Protecting Against Delinquency in Early Adolescence With Nonverbal Intelligence and Neighborhood Social Capital

The goal of this study was to test nonverbal intelligence and neighborhood social capital as protective factors against future delinquency in early adolescent youth placed at risk by virtue of their involvement in childhood conduct problems. Analyzing longitudinal data from 3,028 youth (1,565 boys, 1,463 girls) in one cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and 3,682 youth (1,896 boys, 1,786 girls) in a second cohort of the LSAC, nonverbal intelligence, as measured by the Matrix Reasoning subscale of the WISC-IV, displayed a consistent moderating effect on the conduct problems–future delinquency relationship. According to these results, conduct problems were slightly but significantly less likely to lead to delinquency when nonverbal intelligence was high than when it was low or moderate. By shielding at-risk children from future delinquency, protective factors like high nonverbal intelligence may provide a means by which delinquency can be prevented or reduced.

Superordinate Word Knowledge Predicts Longitudinal Vocabulary Growth

Does knowing certain words help children learn other words? We hypothesized that knowledge of more general (more superordinate) words at time-1 would lead to faster vocabulary growth as measured through vocabulary checklists administered at later timepoints. We find that this is indeed the case. Children who have similar vocabularies at time-1, but differ in their productive knowledge of more general words such as "animal", "picture", and "get" go on to have different rates of word learning. Knowledge of more general words is associated with faster vocabulary growth, particularly of words semantically related to the superordinate terms they are reported to produce. This positive relationship between knowledge of more general words and word learning remains even when controlling for measures of verbal and nonverbal intelligence.

Test–retest reliability and convergent validity of the test of nonverbal intelligence-fourth edition in patients with schizophrenia

Background Fluid intelligence deficits affect executive functioning and social behaviors in patients with schizophrenia. To help clinicians manage fluid intelligence deficits, a psychometrically sound measure is needed. The purposes of this study were to examine the test–retest reliability and convergent validity of the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence-Fourth Edition (TONI-4) assessing fluid intelligence in patients with schizophrenia. Methods A total of 103 patients with stable condition were assessed with the TONI-4 twice with a 4-week interval to examine the test–retest reliability. We further used the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Tablet-Based Symbol Digit Modalities Test (T-SDMT) to examine the convergent validity of the TONI-4. Results The intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.73 for the TONI-4. The percentages of standard error of measurement and minimal detectable change for the TONI-4 were 5.1 and 14.2%, respectively. The practice effect of the TONI-4 was small (Cohen’s d = − 0.03). Convergent validity showed small to moderate significant correlations between the TONI-4 and the MoCA as well as the T-SDMT (r = 0.35, p = .011 with the T-SDMT and r = 0.61, p < .001 with the MoCA). The results demonstrated that the TONI-4 had good test–retest reliability, limited random measurement error, and a trivial practice effect. The convergent validity of the TONI-4 was good. Conclusions These findings indicate that the TONI-4 has potential to be a reliable and valid assessment of fluid intelligence in patients with schizophrenia.

Predicting delinquent behavior in young adults with a childhood diagnosis of ADHD: results from the Cologne Adaptive Multimodal Treatment (CAMT) Study

The aim of this study was to investigate which factors predict lifetime reports of delinquent behavior in young adults who had received adaptive multimodal treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) starting at ages 6–10 years. Participants were reassessed 13–24 years (M = 17.6, SD = 1.8) after they had received individualized ADHD treatment in the Cologne Adaptive Multimodal Treatment Study (CAMT). Their behavior was classified as non-delinquent (n = 34) or delinquent (n = 25) based on self-reports regarding the number of police contacts, offenses, and convictions at follow-up. Childhood variables assessed at post-intervention (e.g., externalizing child behavior problems, intelligence, and parenting behavior) that were significantly associated with group membership were entered as possible predictors of delinquency in a Chi-squared automatic interaction detector (CHAID) analysis. Delinquent behavior during adolescence and adulthood was best predicted by (a) meeting the symptom count diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder (CD) according to parent ratings, in combination with a nonverbal intelligence of IQ ≤ 106 at post-intervention, and (b) delinquent behavior problems (teacher rating) at post-intervention. The predictor variables specified in the CHAID analysis classified 81% of the participants correctly. The results support the hypothesis that a childhood diagnosis of ADHD is only predictive of delinquent behavior if it is accompanied by early conduct behavior problems. Low nonverbal intelligence was found to be an additional risk factor. These findings underline the importance of providing behavioral interventions that focus on externalizing behavior problems to children with ADHD and comorbid conduct problems.

Relationship between Intelligence and Executive Functions in Preschoolers

The paper raises the problem of the relationship between executive functions and intelligence in preschool period of the development. Based on the discussion about the components of executive functions proposed by different authors, two components (inhibitory control and working memory) were selected for analysis. Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices were chosen for the assessment of the intelligence. We chose this method due to the fact that there are a lot of preschoolers who have speech problems that prevent an adequate assessment of verbal intelligence. The go/go and go/no-go paradigms to evaluate inhibitory control (Vergunov & Nikolaeva, 2009) and a test aimed at evaluating working memory (Razumnikova & Savinykh, 2016) were used. The specificity of the test aimed at the level of inhibitory control assessment was a fractal structure of the sensory flow. Both go/go and go/no-go series included two identical parts, but children did not know about this. Some children, however, showed better results in the second part of the series rather than the first one. This could indicate that children intuitively discovered the structure of the sensory flow and learned to respond more effectively. In go/go series, children were asked to respond to each presented stimulus (circles of different colours). In the go/no-go series, they were forbidden to respond to a target stimulus (red circles). Calculating the mistakes (reactions to the red circles), we could assess the inhibitory control level. To assess a working memory, the subjects were offered three series including the same set of visual stimuli, and the order of the stimuli was changed in each series. The number of recalling stimuli in each series and interference inhibition resulting from the presentation of the same set of stimuli were calculated. The study involved 90 preschoolers (average age 6.5±0.4 years) of normative development, parents of all children signed informed consents, and all children were told about the goals of the study. It was shown that nonverbal intelligence has no correlation with any parameters of the inhibitory control or parameters of working memory in preschool age. Immaturity of the prefrontal cortex at this age was suggested to be the main reason for the lack of such a link. The low levels of both inhibitory control and interference inhibition could not provide a high level of correlation with intelligence. It was proved that nonverbal intelligence is associated with greater performance in the second part of the go/go series. This suggests that the higher the child's intelligence is, the better they are able to navigate the sensory flow.