PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

F Volkmar

Publications and source records attributed to F Volkmar.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

Though disorder in high-functioning autistic adults.

Examined thought disorder in a sample (n = 11) of high-functioning autistic young adults and older adolescents (mean IQ = 83) utilizing objective ratings from the Thought, Language and Communication Disorder Scale (TLC Scale) and projective data from the Rorschach ink blots. Results from the TLC Scale pointed to negative features of thought disorder in this sample (e.g., Poverty of Speech). Rorschach protocols revealed poor reality testing and perceptual distortions in every autistic subject, and also identified several areas of cognitive slippage (e.g., Incongruous Combinations, Fabulized Combinations, Deviant Responses, Inappropriate Logic). Comparing TLC Scale and Rorschach results to schizophrenic reference groups, autistic subjects demonstrated significantly more Poverty of Speech and less Illogically on the TLC Scale, and on the Rorschach they evidenced features of thought disorder that are encountered also in schizophrenia. Results are discussed in relation to the measures employed, and to areas of similarity and difference between autism and schizophrenia.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Social class and preschool language skill: V. Cognitive and semantic mastery of number.

This study was done to test the validity of two hypotheses of why children, and especially black children, of families of the poverty sector commonly fail in school. Sociologists deny for them either a cognitive or a linguistic deficit, and blame their failures on having to master the unfamiliar dialect of standard English while learning to read. The authors, on the other hand, blame the failures on inadequacies of early preschool experience that result in such deficits as one in semantic mastery of various elementary abstractions. In 1970-1971, 87 four-year-old students (58 black and 29 white) of Head Start and 33 of nursery school were examined with a five part test of number identification. In 1971-1972, the study was repeated with 69 four-year-olds of Head Start and 46 of the nursery school. A much smaller percentage of Head Start than of nursery school identify the numbers of blocks from 2 through 4 by either the heard or spoken mode of number identification. For numbers 5 and 6, most children of both classes fail. The evidence for a semantic deficit for number is very strong. The evidence indicates also a deficit in the span of apprehension and suggests the existence of class differences in the power of examiner demands for heard and for spoken identification to elicit the counting strategy. Evidence of sex differences in semantic mastery of number is absent, and among Head Start children, race differences lack statistical significance. These findings are highly dissonant with the contention of the sociolinguists that no cognitive or linguistic deficits exist and uncovering them can be helpful in guiding compensatory education.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1975

Social class and preschool language skill: III. Semantic mastery of position information.

The four-year-old children of Head Start (two-year-classes of 90 for 1970-71 and 67 for 1971-72) performed on a test of perceptual identification of a sample of six positions approximately as well as did four-year-olds of parents with predominantly college backgrounds. On the other hand, only 22% and 16% of those of Head Start as compared with 70% and 67% of those of the nursery school placed blocks in all six positions that they heard the examiner name, and only 12% and 9% of the former as compared with 45.5% and 44.9% of the latter gave appropriate names for all the six positions designated by the examiner. Sex differences and differences between black and white children of Head Start were negligible and not significant. Somewhat more children of both Head Start and the nursery school showed semantic mastery based on both heard and spoken identification for positions based on body-object relations (in, on, and under) than for those based on object-object relations (in fromt of, between, and in back of). The fact that the children of Head Start perform so much less well than those of the nursery school on the test semantic mastery for position information is highly dissonant with the contention that children of poverty are without either cognitive or linguistic deficit, but quite consonant with the contention that they suffer a deficit that may well and probably does result from the rearing conditions in their homes during the preschool years.

Black or African American↗