The study shows that PC for people with asthma has a positive impact on humanistic and, to some extent, on clinical outcomes. To determine potential economic benefits, future research should focus on patients with more severe asthma.

Zusammenfassung. Der Hamburg-Wechsler-Intelligenztest für Kinder in vierter Auflage (HAWIK-IV) ist eine in Anwendung und Auswertung recht aufwendige Testbatterie, so dass sich für viele Anwender die Frage nach Kurzformen stellt. Unter Verwendung des deutschen Normierungsdatensatzes (N = 1650) werden für alle 1022 möglichen non-trivialen Untertestkombinationen Schätzmodelle für den Gesamt-IQ ermittelt. Anschließend wird in verschiedenen Anwendungsszenarien (zum Beispiel Abbruch der regulären Untertestfolge versus Verkürzung a priori) ein Ausgleich von statistischer, testtheoretischer und testpraktischer Perspektive gesucht, um dem Anwender eine sinnvolle Auswahl an Verkürzungsoptionen in Form praktikabler Schätzgleichungen zur Verfügung zu stellen. Im dritten Schritt werden diese Modelle jeweils durch eine 10-fache Kreuzvalidierung bewertet. Für vierzehn ausgewählte Modelle werden vollständige Parametersätze dargestellt. Der Beitrag erörtert zudem das Für und Wider einer Testverkürzung als primär diagnostische und nicht allein statistische Problemstellung.

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This study investigates cognitive sex differences in child and adolescent intelligence as measured by the WISC-IV (German edition; Petermann & Petermann, 2007 ). It was hypothesized that there would be no differences attributable to sex in Full Scale IQ (FSIQ), but on various composite score levels. Sex effects were expected to be more pronounced during/after puberty than before. Method: The standardization sample of the German WISC-IV (N = 1650) was used to assess and evaluate sex differences in test performance across defined age groups (6–9, 10–12, and 13–16 years). Results: At all ages, there were no gender effects in the Full-Scale IQ, but gender effects favoring boys in the Verbal Comprehension Index (t = 3.94, p < .001, d = .19) and Perceptual Reasoning Index (t = 2.69, p = .007, d = .13). In the Processing Speed Index, girls scored higher than boys (t = 6.75, p < .001, d = .33). No significant sex-by-age interaction effect was found using ANOVA, but various 1-df contrasts showed substantial sex differences at specific ages. Conclusions: Results are discussed in the context of the specific constructs measured by the WISC-IV, taking into account recent findings in neurobiological and developmental psychology.

Introduction: Maternal nicotine use during pregnancy has a negative impact on the child. Numerous studies have demonstrated an association between smoking during pregnancy and psychological deficits. This study looks at deficits in executive functioning in preschool-aged children. Methods: The executive functioning of preschool children was assessed by asking parents to complete the parental form of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions-Preschool Version (BRIEF-P, German version). The results for preschool children whose mothers had smoked during pregnancy (n = 71) were compared with those of a control group. In a subsample, parental assessments of children of smokers (n = 42) and non-smokers (n = 27) were complemented by the teacher form of the BRIEF-P (German version), which allowed inter-rater agreement (parents vs. preschool teachers) to be assessed. Results: An increased incidence of executive function deficits was noted in the children of smokers, based on parental assessment. Clinically relevant deficits were particularly evident with regard to inhibition, with inhibitory deficits in children of smokers found to be almost four times higher than in the control group (p = 0.006). Inhibitory deficits were reported both by parents and by preschool teachers. Discussion: The increased percentage of executive function deficits described here, particularly the increased inhibitory deficits, confirms the current state of research on smoking during pregnancy. Poor inhibition or impulse control is a key symptom of ADHD.