A proposed method to estimate premorbid intelligence utilizing group achievement measures from school records

Introduction: Estimation of premorbid function is essential to accurate assessment of cognitive impairments in clinical neuropsychology and behavioral neurology, and has numerous research applications. However, current methods are rudimentary and imperfect. We explored how lexical tasks can be best used to accurately and precisely estimate intelligence and executive functions.Methods: We studied lexical word pronunciation, lexical decision, and stem-completion naming in the estimation of cognitive ability, in samples of healthy adults (n = 143), and patients with cognitive impairment due to neurological illness (n =15). Cognitive assessments included intelligence (WAIS-IV), episodic memory, and eight tests of executive functioning, including Theory of Mind.Results: When examined at the group level, single word pronunciation was particularly robust in the presence of cognitive impairment in patients with dementia. However, as a case series, patients showed idiosyncratic patterns of preservation of lexical skills including on tests of pronunciation, lexical decision and stem-completion naming. All of these tasks were highly correlated with IQ scores in a non-clinical sample, suggesting that they could be used as estimators of premorbid intelligence. Simulated impairments in non-clinical controls suggested that the median score from the three different tasks had the highest correlation with, and provided the most accurate and precise estimates of, intelligence, and was also the least sensitive to impairment. Finally, we show that these methods also predict executive functions, in particular, strong correlations were found for proverb interpretation, phonemic/semantic alternating verbal fluency, and working memory span performance. Conclusions: Several lexical tasks are potentially useful in predication of pre-illness cognitive ability in patients with neurological or psychiatric illness. However, due to the heterogeneity of impairments between patients, estimation of premorbid levels could be improved by the use of the median estimated values from multiple tests. This could potentially improve diagnostic accuracy and quantification of neuropsychological impairments.

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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF ADOLESCENTS WITH REFERENCE TO GENDER

Scholarly Research Journal for Humanity Science & English Language ◽

10.21922/srjhsel.v4i24.10419 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (24) ◽

Author(s):

Nisha Chandel ◽

Seema Chopra

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Emotional Intelligence ◽

Female Adolescents ◽

Intelligence Scale ◽

Male And Female ◽

Male Adolescents ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Understanding Emotions ◽

School Records ◽

Better Than

The present study was undertaken to find out emotional intelligence and academic achievement of male and female adolescents. The sample consists of 82 students( 41 male and 41 female adolescents) from different schools in Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh. Emotional intelligence was assessed with the help of Emotional Intelligence Scale developed by Singh and Narain (2014) and academic achievement score were taken from the school records. The results revealed that there exists a significant difference in emotional intelligence of male and female adolescents. It was found that there existed significant difference in academic achievement of female adolescents and male adolescents. The mean emotional intelligence of female adolescents was better than of male adolescents. On the dimensions of emotional intelligence, it was found that there was no significant difference between male and female adolescents on understanding emotions, empathy and handling relations dimensions of emotional intelligence; while it was reported that there was significant difference between male and female adolescents on understanding motivation dimension of emotional intelligence On the other hand, it was found that there existed significant difference in academic achievement of female adolescents and male adolescents.

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Quantity and quality of childcare and children’s educational outcomes

Journal of Population Economics ◽

10.1007/s00148-021-00835-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jo Blanden ◽

Emilia Del Bono ◽

Kirstine Hansen ◽

Birgitta Rabe

Keyword(s):

School Achievement ◽

Additional Term ◽

Publicly Funded ◽

Highly Qualified ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Quality Rating ◽

Quality Of Childcare ◽

The Impact ◽

School Records

AbstractPolicy-makers wanting to support child development can choose to adjust the quantity or quality of publicly funded universal pre-school. To assess the impact of such changes, we estimate the effects of an increase in free pre-school education in England of about 3.5 months at age 3 on children’s school achievement at age 5. We exploit date-of-birth discontinuities that create variation in the length and starting age of free pre-school using administrative school records linked to nursery characteristics. Estimated effects are small overall, but the impact of the additional term is substantially larger in settings with the highest inspection quality rating but not in settings with highly qualified staff. Estimated effects fade out by age 7.

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The Effect of CAG Repeats within the Non-Pathological Range in the HTT Gene on Cognitive Functions in Patients with Subjective Cognitive Decline and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Diagnostics ◽

10.3390/diagnostics11061051 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 1051

Author(s):

Valentina Bessi ◽

Salvatore Mazzeo ◽

Silvia Bagnoli ◽

Giulia Giacomucci ◽

Assunta Ingannato ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Cognitive Decline ◽

Spatial Ability ◽

Cognitive Status ◽

Cag Repeat ◽

Cag Repeats ◽

Subjective Cognitive Decline ◽

Visual Spatial ◽

Premorbid Intelligence

The Huntingtin gene (HTT) is within a class of genes containing a key region of CAG repeats. When expanded beyond 39 repeats, Huntington disease (HD) develops. Individuals with less than 35 repeats are not associated with HD. Increasing evidence has suggested that CAG repeats play a role in modulating brain development and brain function. However, very few studies have investigated the effect of CAG repeats in the non-pathological range on cognitive performances in non-demented individuals. In this study, we aimed to test how CAG repeats’ length influences neuropsychological scores in patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We included 75 patients (46 SCD and 29 MCI). All patients underwent an extensive neuropsychological battery and analysis of HTT alleles to quantify the number of CAG repeats. Results: CAG repeat number was positively correlated with scores of tests assessing for executive function, visual–spatial ability, and memory in SCD patients, while in MCI patients, it was inversely correlated with scores of visual–spatial ability and premorbid intelligence. When we performed a multiple regression analysis, we found that these relationships still remained, also when adjusting for possible confounding factors. Interestingly, logarithmic models better described the associations between CAG repeats and neuropsychological scores. CAG repeats in the HTT gene within the non-pathological range influenced neuropsychological performances depending on global cognitive status. The logarithmic model suggested that the positive effect of CAG repeats in SCD patients decreases as the number of repeats grows.

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