No abstract

Although verbal and numerical abilities have a well-established interaction, the impact of phonological processing on numeric abilities remains elusive. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of phonemic awareness in number processing and to explore its association with other functions such as working memory and magnitude processing. One hundred seventy-two children in 2nd grade to 4th grade were evaluated in terms of their intelligence, number transcoding, phonemic awareness, verbal and visuospatial working memory and number sense (non-symbolic magnitude comparison) performance. All of the children had normal intelligence. Among these measurements of magnitude processing, working memory and phonemic awareness, only the last was retained in regression and path models predicting transcoding ability. Phonemic awareness mediated the influence of verbal working memory on number transcoding. The evidence suggests that phonemic awareness significantly affects number transcoding. Such an association is robust and should be considered in cognitive models of both dyslexia and dyscalculia.

Number transcoding (e.g., writing 29 when hearing "twenty-nine") is one of the most basic numerical abilities required in daily life and is paramount for mathematics achievement. The aim of this study is to investigate psychometric properties of an Arabic number-writing task and its capacity to identify children with mathematics difficulties. We assessed 786 children (55% girls) from first to fourth grades, who were classified as children with mathematics difficulties (n = 103) or controls (n = 683). Although error rates were low, the task presented adequate internal consistency (0.91). Analyses revealed effective diagnostic accuracy in first and second school grades (specificity equals to 0.67 and 0.76 respectively, and sensitivity equals to 0.70 and 0.88 respectively). Moreover, items tapping the understanding of place-value syntax were the most sensitive to mathematics achievement. Overall, we propose that number transcoding is a useful tool for the assessment of mathematics abilities in early elementary school.

Cognitive impairment is frequent in cerebral palsy (CP) and there is a lack of multiprofessional screening instruments.OBJECTIVE:The aim of this study was to investigate the utility of the Mini-Mental State Examination for Children (MMC), an adapted version of the Mini-Mental State Examination, in screening for cognitive impairments in children with CP.METHODS:We assessed 397 Brazilian children, 310 with typical development and 87 with CP (hemiplegic and quadriplegic forms), aged 5-16 years. Association between the MMC and general intelligence was assessed by the Colored Progressive Matrices instrument.RESULTS:Psychometric indexes for the MMC were adequate. ROC analyses revealed effective diagnostic accuracy in all ages assessed. Cut-off values are reported. Major difficulties on the MMC were observed in children with CP, particularly individuals with the quadriplegic form. Moreover, the MMC showed moderate correlation with the intelligence test, and was reliable in discriminating, among clinical cases, those with poorer cognitive abilities.CONCLUSION:The MMC could be useful as a multiprofessional screening instrument for cognitive impairment in children with hemiplegic CP. Results of the MMC in quadriplegic CP children should be interpreted with caution. Diagnosis should be confirmed by further psychological testing.

Clinical observations indicate that many children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy (HCP) exhibit a lack of use or disregard of the affected upper limb. The aim of the present study was to develop, adapt, and verify the psychometric properties of a neuropsychological battery to assess body perception and representation disturbances in children with HCP. Three groups of children participated in this study, who took part in different phases of the validation process: one group of typically developing children (TD; n = 30; aged 4-6 years) and two groups of HCP children (HCP1: n = 12, aged 5-10 years; HCP2: n = 49, aged 5-13 years). Because no cognitive-neuropsychological model of body representation has been specifically developed for children, the tasks were designed based on a cognitive-neuropsychological model developed for adults. The chosen model comprises three levels of body representation: body schema, body structural description, and body image. The following steps were adopted in developing the instrument: development and choice of the tasks, selection and preparation of stimuli, adequacy and improvement of the instrument, semantic analysis of items, internal consistency, and feasibility and acceptability of application for TD and HCP children. The final set of tasks and items was chosen to balance the levels of difficulty and internal consistency. We concluded that the final battery was adequate and can be used to assess body representation disturbances in children with HCP.