Background: working memory, phonological awareness and spelling hypothesis. Aim: to verify the relationship between working memory, phonological awareness and spelling hypothesis in pre-school children and first graders. Method: participants of this study were 90 students, belonging to state schools, who presented typical linguistic development. Forty students were preschoolers, with the average age of six and 50 students were first graders, with the average age of seven. Participants were submitted to an evaluation of the working memory abilities based on the Working Memory Model (Baddeley, 2000), involving phonological loop. Phonological loop was evaluated using the Auditory Sequential Test, subtest 5 of Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA), Brazilian version (Bogossian & Santos, 1977), and the Meaningless Words Memory Test (Kessler, 1997). Phonological awareness abilities were investigated using the Phonological Awareness: Instrument of Sequential Assessment (CONFIAS -Moojen et al., 2003), involving syllabic and phonemic awareness tasks. Writing was characterized according to Ferreiro & Teberosky (1999). Results: preschoolers presented the ability of repeating sequences of 4.80 digits and 4.30 syllables. Regarding phonological awareness, the performance in the syllabic level was of 19.68 and in the phonemic level was of 8.58. Most of the preschoolers demonstrated to have a pre-syllabic writing hypothesis. First graders repeated, in average, sequences of 5.06 digits and 4.56 syllables. These children presented a phonological awareness of 31.12 in the syllabic level and of 16.18 in the phonemic level, and demonstrated to have an alphabetic writing hypothesis. Conclusion: the performance of working memory, phonological awareness and spelling level are inter-related, as well as being related to chronological age, development and scholarity.

RESUMOO uso de versões apenas traduzidas de instrumentos neuropsicológicos padronizados internacionais na clínica brasileira ainda é bastante freqüente. Para que uma ferramenta diagnóstica mensure os processos cognitivos a que se propõe a medir, torna-se essencial uma adaptação de suas instruções e de seus estímulos à realidade brasileira lingüística, cultural e social. O presente artigo de revisão teórica tem por objetivo refletir sobre as particularidades da adaptação de instrumentos neuropsicológicos verbais, propondo um fluxograma de procedimentos de adaptação neuropsilinguística que transcenda à mera tradução. Este fluxograma foi derivado da consulta à literatura de avaliação psicológica, avaliação neuropsicológica, avaliação fonoaudiológica e da experiência clínica e científica das autoras na construção e adaptação de ferramentas clínicas de mensuração de desempenho cognitivo por meio de estímulos verbais. Engloba procedimentos específicos envolvendo três grupos de procedimentos gerais: tradução, análise de juízes e estudo piloto. O contato contínuo com os pesquisadores autores do instrumento original é destacado como uma etapa essencial. A continuidade do processo de adaptação com procedimentos neuropsicométricos é brevemente discutida. Palavras-chave: avaliação neuropsicológica; adaptação; testes verbais; linguagem; neuropsicolinguística. ABSTRACT Adaptation of Neuropsychological Verbal Instruments: A Fluxogram of Procedures far Beyond TranslationA very recurrent practice in Brazilian clinics still nowadays is the adoption of translated versions of neuropsychological instruments internationally standardized. It is fundamental that diagnostic tools have their instructions and stimuli adapted to the Brazilian linguistic, cultural and social reality, so that they accurately and reliably measure the cognitive processes that they are meant to assess. This theoretical review article aims to reflect on the specificities underlying the adaptation of verbal neuropsychological instruments, proposing a fluxogram of procedures for neuropsycholinguistic adaptation which transcends mere translation. This fluxogram was derived from the literature on psychological, neuropsychological, phonoaudiological assessments, and from the authors clinical and scientific experience in the construction and adaptation of tools for the evaluation of cognitive performance by means of verbal stimuli. It encompasses specific procedures comprising three groups of general procedures: translation, judges analysis and pilot study. The continuous contact with the researchers who are the authors of the original instrument is highlighted as representing an essential phase. The ongoing adaptation process with neuropsychometric procedures is briefly discussed.

The results suggested that the number of years of education, age and FRWH seem to influence performance in the MTL-BR, especially education. These data are important for making diagnoses of greater precision among patients suffering from brain injuries, with the aim of avoiding false positives.

ObjectiveTo describe the frequency of pragmatic and executive deficits in right brain damaged (RBD) and in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients, and to verify possible dissociations between pragmatic and executive functions in these two groups.MethodsThe sample comprised 7 cases of TBI and 7 cases of RBD. All participants were assessed by means of tasks from the Montreal Communication Evaluation Battery and executive functions tests including the Trail Making Test, Hayling Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tasks, and working memory tasks from the Brazilian Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery NEUPSILIN. Z-score was calculated and a descriptive analysis of frequency of deficits (Z< -1.5) was carried out.ResultsRBD patients presented with deficits predominantly on conversational and narrative discursive tasks, while TBI patients showed a wider spread pattern of pragmatic deficits. Regarding EF, RBD deficits included predominantly working memory and verbal initiation impairment. On the other hand, TBI individuals again exhibited a general profile of executive dysfunction, affecting mainly working memory, initiation, inhibition, planning and switching. Pragmatic and executive deficits were generally associated upon comparisons of RBD patients and TBI cases, except for two simple dissociations: two post-TBI cases showed executive deficits in the absence of pragmatic deficits.DiscussionPragmatic and executive deficits can be very frequent following TBI or vascular RBD. There seems to be an association between these abilities, indicating that although they can co-occur, a cause-consequence relationship cannot be the only hypothesis.

Over recent years, neuropsychological research has been increasingly concerned with the need to develop more ecologically valid instruments for the assessment of executive functions. The Hotel Task is one of the most widely used ecological measures of executive functioning, and provides an assessment of planning, organization, self-monitoring and cognitive flexibility.ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to adapt the Hotel Task for use in the Brazilian population.MethodsThe sample comprised 27 participants (three translators, six expert judges, seven healthy adults, ten patients with traumatic brain injuries and one hotel manager). The adaptation process consisted of five steps, which were repeated until a satisfactory version of the task was produced. The steps were as follows:(1) Translation;(2) Development of new stimuli and brainstorming among the authors;(3) Analysis by expert judges;(4) Pilot studies;(5) Assessment by an expert in business administration and hotel management.ResultsThe adapted version proved adequate and valid for the assessment of executive functions. However, further research must be conducted to obtain evidence of the reliability, as well as the construct and criterion validity, sensitivity and specificity, of the Hotel Task.ConclusionMany neurological and/or psychiatric populations may benefit from the adapted task, since it may make significant contributions to the assessment of dysexecutive syndromes and their impact on patient functioning.

Purpose: To identify language deficits in a group of elderly patients with dementia in tasks of free lexical retrieval, lexical retrieval with orthographic and semantic criteria, interpretation of metaphors and of narrative discourse, from the Montreal Communication Evaluation Battery -MAC Battery, as well as to verify the frequency of deficits. Methods: Participants were 13 patients with mild to moderate dementia, treated at the Neurology sector of the Ambulatory of Movement Disorders and Dementia of the Hospital Santa Clara of the Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre (ISCMPA). The neuropsychological assessment instrument was the MAC Battery, and the tasks were applied in the following order: free lexical retrieval, lexical retrieval based on orthographic criteria, lexical retrieval based on semantic criteria, interpretation of metaphors, and interpretation of narrative discourse. Results:The group of patients with dementia showed impaired performance in all tasks from MAC Battery that were evaluated, with significant difference. Furthermore, participants presented higher frequency of deficits, in descending order, in partial retelling of narrative discourse tasks (essential and present information), followed by the tasks of lexical retrieval with orthography and semantic criteria, and full retelling of narrative discourse. At least two patients showed deficits in some of the five tasks performed from the MAC battery. Conclusion: Language evaluation using the MAC Battery allowed the verification of language processing deficits in elderly with dementia, characterizing that this instrument is also applicable to this clinical population.

Purpose: This study investigated the influence of suggestive signs of depression (SSD) in right-hemisphere brain-damaged (RHD) patients following a stroke on their cognitive performance measured by a brief neuropsychological assessment battery. Methods: Forty-two adults with RHD after a single episode of stroke and 84 matched controls participated in this study. They were assessed by means of the Geriatric Depression Scale and by Brief Neuropsychological Assessment Battery NEUPSILIN. Results: Almost half of the patients showed SSD. The RHD group with SSD (RHD+) showed poorer performance in at least one task among all evaluated cognitive domains (concentrated attention, visual perception, working memory, episodic verbal memory and semantic memory, auditory and written language, constructional praxia and verbal fluency). Conclusion: The association of depression and RHD seems to enhance the occurrence and the severity of cognitive déficits. A brief neuropsychological assessment can be useful to identify cognitive impairment caused by this neuropsychiatric disorder.

Lexical-semantic impairments are common consequences of acquired neurological damage. However, little is known about the benefits of existing treatment methods for this type of language impairment.ObjectiveTo evaluate current research into lexical-semantic interventions for adults with dementia, TBI or stroke.MethodsThe PubMed, PsycInfo and SCOPUS databases were searched for studies related to rehabilitation, neurological conditions, communicative and lexical-semantic skills published between 2004 and 2014.ResultsTwenty-eight of the 453 abstracts found were selected for the review based on the PRISMA method. Most of the studies described treatments for anomia. Semantic tasks were the most commonly used, followed by phonological and gestural strategies. Interventions were individual and involved formal tasks, although the number, frequency and duration of sessions varied between studies.ConclusionAlthough lexical-semantic interventions lead to improvements in language abilities, they are still poorly described in the literature, and must be further investigated in terms of their efficacy, effectiveness and long-term effects.