achievement, TOMAL scores explained 37% of the variance in math scores, 22% in reading, and 13% in spelling scores. The same models did not predict social skills as measured by the CBCL. When age, gender, and FSIQ were added to memory scores to the regression model, the adjusted R2 value doubled for achievement scores, with IQ clearly driving the age effect. However, IQ was not a significant predictor of social skills. With that criterion, age became the only significant predictor, explaining 39% of the variance. The clinical implications of the findings on diagnostic (nonverbal memory and math seem to be a relative weakness in neurodevelopmental disorders; repeated learning trials may be needed to allow diagnosis-specific deficits to emerge; cognitive variables predict academic, but not social functioning; consolidation could be treated as a separate, emergent variable and normed separately to enhance its diagnostic utility) and treatment (visual cuing may be less effective in ASD and especially VCFS than a verbally mediated one) considerations are discussed

Neural Synchrony Examined with Magnetoencephalography (MEG) During Eye Gaze Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Preliminary Findings

Gaze processing deficits are a seminal, early, and enduring behavioral deficit in autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, a comprehensive characterization of the neural processes mediating abnormal gaze processing in ASD has yet to be conducted. This study investigated whole-brain patterns of neural synchrony during passive viewing of direct and averted eye gaze in ASD adolescents and young adults (M Age  = 16.6) compared to neurotypicals (NT) (MAge  = 17.5) while undergoing magnetoencephalography. Coherence between each pair of 54 brain regions within each of three frequency bands (low frequency (0 to 15 Hz), beta (15 to 30 Hz), and low gamma (30 to 45 Hz)) was calculated

Neural Synchrony Examined with Magnetoencephalography (MEG) During Eye Gaze Processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Preliminary Findings

Gaze processing deficits are a seminal, early, and enduring behavioral deficit in autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, a comprehensive characterization of the neural processes mediating abnormal gaze processing in ASD has yet to be conducted. This study investigated whole-brain patterns of neural synchrony during passive viewing of direct and averted eye gaze in ASD adolescents and young adults (M Age  = 16.6) compared to neurotypicals (NT) (MAge  = 17.5) while undergoing magnetoencephalography. Coherence between each pair of 54 brain regions within each of three frequency bands (low frequency (0 to 15 Hz), beta (15 to 30 Hz), and low gamma (30 to 45 Hz)) was calculated

The Importance of Relying on the Manual: Scoring Error Variance in the WISC-IV Vocabulary Subtest

Classical test theory assumes that ability level has no effect on measurement error. Newer test theories, however, argue that the precision of a measurement instrument changes as a function of the examinee’s true score. Research has shown that administration errors are common in the Wechsler scales and that subtests requiring subjective scoring are the most prone to errors. In this study, graduate students scored fictitious Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children— Fourth Edition Vocabulary subtests that were constructed to yield actual scaled scores of 4, 10 and 16. Results support the conditional error variance hypothesis: Participants made significantly more scoring errors in the low and high ability conditions than they did in the average ability condition. Implications of these findings with regard to the interpretation of extreme scores are discussed

The Inventory of Problems–29 Is a Cross-Culturally Valid Symptom Validity Test: Initial Validation in a Turkish Community Sample

The present study has several objectives, the most important of which is to adapt the IOP-29 to the Turkish language and validate it cross-culturally in a Turkish community sample from Turkey. In addition, we want to test the sensitivity of the Turkish IOP-29 to different dimensions of feigned presentations: depression, PTSD, and schizophrenia. Finally, we want to assess the utility of the Random Responding Scale (RRS; Giromini, Viglione, et al., 2020b) in distinguishing response style: feigning from random responding. Specifically, the RRS was developed as an index independent of the FDS to detect careless, uncooperative, and/or inattentive responding and to distinguish these response patterns on the IOP-29 from negative response bias (i.e., FDS of IOP-29; Giromini, Viglione, et al., 2020a, 2020b; Winters et al., 2020). Indeed, the literature has shown that content-unrelated distortions (CUD; Nichols et al., 1989), such as random responding, can result in scores indicating overreporting and confound the classification accuracy of SVTs (see Burchett et al., 2016; Merckelbach et al., 2019). Therefore, consistent with the recommendations of Giromini and Viglione (2022), we also want to assess the effectiveness of RRS in a different cultural context using a non-English IOP-29. We hypothesize that there will be no significant difference in the FDS scores of participants in the feigning conditions, and that the FDS scores of honest responders will be significantly lower than those of participants in the feigning conditions. In addition, we speculate that the FDS scores of the random responder condition will be approximately midway between those of the honest responders and the feigning conditions, but more lenient toward those of the feigning conditions, as found in previous studies (Giromini et al., 2020; Winters et al., 2020)

Prevalence of Invalid Performance on Baseline Testing for Sport-Related Concussion by Age and Validity Indicator

Importance: Estimated base rates of invalid performance on baseline testing (base rates of failure) for the management of sport-related concussion range from 6.1% to 40.0%, depending on the validity indicator used. The instability of this key measure represents a challenge in the clinical interpretation of test results that could undermine the utility of baseline testing. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of invalid performance on baseline testing and to assess whether the prevalence varies as a function of age and validity indicator. Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective, cross-sectional study included data collected between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2016, from a clinical referral center in the Midwestern United States. Participants included 7897 consecutively tested, equivalently proportioned male and female athletes aged 10 to 21 years, who completed baseline neurocognitive testing for the purpose of concussion management. Interventions: Baseline assessment was conducted with the Immediate Postconcussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT), a computerized neurocognitive test designed for assessment of concussion. Main Outcomes and Measures: Base rates of failure on published ImPACT validity indicators were compared within and across age groups. Hypotheses were developed after data collection but prior to analyses. Results: Of the 7897 study participants, 4086 (51.7%) were male, mean (SD) age was 14.71 (1.78) years, 7820 (99.0%) were primarily English speaking, and the mean (SD) educational level was 8.79 (1.68) years. The base rate of failure ranged from 6.4% to 47.6% across individual indicators. Most of the sample (55.7%) failed at least 1 of 4 validity indicators. The base rate of failure varied considerably across age groups (117 of 140 [83.6%] for those aged 10 years to 14 of 48 [29.2%] for those aged 21 years), representing a risk ratio of 2.86 (95% CI, 2.60-3.16; P \u3c .001). Conclusions and Relevance: The results for base rate of failure were surprisingly high overall and varied widely depending on the specific validity indicator and the age of the examinee. The strong age association, with 3 of 4 participants aged 10 to 12 years failing validity indicators, suggests that the clinical interpretation and utility of baseline testing in this age group is questionable. These findings underscore the need for close scrutiny of performance validity indicators on baseline testing across age groups

Settling the Score: Can CPT-3 Embedded Validity Indicators Distinguish Between Credible and Non-Credible Responders Referred for ADHD and/or SLD?

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the present study was to further investigate the clinical utility of individual and composite indicators within the CPT-3 as embedded validity indicators (EVIs) given the discrepant findings of previous investigations. METHODS: A total of 201 adults undergoing psychoeducational evaluation for ADHD and/or Specific Learning Disorder (SLD) were divided into credible ( = 159) and non-credible ( = 42) groups based on five criterion measures. RESULTS: Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) revealed that 5/9 individual indicators and 2/4 composite indicators met minimally acceptable classification accuracy of ≥0.70 (AUC = 0.43-0.78). Individual (0.16-0.45) and composite indicators (0.23-0.35) demonstrated low sensitivity when using cutoffs that maintained specificity ≥90%. CONCLUSION: Given the lack of stability across studies, further research is needed before recommending any specific cutoff be used in clinical practice with individuals seeking psychoeducational assessment