Assessment of Testifying Ability in Preschool Children: CAPALIST

Purpose: Interviews to obtain statements in judicial procedures need to be adapted to the witnesses’ abilities to testify. Moreover, knowing the cognitive abilities involved in testifying provides relevant criteria to assess statement credibility. As age or intelligence quotient is not enough to estimate these capabilities, an instrument to evaluate witnesses’ specific abilities to testify is needed. The present paper validates CAPALIST, a procedure that considers relevant capabilities when assessing the testimony given by children.Methods: This study analyzed, by means of an invariant measurement approach (Rasch model), four scales included in CAPALIST: language, memory, contextual information, and social thinking. In addition, gender and age differences were analyzed in 83 children [45 males and 38 females; Mage = 4.3 years, SD = 0.74, range (3.06–5.11)] from three courses in early childhood education.Results: The four scales do not severely violate the requirements of the model. The principal component analysis of the residuals indicates that the four scales are one dimensional and that the assumption of local independence was not violated. Differential item functioning of the scales associated with gender was not detected. A significant effect of the school year was obtained, with an increase in ability in successive courses. The percentage of children who presented severe misfit responses with the model was low. In addition, the number of items with a severe misfit was also low.Conclusion: An acceptable performance of CAPALIST is demonstrated for most of the scales, although items with a severe misfit must be replaced, and more difficult items have to be included in some scales of the revised version of the instrument. CAPALIST is a promising procedure to assess the abilities of children to testify in order to adapt interviews and to evaluate their statements correctly.

Download Full-text

Ensuring the psychological safety of persons with disabilities, taking into account gender and age differences

Perspectives of science and education ◽

10.32744/pse.2021.3.22 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 316-328

Author(s):

Roman I. Ostapenko ◽

◽

Galina S. Ostapenko ◽

Irina V. Shcherbakova ◽

◽

...

Keyword(s):

Experimental Data ◽

Age Differences ◽

Semantic Analysis ◽

Psychological Safety ◽

Principal Component ◽

Spearman Correlation ◽

Persons With Disabilities ◽

Gender And Age ◽

Gender And Age Differences ◽

Main Factor

The relevance of the research is related to the fact that the psychological safety of persons with disabilities is the leading characteristic that determines its developmental nature. The research objective was to study students’ opinions about the capabilities and abilities of citizens with disabilities and to form a tolerant attitude towards them, and hence their social and psychological safety. The research was carried out on the basis of the Voronezh State Industrial and Humanitarian College (Russian Federation), in which 1,000 people took part (among them 38% were boys and 62% were girls). Methods: survey, Spearman correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and semantic analysis. At the stage of the ascertaining experiment, the problem of the psychological safety of persons with disabilities is partially covered. The analysis of experimental data obtained from the survey showed that at the time of the survey, 51.5% of the respondents by gender (23% – men, 28.5% – women) treated persons with disabilities as ordinary, recognising their skills, dignity, and abilities. The results of the factor analysis revealed the main factor "tolerant attitude towards persons with disabilities", which does not depend on age, gender, and place of residence. As a rule, this attitude is formed as a result of communication with them. All respondents intend to "treat persons with disabilities as people with (special) needs, not with disabilities, and create all conditions for their psychological and social safety".

Download Full-text

A Case Study: Unique Challenges of an Adolescent Female With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/2019_persp-19-00132 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 314-325

Author(s):

Kimberly F. Frazier ◽

Jessica Collier ◽

Rachel Glade

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Social Performance ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Self Management ◽

Adolescent Female ◽

Social Thinking

Background The aim of this study was to determine the clinical efficacy of combining self-management strategies and a social thinking approach to address the social performance and executive function of an adolescent female with autism spectrum disorder. Method This research examined the effects of a social knowledge training program, “Think Social,” as well as strategies to improve higher order cognitive abilities. Results and Conclusion Although quantitative improvement was not found, several qualitative gains in behavior were noted for the participants of this study, suggesting a benefit from using structured environmental cues of self-management strategies, as well as improved social understanding through social cognitive training.

Download Full-text

PO-0935 Anxiety Sensitivity And Behaviour Difficulties In Adolescents: Gender And Age Differences

Archives of Disease in Childhood ◽

10.1136/archdischild-2014-307384.1556 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 99 (Suppl 2) ◽

pp. A556.3-A557

Author(s):

S Pesic Gilanji ◽

S Turudic ◽

J Odovic Cubrilo ◽

N Stankovic

Keyword(s):

Age Differences ◽

Anxiety Sensitivity ◽

Gender And Age ◽

Gender And Age Differences

Download Full-text

The client satisfaction with device: a Rasch validation of the Arabic version in patients with upper and lower limb amputation

Health and Quality of Life Outcomes ◽

10.1186/s12955-021-01773-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Hadeel R. Bakhsh ◽

Nilüfer Kablan ◽

Walaa Alammar ◽

Yaşar Tatar ◽

Giorgio Ferriero

Keyword(s):

Client Satisfaction ◽

Item Difficulty ◽

Principal Component ◽

Limb Amputation ◽

Convenience Sample ◽

Reliability Indices ◽

Arabic Speakers ◽

Item Fit ◽

Item Functioning ◽

Local Item Dependency

Abstract Background The Client Satisfaction with Devices (CSD) module of the Orthotics and Prosthetics Users’ Survey is an extensively used questionnaire that measures patients’ satisfaction with orthosis and prosthesis. However, the validated version for Arabic speakers (CSD-Ar) is only applicable for orthosis users. Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric proprieties of the CSD-Ar for prosthetics users. Methods The study used a convenience sample of prosthesis users from Saudi Arabia and Turkey (N = 183), who completed the CSD-Ar. The collected data were analysed using Rasch analysis to evaluate item fit, reliability indices, item difficulty, local item dependency, and differential item functioning (DIF) using WINSTEPS version 4.6.1. Results Based on the analysis, the four-response Likert-scale was acceptable, as shown by the category functioning test, All eight items did achieve a fit to the Rasch Model [(infit) and (outfit) mean-square 0.75 to 1.3]. Person separation reliability was 0.76, and item separation reliability was 0.94. A principal component analysis (PCA) showed satisfactory unidimensionality and no local item dependency. The DIF analysis showed no notable dependency among items on participant characteristics in terms of age, gender, duration of use, country, and level of amputation. Conclusion This study contributes to the confidence of using CSD-Ar to evaluate users’ satisfaction with different prostheses, affirming the need for further refinement of the quality of the outcome measure.

Download Full-text