Associations of Motor Performance and Executive Functions: Comparing Children with Down Syndrome to Chronological and Mental Age-Matched Controls

Background. Children with Down syndrome (DS) exhibit lower motor and cognitive performance than typically developing children (TD). Although there is a relationship between these two developmental domains, only a few studies have addressed this association in children with DS compared to groups of the same chronological age (CA) or mental age (MA) within one study. This study aimed to fill this research gap. Method and Procedures. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children-2 and the Trail-Making Test was used to assess motor and cognitive performances in 12 children (M = 10.5 ± 10.08) with DS, 12 CA-matched, and 12 MA-matched controls. Results. There are significant group differences in the motor dimension (total test score; p < 0.001, η2p = 0.734), for processing speed (p < 0.001, η2p = 0.396), and cognitive flexibility (p < 0.001, η2p = 0.498). Between TD-CA and both other groups, the differences in the magnitude of correlations for the motor dimension balance are also significant (compared to DS: z = −2.489; p = 0.006, and to TD-MA: z = −3.12; p < 0.001). Conclusions. Our results suggest that the relationships depend on the studied cognitive and motor skills. It seems crucial to select a wide range of tasks for both domains that are as isolated as possible for future studies, to better understand the relationships between cognitive and motor skills in children with DS.

Cardiac Startle Response and Clinical Outcomes in Preschool Children With Fragile X Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Objective: Poor physiological regulation in response to threat is linked to multiple negative developmental outcomes including anxiety, which is highly prevalent and impairing in young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities like fragile X syndrome (FXS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study contrasted cardiac startle response in pre-school-aged children with FXS, with and without ASD, to children with non-syndromic ASD (nsASD) and neurotypical controls (NT). The relationship of cardiac startle to non-verbal mental age (NVMA), ASD severity, and parent-reported anxiety was also examined.Method: Four age-matched groups of pre-school children participated including those with FXS without ASD (FXS-Only, n = 21), FXS with ASD (FXS+ASD, n = 17), nsASD (n = 42), and NT children (n = 27). Participants viewed a silent movie during which a single 200 ms 98-decibel white noise burst occurred. Cardiac activity was analyzed for pre-stimulus respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and the inter-beat intervals (IBI) at the auditory stimulus and 10 s post-stimulus. The Spence Pre-school Anxiety Scale, Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2nd Edition, and Mullen Scales of Early Learning were examined in relation to startle response.Results: The nsASD group demonstrated heightened cardiac activity at the auditory stimulus and 10 s post-stimulus compared to the NT controls. Neither of the FXS groups showed differences from any other group. Higher pre-stimulus RSA was associated with reduced cardiac response across groups, while the relationship between cognitive ability and ASD severity to cardiac response varied between groups. Parent-reported anxiety was not associated with cardiac response for any group.Conclusion: These findings demonstrate group distinctions in cardiac responses to auditory startle. Although FXS and ASD share behavioral characteristics, the nsASD group showed a heightened cardiac startle response compared to the NT group that was not present in the FXS groups with or without ASD. Non-verbal mental age was associated with greater stimulus or post-stimulus reactivity for all groups except the FXS+ASD group, which showed no association between startle response and any clinical outcomes. Increased understanding of the relationship between physiological regulation and clinical outcomes will assist in identifying the timing and targets for effective interventions for individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Cognition and Subjective Age Predict Physical Activity Engagement: A Longitudinal Study of Impaired Older Adults

Physical activity is an important factor in preventing or slowing cognitive decline. However, the predictors of fluctuations in physical activity in a population that is already experiencing cognitive impairment is not well understood. Subjective age, such as how old one feels, has been tied to many health indicators in cognitively intact populations. Thus, we focused on the within-person associations between subjective age and physical activity as they unfold over time within a sample of cognitively impaired participants. The current study examined 400 reports from measurement burst data consisting of 5 weekly surveys conducted twice across 6 months from 68 cognitively impaired participants (M age = 70.14 (6.63), range = 60-92). Participants completed a battery of cognitive tests at baseline. At each weekly assessment, participants reported on their physical activity (e.g., exercise, outdoor, flexibility, and strength activities; Yes/No) and subjective age with respect to how old they feel overall and how old they feel mentally. There were longitudinal decreases in physical activity across the bursts, but on occasions when participants felt younger overall or younger mentally there were increases in physical activity. In addition, the effects of mental subjective age depended on cognitive ability, with those scoring lower in cognitive ability appearing to benefit the most from decreases (feeling younger) in mental subjective age. These findings suggest that perceptions of aging, especially within the domain of mental age, are tied to physical activity engagement for older adults with cognitive impairment.

The Influence of Hearing Impairment on Mental Age in Down Syndrome: Preliminary Results

The increased life expectancy for patients with Down Syndrome (DS) has elicited the need to improve their quality of life by enhancing functional outcomes and identifying the factors that contribute to their long-term cognitive decline. Although the majority of individuals with DS have issues with hearing impairment (HI) since early childhood, to our knowledge no study has investigated whether HI represents a potential modulator of cognitive decline over time. The present explorative cohort study, albeit very preliminary due to the limited cohort (17 children), highlights the significant relation of a significant HI not only with receptive language abilities, but also with mental age in young patients with DS. Additional studies are required to confirm the link between HI and mental age and to assess the impact of audiological treatment on the enhancement of functional outcomes and of cognitive decline in individuals with DS.

Head Size and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in Elementary School Students

Superficially, Intelligence is an ability to planning, thinking, talking, rationalization, comparing, and understand with other. One of many methods to rate for intelligence, is Draw-A-Man test, it’s introduced by Goodenough in 1926 to researching children’s creativity, mental age, and visual and motoric intelligence with some code based on picture that the children drawed. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between head circumference and head length with Intelligence Quotient of the 3rd grade Karang Mekar 1 Banjarmasin elementary school’s student. The methodsof this study used observational analytics with a cross-sectional approach. The sampling technique was total sampling with a sample of 65 students aged 7 to 10 years and fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results of data analysis using the Spearman correlation test showed that the correlation point on the head circumference and head length with IQ were p=0.888 and p=0.985. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that there is no significant correlation between the the head circumference and head length with Intelligence Quotien in elementary student.

Grunt Vocalizations in Children With Disabilities: Relationships With Assessed Cognition and Language

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of the grunt vocalizations to cognitive and expressive language status in children with disabilities. Children with typical development produce communicative grunts at the onset of referential word production and comprehension at 14–16 months of age and continue to use this vocalization for communication as they develop language. Method All grunt vocalizations produced by 26 children with disabilities (mental age: 3–56 months; communicative age: 47–69 months) were identified from video-recorded seminaturalistic play sessions. Grunts were identified as accompanying effort or attention or as communicative bids. Participants were grouped as prelinguistic, emergent, language delay, and language competent based on standardized assessments of cognitive and language level. The Mann–Whitney U test (1947) compared groups to determine the relationships between grunt production and cognitive and language status. Results As hypothesized, participants in the language delay group produced significantly more communicative grunts than those in the language competent group ( W = 39, p = .028 < .05). The children with a cognitive and language level lower than 9 months (prelinguistic group) failed to produce communicative grunts. Conclusions The results document grunt production in children with disabilities in the same contexts as typical children and support the hypothesized relationship between assessed cognition and language and communicative grunt production. These results require replication. This vocalization, if recognized in treatment, may unlock verbal communication in many nonverbal children with disabilities. Future longitudinal research should include controlled intervention to determine the potential effectiveness of building broader communicative skills on this simple vocalization.

Investigating Cognitive Flexibility in Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

The current study investigated cognitive flexibility in preschool children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and those with typical development using the Reverse Categorization (RC) task and the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task. We further examined the relationship between non-verbal mental age (NVMA) and the performance on the two tasks. While no significant difference in performance on the RC task between the two groups was found, significantly more children in the typical developing group passed the DCCS task than children in the ASD group. NVMA was found to correlate with performance in both tasks in the typical developing group but not in the ASD group. When the children were matched on NVMA, no differences in task performance between the two groups were found. The current study found the disparity in performance in two groups on the RC and the DCCS tasks, hence illuminating the importance related to the selection of tasks when studying cognitive flexibility in preschool children with ASD. The study also cast some light on the involvement of NVMA in the performance on the RC and DCCS tasks.

Autisme als atypische ontwikkeling: De kenmerken in de mens als geheel

In 'Autisme als atypische ontwikkeling' beschrijft Martine Delfos voor het eerst de kenmerken van autisme zoals die voortspruiten uit de Theorie van het Socioschema met de MAS1P (Mental Age Spectrum within 1 Person), de regenboog aan mentale leeftijden binnen één persoon. Helder wordt beschreven hoe deze met elkaar samenhangen en ook hoe ze logisch uit elkaar volgen. Het gaat om vier kenmerken plus de twee kenmerken die het gevolg zijn van hoe de mens met autisme tegen de wereld oploopt en de wereld tegen die persoon. De herkenbaarheid van deze kenmerken voor de mensen met autisme en hun omgeving is vergeleken met de oude theorieën heel hoog en kan vertaald worden in hoe ermee om te gaan en hoe problemen voorkomen kunnen worden. Martine Delfos laat in bijna 100 voorbeelden uit de praktijk zien hoe de atypische ontwikkeling er in de dagelijkse situaties en op verschillende leeftijden uitziet. Volgens haar zeggen is ze nog nooit zo duidelijk geweest in haar uitleg over autisme. In het boek is ook een hoofdstuk opgenomen van een docent groep 7/8 speciaal onderwijs, John Huijbregts die werkt met kinderen met autisme. Het boek is geschikt voor iedereen met autisme, hoewel het over hen gaat, is het zeker bedoeld voor hen, voor hun familie, omgeving en voor docenten. Het is tevens geschikt als opleidingsboek, omdat de achtergrond en onderbouwing beschreven zijn. Het boek is bedoeld om autisme beter te begrijpen, hoe het voor ieder mens met autisme apart uitpakt en ook hoe er mee om te gaan: met jezelf, in opvoeding en in het onderwijs. Er is wel aandacht voor de werksituatie, maar in mindere mate, hoewel het beschrevene voor iedere situatie geldt.

Susceptibility to Ingroup Influence in Adolescents With Intellectual Disability: A Minimal Group Experiment on Social Judgment Making

Adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) experience challenges and uncertainty when making judgments about other people’s intentions. In an attempt to achieve certainty, they might exhibit judgment tendencies that differ from those of typically developing adolescents. This study investigated social judgment making in adolescents with ID (n = 34, Mage = 14.89 years, SD = 1.41 years) compared with chronological age-matched adolescents without ID (n = 34, Mage = 14.68 years, SD = 1.15 years) and mental age (MA)-matched children (n = 34, Mage = 7.93 years, SD = 0.64 years). Participants used a computer-based task to judge the hostility of persons (fictitious characters). Adolescents with ID were found to make more polarizing judgments (i.e., either positive or negative, as opposed to moderate judgments) and were more likely to be guided by the opinions of a fictitious peer ingroup (minimal group) compared with adolescents without ID. No such differences were found between adolescents with ID and MA-matched children. The results are discussed in terms of scientific and practical implications.