Behavioral Dyscontrol Scale Deficits Among Traumatic Brain Injury Patients, Part II: Comparison to Other Measures of Executive Functioning

Abstract

The clinical utility of the Behavioral Dyscontrol Scale (BDS) was compared to that of verbal fluency, the Trail Making Test, and the Stroop Color-Word Test, as well as measures of processing speed/cognitive efficiency and manual dexterity. The ability of these measures to classify 49 TBI patients into frontal versus nonfrontal and mild to moderate versus severe groups was examined. The results showed that the Fluid Intelligence Factor of the BDS improved classifications above and beyond traditional executive measures, but was particularly successful at classifying patients who sustained mild injuries. In contrast, traditional executive instruments were successful at lesion location classifications only among the patients with severe injuries. Severity classifications were successful both for traditional measures of processing speed/cognitive efficiency and for the Motor Programming Factor of the BDS, but only among patients with nonfrontal injuries. These results demonstrate that severity of injury may be an important moderator of tests' sensitivity to frontal lobe involvement.

Behavioral Dyscontrol Scale-Electronic Version: First Examination of Reliability, Validity, and Incremental Utility

“…Participants were asked to draw a line connecting circles containing numbers from 1 to 25. This task is frequently used as a measure of general cognitive efficiency and processing speed (e.g., Suchy et al, 2003). The amount of time needed for completion, measured in seconds, was used as a variable in the analyses.…”

“…The first entails reading a list of color names and the second involves identifying the color of a series of different colored X's. These tasks are frequently used as a general measure of cognitive efficiency and processing speed (e.g., Suchy et al, 2003). The total number of words correctly generated in each of the 45-second trials were used as variables in the analyses.…”

The primary cognitive deficit among males with fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a dysexecutive syndrome

“…Based on the work of Luria (1966Luria ( , 1980 and Fuster (1997Fuster ( , 2000, the BDS was developed to measure the capacity to use intentions to guide the performance of goal-directed, purposeful activity. The BDS has been used to assess ECF in a number of different populations (e.g., Belanger et al, 2004;Grigsby et al, 2000Grigsby et al, , 2002aSuchy, Blint, & Osmon, 1997;Suchy, Leahy, Sweet, & Lam, 2003), and the instrument has consistently demonstrated deficits among persons who carry the fragile X premutation and full mutation (e.g., Grigsby et al, 2006aGrigsby et al, ,b, 2007aHagerman et al, 2001;Loesch et al, 2003;Loesch et al, 2005). In this study, the 27-point version of the BDS was used.…”

Headaches among Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom veterans with mild traumatic brain injury associated with exposures to explosions

“…Intelligence was assessed with the fourth edition of the Wide Range Achievement Test [28] and the information subtest of the third edition of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III) [29]. Attention and information tracking were assessed with the Stroop Color Name and Color Word Tests [30][31] and the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test [32][33]. Short-term and working memory were evaluated with the Auditory Consonant Trigram Test [34], the letter-number sequencing subtest of the WAIS-III, and the Trail Making Test parts A and B [35][36][37].…”