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Exercise and ADHD
Published in Henning Budde, Mirko Wegner, The Exercise Effect on Mental Health, 2018
Verret et al. (2012) assessed the impact of a 10-week physical activity intervention on cognitive and behavioral measures of ADHD in 10 children (aged 7–12 years) diagnosed with ADHD on cognitive and behavioral outcome measures. The intervention lasted 45 minutes, three times a week over the study period whilst a control group of 11 children with ADHD received no intervention. The cognitive tasks used in the study assessed attention and response inhibition (Test of Everyday Attention for Children) whilst parents and teachers rated symptoms of ADHD. Although there were no differences on the behavioral assessment or response inhibition task post-intervention, children in the intervention group were significantly better at the sustained attention task compared to the control group (Verret et al. 2012). However, the children were not randomly assigned to the intervention or control group, thus a possibility of bias may have been introduced. It would have been valuable to know whether the improvements on the sustained attention task remained over time; however, the follow-up testing took place within a 1-week post-intervention period.
Other Neurological Conditions Affecting Children
Published in Barbara A. Wilson, Jill Winegardner, Caroline M. van Heugten, Tamara Ownsworth, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2017
Louise Crowe, Amy Brown, Mardee Greenham
The need for detailed neuropsychological assessment of children with neurological conditions has been highlighted by the information we have presented. That is, in some disorders IQ is largely classified as within normal levels; however, detailed neuropsychological testing exposes difficulties in the areas of learning, memory, executive function and attention. With this in mind, it is important for neuropsychologists to familiarise themselves with the relevant literature when designing their assessment protocols. For example, in the case of epilepsy, for a child with temporal lobe epilepsy an assessment of verbal memory and learning would be important. For the other disorders outlined, the fine motor abilities of children need to be assessed. Children with stroke, neuromuscular or metabolic disorders may have trouble grasping pencils or completing activities such as block design. This makes for difficulty when assessing children's capacity with hands-on tasks. If slowness is the issue, assessments such as the Test of Everyday Attention for Children may be useful, as this battery provides detailed information on many faculties of attention, as well as controlling for motor speed (Manly et al., 1999). Subtests such as Coding and Symbol Search on the Wechsler Scales rely heavily on speed of completion, and therefore findings on these tasks should be interpreted cautiously (Wechsler, 2003).
Problems Assessing Executive Dysfunction in Neurobehavioural Disability
Published in Tom M. McMillan, Rodger Ll. Wood, Neurobehavioural Disability and Social Handicap following Traumatic Brain Injury, 2017
The context in which assessments are carried out and the procedural weaknesses referred to above emphasise a problem intrinsic to many existing tests – their failure to assess attention control. Stuss and Alexander (2007) argue that many features of what we refer to as NBD can be explained as impairments in attentional control processes that are highly vulnerable to TBI. In real life a person continually has to direct and re-direct attention based on changing environmental circumstances and intentions. We have to monitor several ideas or actions simultaneously and select and react to relevant stimuli. By contrast, in a clinical assessment we only ask a person to focus upon one thing at a time, reflecting serial processing whereas real life requires parallel processing (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977; Wood & Grafman, 2003). When one examines the role of attention in everyday life we can see that the attentional loading on routine everyday activities is far greater than usually captured on clinical tests, which is why many people with frontal brain injury can succeed on tests yet fail to cope in the community. One probable exception to this is the Test of Everyday Attention (Robertson et al., 1995) which employs tests of divided attention that are comparable to real life settings and can identify different patterns of attentional deficit that are likely to have an impact on community independence.
Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch): Greek Normative Data and Discriminative Validity for Children with Combined Type of Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder
Published in Developmental Neuropsychology, 2019
Amaryllis-Chryssi Malegiannaki, Eleni Aretouli, Panayiota Metallidou, Lambros Messinis, Dimitrios Zafeiriou, Mary H. Kosmidis
Given the complexity of the attentional system, a comprehensive assessment would have to include its main components’ processes. The Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) was developed as a suitable tool for the detailed assessment of attention functions in children (Manly, Robertson, & Nimmo-Smith, 1999). This battery allows the evaluation of attentional performance subdivided into three attention factors (selective, sustained, and switching of attention/attentional control) and provides an assessment of dual task performance in both auditory and visual modalities. The theoretical background, on which the construction of the battery is based, is in line with Posner and Petersen (1990) model of the subdivision of the attentional system. Finally, the subtests are an adjustment of the existing adult version (Test of Everyday Attention, TEA, Robertson, Ward, Ridgeway, & Nimmo-Smith, 1994), through the use of child-friendly material and comprehensive neuropsychological procedures that are based on everyday life activities (e.g., games, school activities; Baron, 2004 ; Heaton et al., 2001). The test consists of nine subtests, and full administration takes approximately 1 h.
A review and update on the diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric Wilson disease
Published in Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 2019
Sean Cleymaet, Katsuko Nagayoshi, Edward Gettings, Justin Faden
In a study examining the cognitive function of 67 patients with WD, patients already showing neurologic symptoms performed significantly worse (p < .05) in all attention focused tasks than patients with WD that were neurologically asymptomatic as measured by the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA) [31]. Intact attention depends heavily on cortical-subcortical processing loops and is aberrant in WD patients secondary to subcortical basal ganglia involvement. In advanced disease, patients will have subcortical dementia symptoms that include slowed thinking, memory loss, and executive dysfunction. Cortical signs such as aphasia, apraxia, and agnosia are usually absent.
The jungle book of neuropsychology: Disentangling the influence of feral childhood from adult brain injury in order to provide effective rehabilitation
Published in Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2018
C. J. McIntosh, A. I. W. James
It was unclear whether standardised assessments would be useful in determining a profile of strengths and weaknesses due to potential floor effects. Testing commenced with subtests on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, 2008). MC performed above floor on these and thus a wider and more in-depth assessment was conducted, as recommended by Rosselli et al. (1990). The Test of Everyday Attention (TEA) and the Behavioural Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS) were selected over other tests due to greater practicality and ecological validity.