Applied Neuropsychology: Child最新文献

Objective: Little is known about the effects of repetitive head trauma on football players in different positions. Linemen have the highest frequency of head impact because of their involvement in every play. In contrast, quarterbacks incur less frequent but higher intensity collisions with aggressive tackling. The goal of this study was to assess the neuropsychological functioning of high school athletes playing in football positions with head contacts varying in frequency and intensity.

Method: Based on head impact exposure data at different positions in high school football, the study assigned players to three contact groups: High Frequency/Low Intensity (n = 403, e.g., linemen), Moderate Frequency/Moderate Intensity (n = 236, e.g., linebackers), and Low Frequency/High Intensity (n = 414, e.g., quarterbacks). All players had been administered the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) prior to the start of their season.

Results: There were no differences in ImPACT scores by contact group. This finding persisted even after adjusting for age, concussion history, and years playing.

Conclusion: Football athletes who play in positions that incur high frequency but low intensity head impacts, such as linemen, perform similarly on neurocognitive tests as players who sustain low frequency but high intensity head impacts, such as wide receivers, defensive backs, quarterbacks, and cornerbacks.

Grammar is of significant importance among linguistic parameters, and the prevalence of grammatical deficits is notably high in children with developmental language disorders. This study explores high-frequency comprehensible grammatical structures in Azerbaijani-Turkish children aged 4 to 6 years. This descriptive qualitative study was conducted in two phases in Tabriz from 2023 to 2024. The first phase included a comprehensive review of Azerbaijani-Turkish grammar resources and language development references, modeling of grammar comprehension tests, and grammatical analysis of spontaneous speech samples from 40 Azerbaijani-Turkish-speaking children aged 4 to 6 years. In this phase, 36 structures were identified as the most essential grammatical features. The second phase involved directed content analysis through in-depth and semi-structured face-to-face interviews with eight experts in speech and language pathologists (SLPs) and linguistics. After eliminating two structures, 34 grammatical structures were identified as the most frequently used by Azerbaijani-Turkish-speaking children aged 4 to 6 years. The overall validity of these structures was assessed to be 70% based on expert approval and consensus. The findings highlight the significance of these structures in language development and comprehension and provide insights into the unique linguistic characteristics of Azerbaijani-Turkish.

The Children's Orientation and Amnesia Test (COAT) is a widely used tool for assessing post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) in children, yet no validated Spanish version exists. This study aimed to translate, culturally adapt, and linguistically validate the COAT into Argentine Spanish following the International Society of Pharmacoeconomic and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) guidelines. A Delphi panel of 10 experts evaluated item clarity, relevance, coherence, and comprehensiveness, while a pilot test with 14 healthy children (7 males, 7 females; mean age 7.9 years, SD 3.5) assessed comprehensibility and acceptance. The translation process revealed minor challenges in adapting culturally specific references, which were addressed through expert consensus. The pilot test confirmed that most items were well understood, though some children had minor difficulties with number sequences. No discomfort was reported during administration, supporting the tool's feasibility and acceptance. The Argentine version of the COAT represents a validated, culturally appropriate instrument for assessing PTA in children with traumatic brain injury. Its adaptation ensures conceptual equivalence while accounting for linguistic and cultural nuances. This study provides a crucial first step in making a standardized PTA assessment available for Spanish-speaking populations, facilitating its clinical use and future research. However, further psychometric validation in clinical populations is required to confirm its applicability in diverse healthcare settings.

Background: Brain tumors are the most common type of pediatric cancer, significantly impacting children's health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This study aimed to adapt the PedsQL^™-BTM to Turkish culture and evaluate its psychometric properties, including reliability, validity, and cross-cultural consistency.

Method: A total of 108 children with brain tumors (mean age: 9.1 ± 4.99 years) and 120 parents participated in the study. The translation process included forward-backward translation, reconciliation, cognitive debriefing, and pilot testing. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha), test-retest reliability (ICC), exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties. Correlations between the PedsQL^™-BTM and the Generic Core Scales were examined for criterion validity.

Results: Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.83 to 0.97, indicating excellent internal consistency. Test-retest reliability was robust, with ICC values exceeding 0.80 for most subscales. EFA explained 84.2% of the variance in parent reports and 80.4% in child reports, while CFA confirmed the six-factor structure (child-reported outcomes: RMSEA = 0.069, 90% CI: 0.061-0.076; TLI = 0.862; NFI = 0.92; χ² (147) = 1875, p < 0.001; and parent-reported outcomes: RMSEA = 0.063, 90% CI: 0.059-0.069; TLI = 0.858; NFI = 0.93; χ² (153) = 1912, p < 0.001). Correlations between the BTM subscales and Generic Core Scales demonstrated strong criterion validity (e.g. Cognitive Problems correlated with School Functioning: r = 0.831, p < 0.05).

Conclusions: The Turkish PedsQL^™-BTM is a reliable and valid tool for assessing HRQoL in children with brain tumors.

This study determined the combined utility of pre-injury risk factors and Concussion Clinical Profile Screen (CP Screen) items to identify clinician-adjudicated concussion profiles in adolescents. This was a retrospective study of 236 adolescents aged 12-18 who presented to a concussion specialty clinic between 2019 and 2020 within 30 days of injury. Participants completed the CP Screen at their initial evaluation, and clinicians provided blindly adjudicated clinical profiles for each participant. Stepwise logistic regressions and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted. Participants (n = 236; 60.2% male) had a mean age of 14.79 ± 1.62 years, and most injuries were sport-related (n = 185, 78.4%). Combined pre-injury risk factor and CP Screen item predictors of anxiety/mood (AUC = 0.903) demonstrated outstanding utility; vestibular (AUC = 0.802) demonstrated excellent utility; and ocular (AUC = 0.766), PTM (AUC = 0.729), and cognitive (AUC = 0.723) demonstrated acceptable utility. Select pre-injury risk factors and CP Screen items provided acceptable to outstanding predictive utility for all clinical profiles in adolescents following concussion, highlighting their clinical utility for identifying concussion clinical profiles and subsequent targeted interventions. However, certain pre-injury risk factors and CP Screen items represented multiple profiles, highlighting the potential overlap and the need for clinicians to consider a multidomain evaluation to inform the best treatment approach.

We examined the factor structure and measurement invariance of the Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-IV)- among 11-16-year-old Almajiris (street boys attending Quranic school) in Northern Nigeria, and age-comparable mainstream public primary school boys. Across 200 Almajiris and 201 public school children, we tested multiple plausible models to confirm the factor structure of WISC-IV, with the four-factor model (reflecting the four WISC domains) showing best fit for both groups. We then tested the four-factor model's measurement invariance using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, which revealed full metric invariance between the two groups and partial scalar invariance, with subtests of the Working Memory Index (WMI) showing insufficient equivalence (internal bias). Further, examination of the latent means revealed that on the remaining domains VCI, PRI and PSI Almajiris as a group showed poorer performance than public school children (PSCs) not attributable to the bias of the subtests (external bias). Our study highlights within-country sub-population differences in the functioning of western tools in cross-cultural contexts, while offering cautious support for measurement invariance in certain domains of the WISC-IV (VCI, PRI and PSI) in this non-Western population.

Objective: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a predominant neurobehavioral illness in minors and adolescents, with overlapping symptoms that complicate established diagnostic approaches. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a noninvasive system for analyzing brain action, with the possibility of automated diagnosis.

Method: This study investigates the use of electroencephalogram decomposition approaches for better detection of ADHD. We used independent component analysis (ICA) to eliminate noise and artifacts of EEG. EEG signals were decomposed into subbands using robust short time Fourier transform (STFT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) decomposition methods. These sub-bands and EEG signals are input for the machine learning algorithm that could distinguish between healthy volunteers from those having ADHD.

Result: The findings show that STFT techniques perform better than DCT. According to the experiment's results, the STFT method had the highest sensitivity rates. However, combo of Fp1Fp2F3F4P3C3 (6 electrodes placements) achieves 91% accuracy and 90% on Fp1F3C3P3O1 (combination of 5 electrodes) when using STFT-XGBoost. On combination Fp1F3 F7F8 (4 electrodes), the accuracy of Logistic Regression is 89% and 88% for combinations of three electrode placements F3F4C4, F3C3F7, and F3O2F7. Random Forest outperforms with an accuracy of 89% with the classification algorithm on a combination of all (19) electrode placements.

Novelty: This automated detection technology could help clinicians improve early diagnosis and personalized treatment options. The current study's findings contribute to the literature through uniqueness, and the suggested technique can eventually be used as a medical tool for diagnosis in the future.

The current study investigated the role of semantic activation on the reading of non-familiar Hebrew words by native Arab readers. Thirty typical native Arab readers participated in the study (age 12.57 ±.26). In one condition, which was defined as the semantic condition, the participants were orally trained to learn the meanings of twenty non-familiar words (Uncommon words that were defined by expert language judges as not appropriate for the participants' reading age). While in another condition, the participants were orally trained to learn only the pronunciation of another twenty non-familiar Hebrew words (the phonological condition). During the training trails, the participants were not exposed to the written form of the words at all, as the training was conducted solely in an auditory manner. Following the training trials, participants were presented with the written forms of the words and were asked to read the words along with an additional twenty non-familiar words that were not trained at all (the control condition). Reading accuracy and speed were measured. The results indicated faster speed and higher accuracy levels in reading for the semantic condition. The findings were discussed in the context of the contribution of semantic activation to reading aloud unfamiliar written words.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between executive functions and school readiness of kindergarten children with cochlear implants. The study included 109 children between the ages of 57 and 71 months, who were enrolled in a special education practice school for the deaf and followed up by the ear, nose, and throat diseases clinic, who had bilateral severe or profound sensorineural type hearing loss and who used bilateral cochlear implants. The participants' teachers filled out the Childhood Executive Functions Inventory and the Primary School Readiness Scale. The findings showed a significant relationship between the Childhood Executive Functions Inventory-Working Memory, Inhibitory Control, and Total scores and Primary School Readiness Scale of kindergarten children with cochlear implant (r values are -.793, -.819., and -.768, respectively; p < 0.01). The results obtained from this study emphasize the importance of interventions that support the executive functions and school readiness of children with cochlear implants from the earliest period and increase their participation in school life.

This study aims to develop an empathy measurement tool for Saudi children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A total of 850 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder were recruited by random sampling method from school in Makka. The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE) was used. Exploratory factor analysis was used to reanalyze the structure of the scale, and selected the Empathy scale to test the structural validity of the revised QCAE scale. The QCAE was revised among Saudi children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After revision, the scale finally retained 17 items, which were divided into three dimensions: perspective taking, online simulation, and emotional response. In general, the scale has a moderate number of items and no reverse scoring items. Various indicators show that the three-factor structure is more suitable for children than the four-factor or five-factor structure of other groups.