Comparative analysis of attentional deficits in hyperactive and learning-disabled children.

Compared 14 boys (aged 7–9 yrs) with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH), 12 with learning disability (LD), 12 with ADDH-LD, and 13 normal boys on measures of sustained attention, selective attention, and span of apprehension. Unique patterns of attentional deficits were associated with each of the diagnostic groups. The ADDH Ss with and without learning disabilities exhibited sustained attention deficits. The LD Ss evidenced selective attention deficits on a speeded classification task. The LD and ADDH-LD Ss evidenced recall difficulties on a paired-associate task, regardless of distractor presence. The 3 clinical groups performed more poorly than did the normal group on the span of apprehension measure. Although attentional deficits were most pervasive in the ADDH-LD group, multivariate composites of attentional variables were sensitive to the ADDH and LD dimensions. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences and patterns of sex-role conflict among alcoholics.

Examined sex-role conflict in 17 hospitalized alcoholic males and 17 hospitalized alcoholic females. The 14 younger Ss were 18–30 yrs old, and the 20 older Ss were 35–61 yrs old; Ss were administered the Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Results indicate that all Ss wanted to be higher on masculinity and that older females saw themselves as significantly lower than average on masculinity. Older Ss tended to be higher on femininity than younger Ss. Findings are discussed in terms of the changing aspects of sex-role socialization. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential memory changes with age: Exact retrieval versus plausible inference.

Conducted 2 experiments on the use of direct retrieval and plausibility memory strategies in elderly and college-age adults. In Exp I, which used an episodic memory task, data were obtained from 49 65–80 yr old college alumni and from 58 college students who had served in a previous study by the 1st author (see record 1983-02731-001). Findings indicate that older Ss effectively used the plausibility strategy but performed more poorly than younger Ss when the direct retrieval strategy was required. Results of Exp II, using 18 college alumni (8 Ss aged 20–31 yrs, 10 Ss aged 64–75 yrs) with a semantic memory task, show that older Ss' accuracy was essentially undistinguishable from that of younger Ss as long as a plausibility judgment process produced the correct response. It is argued that careful inspection is a much more costly process for older adults than it is for young adults but that plausibility judgments and feature overlap processes are equally easy for both age groups. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual abstraction processes in young and old adults.

Three experiments with young adults (18–20 yrs) and old adults (64–77 yrs) examined the conceptual skills of the 2 age groups. Using the visual abstraction procedure of J. J. Franks and J. D. Bransford (see record 1972-02149-001) allowed the study of concept abstraction independent of problem-solving skills. In Exps I (16 Ss in each age group) and II (12 Ss each), young and old Ss did not differ in their ability to abstract central tendency information from a class of nonmeaningful stimuli. Both groups classified novel stimuli in terms of transformational distance from a central representation (or prototype) of these patterns. Both groups also abstracted information regarding relations into which attributes could enter, and discriminated between test patterns reflecting acceptable and unacceptable transformations. It is suggested that visual abstraction performance may reflect the encoding of frequency information, which is presumed to be an automatic process founded on innate structures and which remains stable with age. Exp III (14 Ss in each age group) found that older Ss experienced greater interference in acquisition when the new concept was based on a reorganization of attributes associated with an established conceptual structure. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A bimodal preventive intervention for disruptive kindergarten boys: Its impact through mid-adolescence.

Disruptive kindergarten boys from inner-city low socioeconomic neighborhood schools were randomly allocated to a preventive intervention and control condition. The 2-year prevention program included a home-based parent training component and a school-based social skills training component. Ss were followed up to mid-adolescence. Results indicated that a significantly greater percentage of treated Ss remained in an age-appropriate regular classroom up to the end of elementary school and that the treated Ss reported significantly less delinquent behaviors at yearly assessments from 10–25 yrs old, compared with controls. The preventive intervention appeared to have a significant long-term impact on the social development of the Ss. Earlier and more intensive intervention may be necessary for some cases, whereas for all Ss, booster sessions between 12 and 15 years of age are recommended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age effects on block design: Qualitative performance features and extended-time effects.

Qualitative performance features and extended-time effects on the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS—R) were examined in 145 healthy Ss (aged 50–95 yrs). Raw scores were calculated at standard and extended time limits; error types and starting points were recorded for a subgroup of Ss. In Ss age 60 yrs and older, there was a consistent decline with age in overall scores at both time limits. Extra time allotments resulted in modest but significant increases in scores. Older and younger Ss benefited equally from the extra time, indicating that the age-related decline on this task cannot be accounted for by general age-related psychomotor slowing. Single- and multiblock rotation errors were relatively common, whereas stimulus boundedness and broken configurations were rare. Despite some potential limitations in generalizability, the results suggest that the incorporation of qualitative scoring procedures in the assessment of visuoconstructional skills may enhance understanding of normal and abnormal brain–behavior relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of directed attention on cerebral asymmetries in normal and learning-disabled children.

Using a dichotic listening task employing both undirected and directed attention conditions, cerebral asymmetries were examined in matched populations of 32 normal and 32 learning-disabled (LD) children (ages 7 yrs 6 mo–13 yrs 2 mo). The analysis of recall performance indicated that development was not a significant factor in either group; both the normal and LD Ss showed a right-ear effect, although the LD Ss performed at a degraded level and were unable to demonstrate a right-ear advantage (REA) when attention was directed to the left ear, unlike normal Ss, who produced the REA despite the directed attention conditions. Results suggest that LD children probably do not suffer from developmental delays but rather from a defect in callosal functioning that interferes with their ability to process verbal information simultaneously. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and illusory correlation in judgments of co-occurrence.

Examined the influence of aging on illusory correlation in judgments of co-occurrence. Ten older (aged 60–76 yrs) and 10 younger (aged 17–29 yrs) Ss judged the probability of co-occurrence for events associated with preexisting expectancies after receiving nonsalient or salient information about the true probabilities of co-occurrence of the events. Results showed that when current information on event co-occurrence was not salient, preexisting expectancies strongly influenced the judgments of both younger and older Ss. However, when this information was salient, younger Ss' judgments reflected more accurate adjustment to the probabilistic relationships in the information than did older Ss' judgments. This age difference may be related to changes in memory processes that accompany increasing age and to differences in judgment processes necessitated by these changes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognition memory development in two- to four-year-olds.

Tested 32 preschool children on 2 36-item recognition lists. 8 boys and 8 girls were in each of 2 age groups; mean ages of the 2 groups were 4 yrs and 2 yrs 11 mo. No sex differences were observed. The younger Ss responded correctly 81% of the time, and the older Ss 92% of the time. A signal detection analysis revealed that this developmental difference was due to retention components, not decision components. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fantasy play of toddlers and preschoolers.

Reality play (RP), object and person fantasy play (OFP and PFP), and announced FP were observed during the free play of 49 Ss (aged 1.6–5.5 yrs). Comparisons were made across 3 age groups, and a subsample of 18 Ss was observed again 1 yr later to determine age differences and the developmental course of these types of play. A developmental progression emerged in both cross-sectional and longitudinal data; younger Ss engaged in RP and older Ss in PFP a greater proportion of time. OFP peaked at an earlier stage than PFP and declined in the older age group. Announced FP increased, as did verbal interactions, from the early to middle stage and showed no change from the middle to older age group. Although the age curves are linear for some and curvilinear for other types of R–FP, a general developmental progression emerged from RP to OF to PF and announced FP. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of brain injury and age on prospective memory self-rating and performance.

Assessed internal consistency and test–retest reliability of the Prospective Memory Questionnaire (PMQ) developed by R. Hannon et al (1990). PMQ self-ratings of 15 college students (mean age 31.8 yrs) with brain injury were compared with 114 younger and 27 older noninjured adults (mean ages 28.4 and 73.4 yrs, respectively). Internal consistency of the PMQ was .92, and test–retest reliability was .88. Groups differed significantly on only one PMQ subscale. Actual prospective memory performance was significantly worse for Ss with brain injury and older Ss than for younger Ss on 2 of the 3 sets of summary measures. PMQ self-ratings were significantly but weakly correlated with short-term task performance, but not with long-term task performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Problem-solving strategies in learning disabled and normal boys: Developmental and instructional effects.

A developmentally sensitive problem-solving task, the 20-Questions Game, was utilized in this study to examine development- and treatment-related variables among 48 learning disabled and 48 normal boys of two age levels (8–10 years old and 11–23 years old). Subjects performed on three different versions of the experimental task before, immediately after, and two weeks after receiving one of two treatment packages, which differed in their emphasis on task-specific and metacognitive strategies. Results indicated that both younger boys and learning disabled boys demonstrated less efficient problem-solving skills than their older and normally achieving peers. In all subject groups, boys' ability to make use of specific problem-solving skills was highly influenced by variations in stimulus characteristics. Brief training was effective in improving the performance of all subject groups on trained and untrained materials at posttest and follow-up trials. However, expected differences in effectiveness between treatment packages were not realized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term memory processes in children with reading and arithmetic learning disabilities.

Examined the role of phonemic coding in short-term memory in 45 children with a reading disability, 38 children with a specific arithmetic disability, and 89 normal children, as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test. Ss, aged 7–13 yrs, were administered a series of tasks that involved the visual or auditory presentation of rhyming and nonrhyming letters and either an oral or a written response. Younger Ss (7–8 yrs) with a reading disability did not show any difference between the recall of nonrhyming and rhyming letters, whereas normal Ss of the same age did. Older reading-disabled Ss (aged 9–23 yrs), like their normal counterparts, had significantly poorer recall of rhyming as opposed to nonrhyming letters. However, their overall levels of performance were significantly lower than normals. The same pattern was found with Ss with arithmetic disabilities for the visual presentation of stimuli. For the auditory presentation of stimuli, the performance of Ss with arithmetic disabilities resembled that of normals, except at the youngest ages. Whereas a deficiency in phonological coding may characterize younger children with learning disabilities, older children with learning disabilities appear to use a phonemic code but have a more general deficit in short-term memory. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect and age: Cross-sectional comparisons of structure and prevalence.

The self-reports of 207 young-adult (aged 18–30 yrs), 231 middle-aged (aged 31–59 yrs), and 828 older-adult (aged 60 yrs and over) Ss were used to study the structure of affect. Affects were represented by terms included in various circumplex arrays of emotions as presented by previous investigators. A set of 46 affects was subjected to exploratory analysis, and a final set of 38 affects was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. The goodness of fit of each group's factor loadings to the hypothesized factors of positive affect, depression, anxiety–guilt, contentment, hostility, and shyness was not up to the desired .90 level, and some significant differences in factor structure were observed for each age-group comparison. There were few age differences in levels of positive affect. Depression was most frequent among younger Ss and least frequent among older Ss. Younger Ss were most often anxious and shy. Older Ss were most often content and least often hostile. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlates of preschool girls' feminine and masculine toy preferences.

Observed 47 preschool girls (2.5–4 yrs old) in social interaction with boys and girls. For young Ss, feminine toy preference was positively related to interaction with girls, whereas masculine toy choice was positively associated with interaction with boys. For older girls, feminine toy choice was positively related to interaction with girls. Large, older girls tended to play with masculine toys. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual discrimination and reversal learning in the aged monkey (Macaca mulatta).

Visual discrimination and reversal learning were assessed in young adult (10–12 yrs old, n?=?4) and aged (23–27 yrs old, n?=?5) female rhesus monkeys. Performance was comparable across age groups in many tasks, suggesting that the acquisition of stimulus–reward associations remains largely intact in the aged monkey. Most older Ss, however, required more training than any young animal to learn an initial pattern discrimination. In combination with previous findings (P. R. Rapp and D. G. Amaral; 1989) from the same groups of monkeys, these data suggest that deficits in attending to the relevant stimulus features in novel testing procedures may contribute to poor performance in aged Ss across a variety of learning and memory tasks. In addition, preliminary findings from a discrimination probe procedure raise the possibility that aged Ss may adopt alternate testing strategies that compensate for some aspects of age-dependent cognitive dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal and cross-sectional age effects in nonverbal decoding skill and style.

Administered a videotaped nonverbal discrepancy test to children 9–15 yrs old. The test measured (a) decoding accuracy—the extent to which Ss were able to identify affects (positivity and dominance) from video (facial and body) cues and audio (content filtered and random spliced) cues; (b) discrepancy accuracy—the extent to which Ss recognized the degree of discrepancy between audio and video cues; and (c) video primacy—the extent to which Ss were more influenced by video than by audio cues. Older Ss benefited more than younger ones from the effects of retesting in their accuracy at decoding discrepant cues, especially for discrepant facial cues. All Ss showed significantly less video primacy after retesting, and older Ss displayed a trend for less body primacy after retesting. Older Ss showed less video primacy than younger ones in decoding extremely discrepant (as compared to slightly discrepant) audio and video nonverbal cues. Thus, although older children performed better than younger children at most nonverbal decoding tasks, the advantages of age were especially great for the decoding of the more discrepant channels. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interference effects in autistic children: Evidence for the comprehension of single stimuli.

Three versions of the Stroop Color–Word Test were used to investigate whether autistic children appreciate the meaning of individual items. Incongruity in color–form, color–word, and circle–number tests produced as much interference in 12 autistic boys as in 12 normal boys (8.7–16.4 yrs old). Findings suggest that at least some autistic Ss were capable of processing the semantic aspect of a number of stimuli. They understood simple pictorial forms, color words, and numeric characters. Results pose problems for theories that assert that autistic children learn only by rote memory. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)