Psychology Commons^™

Neuropsychological Instruction: A Process Related Approach In Early Reading Skill Development, Karen Boyle Donahue

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Proficient and fluent reading ability for all Americans continues to be a highly prioritized, yet under achieved aspiration in current educational institutions. The acquisition of proficient reading fluency and comprehension are, undoubtedly, the most essential priorities in the academic development of school aged children, yet a discouraging number of students continue to struggle with the reading process throughout school aged years. Research has targeted key instructional areas that must be implemented in successful reading curriculum in the early childhood years. Namely, phonological awareness, phonics instruction, reading fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension are core components that must be incorporated into …

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition, Ryan Allen

Ryan A. Allen

No abstract provided.

Applying The Cultural-Linguistic Interpretive Matrix To Neuropsychological Assessment, Karol J. Mendoza

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Psychologists are administering assessments to culturally and linguistically diverse individuals with limited information regarding validity and are left with many scores to subjectively interpret. This study looked at developing a guideline when administering seven frequently administered neuropsychological assessments based on the Cultural-Linguistic Interpretive Matrix. Practitioners were asked to rate the cultural loading and linguistic demand and provide rationale for the placement. Results indicated that the Judgment of Line Orientation, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, Trail Making Test (Part A), and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test have low cultural loading and linguistic demand. The Trail Making Test (Part B) was rated as Moderate …

Neuropsychological Functioning And Attrition Rates In Outpatient Substance Dependence Treatment, Sandra M. Adams

Dissertations (1934 -)

Numerous neuropsychological factors have been associated with substance dependence, however, very few studies have evaluated the relationship of the neuropsychological functioning and attrition rates in substance dependence treatment. This study examined the relationship of neuropsychological functioning and attrition rates in 68 homeless, substance dependent men participating in outpatient treatment at the 7C's Community Counseling Clinic located in the Guesthouse of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A neuropsychological battery including the Delis Kaplan Executive Functioning System, the Conners' Continuous Performance Test II, the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) and the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading was given to all participants to evaluate neuropsychological …

Neuropsychological Assessment Of Executive Functioning And Its Association With Depressive Symptomology, Erica Jean Kalkut

Dissertations

The current study explored the construct of executive functioning and neuropsychological measurement techniques used to assess executive functioning (EF). Two current comprehensive measures of executive functioning include the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning-Adult Version (BRIEF-A) and the Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System (D-KEFS). The BRIEF-A is a self-report questionnaire that reportedly assesses behaviors associated with EF, and the D-KEFS is a battery of tests that are objectively administered by a trained examiner to directly measure different manifestations of EF ability. This study examined the relationship between gender and general intellectual ability on EF and investigated each measure's construct validity in …

Assessment Of Memory Function And Effort Using The Wechsler Memory Scale - 4th Edition, Justin B. Miller

Wayne State University Dissertations

Even the most psychometrically sound measures are sensitive to the level of effort put forth by the examinee and their intent. This is especially true for measures of memory functioning that are a common target of negative response bias and withholding effort. The aim of the present study was to develop methods for detecting these behaviors for the current edition of the Wechsler Memory Scale, 4th Edition (WMS-IV) using a community sample of healthy adults coached to simulate traumatic brain injury (TBI) and a sample of bona fide TBI survivors. The primary analytic strategy involved generation of prediction models to …

The Neuropsychological Deficits In Cannabis Users : Does Motivation Play A Role?, Rayna Beth Ericson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Prior research of the neuropsychological functioning of cannabis users has yielded mixed results, in that some studies identified differences compared to non-users, while others found no group differences at all. A meta-analysis revealed a small effect of cannabis use on the cognitive domains of learning and forgetting, while domains such as attention and processing speed yielded no effect (Grant et al., 2003). However, none of the previous studies assessed the participants' motivation to perform well on the assessment, which may have influenced the results. The present study sought to determine whether motivation is differentially demonstrated in cannabis users compared to …

Subtypes Of Memory Impairment In Patients With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, Nicole C. Mickley

Psychology Dissertations

Memory impairments are common in individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). This is understandable given that temporal lobe brain structures involved in TLE play a central role in encoding memories. It is widely accepted that individuals whose seizure focus is in the left temporal lobe (LTLE) tend to have verbal memory impairments, whereas individuals whose seizure focus is in the right temporal lobe (RTLE) tend to have visuospatial memory impairments. However, evidence of functional subdivisions within the left and right temporal lobes in both the animal and human literature suggest that more specific subtypes of memory impairment may exist in …

Neural Replay : A Possible Mechanism For Differing Rehersal Strategies Across Parity, Cassie Brooke Jones

Master's Theses

All mammalian females undergo behavioral and neurological changes during pregnancy and motherhood. Many of these changes lead to an enhanced ability to be an effective mother including: increased memory, foraging behaviors, and boldness. Here, we examined the differences in rehearsal strategies between mother and virgin rats. Stops made by rats when exploring their environment have been found to result in reverse replay activity in the hippocampus (Foster & Wilson, 2006). Reverse replay is sequential replay that occurs in the hippocampus immediately after a spatial experience; this replay/activation is in reversed order of the initial spatial episode (Foster & Wilson, 2006). …

Neuropsychological Effects Of The Traumatic Stress Response In Sexually Abused Adolescents Throughout Treatment, Kathryn R. Wilson

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Child maltreatment is a pervasive problem in our society that has long-term detrimental consequences to the development of the affected child such as future brain growth and functioning. The alteration of the biochemical stress response system in the brain that changes an individual’s ability to respond efficiently and efficaciously to future stressors is conceptualized as the traumatic stress response. The purpose of this research was to explore the effects of the traumatic stress response on sexually abused adolescents’ through a two-tiered study of neuropsychological functioning throughout treatment. It was determined that there are measurable differences in neuropsychological processing in sexually …

Neuropsychological Functioning In Social Phobia, Scott Sutterby

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to clarify the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying social phobia. Previous research has identified some specific group differences in neurocognitive functioning between individuals diagnosed with social phobia and nonpsychiatric controls, but has failed to administer a comprehensive neuropsychological battery to a social phobia patient group, resulting in a piecemeal understanding of the neurocognitive functioning of this population and an incomplete picture of the neuropsychological profile inherent to this group. The present research utilized a broader collection of neuropsychological tests to assess nine cognitive domains: Verbal Learning, Verbal Delayed Memory, Visual Immediate Memory, Visual Delayed Memory, …

Developing New Indices For The Identification Of Poor Effort, Scott A. Magnuson

ETD Archive

The purpose of this study is to gather data in order to develop new indices to aid clinicians in more accurately distinguishing between patients feigning posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and those with genuine PTSD. Participants were administered a battery of tests that included the Digit Span, Digit Symbol, Trail Making Test (TMT), and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) twice, once while performing genuinely and again while simulating PTSD. The results of this study found that trails 21-25 of part A of the TMT are a good indicator of poor effort. This measurement was found to have high sensitivity (90.7 …

Boston Naming Test Performance In Young Adults : An Investigation Of Ethnocultural And Educational Factors In Performance And Emotional Response, Julie Elizabeth Horwitz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The rapidly growing ethnic minority population and increasing focus on cultural awareness and sensitivity within psychology have led to calls for expanded research on minority and cross-cultural issues. Despite this recognized need, ethnic minority and cross-cultural research within neuropsychology continues to lag behind similar research in other areas of psychology, and those studies published have generally utilized older adult samples. In addition, although research in this area has predominantly focused on performance differences between different ethnocultural groups, recent discussion on various neuropsychology listserves has focused on the emotional salience of the noose item on the Boston Naming Test (BNT). Therefore, …

Evalutaion Of Embedded Malingering Indices In A Non-Litigating, Relief Seeking Sample: A Partial Cross-Validation Using Control, Clinical, And Derived Groups, Russell D. Pella

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers have recently noted college students fail validity measures and base rate data are needed for students meeting Slick et al.’s criteria (1999) for malingering. The association between meeting Slick Criteria and subsequent recommendations (i.e., to receive external gain) is unknown as is the diagnostic utility of embedded validity indices in this population. The authors utilized archival data from: 1) a university psychological clinic (n = 986) and 2) a university student control sample (n = 182). Measures included the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III, Wechsler Memory Scale-III, and Personality Assessment Inventory. Empirically supported embedded validity indices were utilized to retrospectively …

Neurocognitive Deficits And Functional Outcome In Bipolar Disorder, Danielle T. Bello

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Bipolar disorder affects approximately 1% of the population. It is a severe and debilitating illness, causing serious impairment of interpersonal, occupational and social functioning. The disorder is characterized by marked mood swings as well significant neurocognitive deficits. Based on work with other psychiatric and neurological disorders, neurocognitive deficits in bipolar disorder are expected to be strong predictors of functional capacity. However, few studies have evaluated the consequences of neurocognitive deficits in this disorder. Most available studies have focused on the clinical correlates of functional outcome, such as number of hospitalizations, age of disorder onset, and severity of symptoms. While useful, …

Use Of Mmpi-2 To Predict Cognitive Effort: A Hierarchically Optimal Classification Tree Analysis, Colette M. Smart, Nathaniel W. Nelson, Jerry J. Sweet, Fred B. Bryant, David Tr Berry, Robert P. Granacher, Robert L. Heilbonner

Psychology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Neuropsychologists routinely rely on response validity measures to evaluate the authenticity of test performances. However, the relationship between cognitive and psychological response validity measures is not clearly understood. It remains to be seen whether psychological test results can predict the outcome of response validity testing in clinical and civil forensic samples. The present analysis applied a unique statistical approach, classification tree methodology (Optimal Data Analysis: ODA), in a sample of 307 individuals who had completed the MMPI-2 and a variety of cognitive effort measures. One hundred ninety-eight participants were evaluated in a secondary gain context, and 109 had no identifiable …

Clinical Applications Of Fmri: An Adaptation Of A Standard Neuropsychological Battery, Alina K. F. Ichimura

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study is to advance the utility of functional brain imaging as a tool for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders by creating a statistical database of functional MRI (fMRI) brain activation patterns collected from neurologically and psychiatrically unimpaired subjects. Continuous fMRI scans have been obtained from each subject while s/he performed a variety of cognitive tasks that are commonly found in standard neurological and cognitive assessment batteries. The collected fMRI data has been processed, analyzed, and converted into database which can be used as a reference of reliable indices of normal brain activity patterns for …

The Relationship Between Early Life Stress And Microstructural Integrity Of The Corpus Callosum In A Non-Clinical Population, Robert H. Paul, Lorrie Henry, Stuart M. Grieve, Thomas J. Guilmette

Psychology Faculty Works

Background: Previous studies have examined the impact of early life stress (ELS) on the gross morphometry of brain regions, including the corpus callosum. However, studies have not examined the relationship between ELS and the microstructural integrity of the brain. Previous studies have examined the impact of early life stress (ELS) on the gross morphometry of brain regions, including the corpus callosum. However, studies have not examined the relationship between ELS and the microstructural integrity of the brain. Methods: In the present study we evaluated this relationship in healthy non-clinical participants using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and self-reported history of ELS. …

Humor Perception: The Contribution Of Cognitive Factors, Erin Baldwin

Psychology Dissertations

Most of the extant humor research has focused on humor comprehension with only a few studies investigating humor appreciation as a separate construct. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the relation between humor and underlying cognitive processes. Literature on brain injured individuals has indicated that working memory, verbal and visual-spatial reasoning, cognitive flexibility, and concept formation are related to performance on comprehension tests of humor. In this study, cognitive processes underlying both verbal and nonverbal humor were investigated in a sample of healthy young adults. There is evidence that semantic and phonological humor are associated with different neural …

Semantic, Executive, And Visuospatial Abilities In Mathematical Reasoning Of Referred College Students, Robin Morris, Mary K. Morris, Paul Cirino

Psychology Faculty Publications

Semantic retrieval (SR) and executive-procedural (EP), but not visuospatial (VS) skills, have been found to be uniquely predictive of mathematical calculation skills in a sample of clinically referred college students. This study set out to cross-validate these results in an independent sample of clinically referred college students (N = 337) as well as extend them by examination of the contributions of these cognitive domains to math reasoning skills. Results indicate that these cognitive domains were able to predict 30% of the vari- ance in calculation skills and 50% of the variance in math reasoning; however, in both cases, only the …

Evaluating The Contributions Of State Of The Art Assessment Techniques To Predicting Memory Outcome After Unilateral Anterior Temporal Lobectomy, Tara T. Lineweaver, Harold H. Morris, Richard I. Naugle, Imad M. Najm, Beate Diehl, William Bingaman

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Purpose:Although anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) is an effective treatment for many patients with medically refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), one risk associated with this procedure is postsurgical decline in memory. A substantial number of past studies examined factors that predict memory decline after surgery, but few have investigated multiple predictors simultaneously or considered measures that are currently in use.

Methods: This study compared the relative contributions made by presurgical neuropsychological test scores, MRI-based hippocampal volumetric analysis, and Wada test results to predicting memory outcome after ATL in a group of 87 patients.

Results: Logistic regression analyses indicated that noninvasive …

Top-Down Modulation By Medial Prefrontal Cortex Of Basal Forebrain Activation Of Auditory Cortex During Learning, Candice Monique Chavez

Theses Digitization Project

The experiment tested the hypothesis that the acetylcholine (ACh) release in the rat auditory cortex is greater in rats undergoing auditory classical conditioning compared to rats in a truly random control paradigm where no associative learning takes place and that this is mediated by prefrontal afferent projections influencing the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM), which in turn modulates ACh release in neocortex. Rats with bilateral ibotenic acid lesions of medial prefrontal and agranular insular cortices were tested in an auditory classical conditioning task while ACh was collected from the primary auditory cortex. It was hypothesized that lesions of these prefrontal areas …

Neuropsychological Impairment In Racial/Ethnic Minorities With Hiv Infection And Low Literacy Levels: Effects Of Education And Reading Level In Participant Characterization, Elizabeth L. Ryan, Reon Baird, Monica Rivera-Mindt, Desiree Byrd, Jennifer Monzones, Susan Morgello, The Manhattan Hiv Brain Bank

Psychology Faculty Publications

Educational attainment is an important factor in the interpretation of cognitive test scores but years of education are not necessarily synonymous with educational quality among racial/ethnic minority populations. This study investigated the comparability of educational attainment with reading level and examined whether discrepancies in education and reading level accounted for differences in neuropsychological test performance between HIV+ racial/ethnic minority and nonminority participants. Study participants (N = 200) were derived from the Manhattan HIV Brain Bank (MHBB) where 50% of the cohort had ≤8th grade reading level but only 5% had ≤8 years of education. Significantly lower reading ability and education …

Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Involvement In The Acquisition Of Differential Reinforcement Of Low Rate Responding Tasks In Rats, Sean Ryan Corley

Theses Digitization Project

It was hypothesized that 192 IgG-saporin lesions of the basal forebrain cholinergic system (BFCS) would disrupt differential reinforcement of low rate (DRL) learning in an uncued DRL task, but would not impair acquisition and performance in the cued version of the task. Results suggest that BFCS lesions impair vigilance to the external cues despite continued practice in the cued DRL, whereas continuous attention to internally produced cues recovers with extended practice in the uncued DRL.

Brain Modules And Their Multiple Ways Of Knowing: Implications For The Unity Of The Person, Paul Moes

Pro Rege

This paper was prepared for the Ways of Knowing in Concert conference held at Dordt College, August 12-15, 1998.

Effects Of Neurofeedback Training On Objective And Subjective Measures Of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder In Children, Carolyn Mary Nott Mccollum

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

The Roles Of Age And Frontal Lobe Damage In Prospective Memory, Sara J. Russell '97

Honors Projects

Recent evidence suggests that the frontal lobe plays an intimate role in the meditation of prospective memory (Shallice & Burgess, 1991; Cockburn, 1995). However, there is a paucity of studies linking damage to the frontal lobe to reduced efficacy of prospective memory. The present study attempts to examine three types of participants who differ in frontal lobe functioning and their relative levels of successful prospective memory. The participants consist of younger adults, older adults (55 and over) and individuals with frontal lobe damage determined by a CAT scan or MRI. All three groups will be given a computer-based general knowledge …