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Biomedical subjects

J P Das

Publications and source records attributed to J P Das.

18 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Measurement of attention deficit: correspondence between rating scales and tests of sustained and selective attention.

The correspondence between teachers' ratings of students' attention and measures of sustained and selective attention was examined. Subjects were 26 adolescents who were selected on the basis of ratings from among 100 students with educable mental retardation (EMR). The top 13 and the bottom 13 subjects in the ratings were designated as the good and the poor attenders. A 10-minute auditory vigilance test and an adapted version of Posner's physical and name identity task were given to the good and poor attenders. Results showed that whereas the vigilance task did not discriminate between the two groups, the Posner's task did. The former group was faster than the latter in both physical- and name-matching, suggesting that groups divided in attention ratings by teachers could be differentiated by increasing the strength of distractors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Some developmental trends in children's information-processing strategies.

The problem-solving strategies of 120 children from two age levels were compared by means of exploratory factor analyses. Essentially, these results replicated the factor structures of earlier studies based on the Das-Luria model. Disparities in factor loadings on some tasks were interpreted as suggestive of developmental differences in children's coding strategies which are compatible with Bruner's description of the course of cognitive growth.

Child↗
PubMed1990

Apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a clinical and noninvasive study of 11 cases.

Eleven patients of apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were studied by clinical, electrocardiography, systolic and diastolic time intervals, echocardiographic and pulsed Doppler methods. The patients were between 20-55 years of age. There were 10 males and 1 female. Chest discomfort was the predominant symptom. ECG revealed giant T wave inversion in precordial leads in six cases, LAHB and LBBB in 2 cases and abnormal Q waves in 2 cases. Systolic function was normal. However indices of diastolic function (IVRT, RF wave, a/H, LAEI) were abnormal. There was marked increase in the thickness of left ventricle towards the appex (septum 30.4 +/- 3 mm, LVPW 23.2 +/- 7 mm with cavity obliteration). SAM of AML was not observed. Doppler flow studies across aortic and mitral valves were normal.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Attention checklist: a rating scale for mildly mentally handicapped adolescents.

A check list for attentional deficits without reference to hyperactive behavior observed in the classroom was constructed, and teachers' ratings were factor analyzed. The check-list rating was compared to a widely used rating scale for attention deficit-hyperactive disorder (AD-HD), the Abbreviated Conners Rating Scale. Both scales were given to 15 teachers to rate 100 mildly mentally handicapped adolescent students. Analysis showed that 33% of the mentally handicapped students were rated above 1.5 on the Conners Scale, which is the cut-off for hyperactivity. This is much higher than the prevalence of hyperactivity in regular classrooms. The two sets of ratings correlated strongly (.84). Check-list items were grouped under one factor explaining 70.7% of variance and so are recommended for use in discriminating attentional deficit in mentally handicapped as well as in regular class students. The high correlation with ratings on the Conners Scale suggests that AD-HD is a unitary syndrome with attention being most problematic for children labeled hyperactive.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Neurofibromatosis and psychological processes.

A minimal degree of mental handicap is commonly seen in neurofibromatosis (NF). Despite the prevalence, little is known about the nature of the mental handicap. In this study, schoolchildren with NF and unaffected siblings were studied clinically and given a series of psychological tests. The psychological battery consisted of standardized tests of intelligence and cognitive processing, laboratory tests of cognitive processing, and personality and mood questionnaires. Clinical data included a medical and family history, results of physical, audiological, and ophthalmological examinations, EEG, tissue biopsy when necessary, and (in NF individuals) a CT scan. Results demonstrate slightly deficient cognitive processing in the NF individuals, particularly in terms of visual-spatial integration. These deficits are related to age-independent severity with more severely affected individuals exhibiting more severe deficits. The findings are discussed in terms of their diagnostic and prescriptive implications.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Specific heart muscle disease in diabetes mellitus--a functional structural correlation.

We report the morphology of diabetic myocardium obtained by endomyocardial biopsy in 16 diabetics. The material was divided into three groups. The first comprised six patients with unexplained cardiomegaly and obscure congestive cardiac failure. The second group, also of six patients, had no cardiac signs and symptoms but exhibited abnormal systolic time intervals. The third group, of 4 patients, was without any cardiac symptoms or signs and had normal systolic time intervals. The vascular and extravascular changes observed were more pronounced in the symptomatic group, intermediate in the asymptomatic patients with abnormal intervals and least in those without symptoms and normal intervals. This provides supporting evidence for the existence of a specific primary myocardial disease in diabetes with good functional structural correlation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Auditory and visual memory span: cognitive processing by TMR individuals with Down syndrome or other etiologies.

Auditory and visual memory span for letters and component memory processes of TMR young adults with Down syndrome or other etiologies was examined. Component processes of the span task included long-term memory access for labels for the stimuli and memory for the order in which the stimuli were presented. Results indicated that although all subjects had relatively poor auditory memory spans, the Down syndrome group was especially poor at long-term memory access for stimulus identification and at short-term storage and processing of auditory information. Lexical storage and retrieval deficiencies were isolated, accounting for the verbal difficulties experienced by the individuals with Down syndrome, leading to their deficiency in processing lexical information.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Development of a measure of extraversion and neuroticism for mentally retarded persons.

A conventional British questionnaire for measuring extraversion and neuroticism of EMR individuals was reexamined for its application to adolescents in a special school for EMR students in Edmonton, Canada. The items were revised on the basis of principal axes factor analysis and alpha reliabilities. Using this revised scale, we found that EMR female students had significantly higher neuroticism scores than did EMR male students, whereas their extraversion scores were comparable. Likewise, mental age variations appeared to be related to neuroticism but not to extraversion. Subsequent studies were suggested for developing a video form to test these two basic personality traits so that TMR persons may be assessed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Aspects of digit-span performance: naming time and order memory.

Individual differences in digit span, as in any memory span task, can be attributed to item-identification speed (naming time) and memory for order. The relationship between the two was examined in an experiment with 40 EMR and 40 nonretarded children. Order memory and digit span had significant correlations for both groups. Naming time was found to correlate with span only for EMR subjects; span was a linear function of the number of digits named in 2.89 seconds. For nonretarded subjects no relationship between the two was observed. The results for EMR subjects, although interpretable in terms of limited capacity in working memory, were discussed in the context of the substantial correlation between order memory and naming time.

Child↗
PubMed1978

Heart rate, recall, and reaction-time measures of levels of processing.

A problem of circularity emerges in any attempt to index depth by retention alone. In the present study, reaction time (RT), and heart-rate response were used to index the three qualitatively distinct levels of physical, phonemic, and semantic processing. An additional objective was to distinguish between the three levels under incidental vs intentional learning conditions. Subjects were 46 male undergraduates who were given 30 trials. A trial consisted of the presentation of an orienting question and an imperative word-stimulus separated by a 6-sec. interval. There were three types of questions in order to induce processing to one of the three target levels. The results indicated that recall as well as heart-rate acceleration distinguished between two (physical vs phonemic and semantic) rather than three levels of processing in the incidental condition. Heart-rate change differentiated between incidental and intentional, the intentional condition showing a smaller change. Semantic and phonemic RTs were faster than physical RT, but there were no differences between semantic and phonemic RTs. Intentional recall was superior to incidental recall. It is suggested that psychophysiological indices can provide independent evidence for 'levels of processing.'

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

Academic performance and cognitive processes in EMR children.

The present study investigated the extent to which simultaneous and successive processing were related both to academic achievement and Verbal and Performance IQs in EMR adolescents. Simultaneous processing involves the integration of individual stimuli into quasi-spatial groups, whereas successive processing integrates individual stimuli into temporally organized successive series. Simultaneous processing was significantly related to WRAT arithmetic and WISC Performance IQ, whereas successive processing was involved in WRAT spelling and WRAT oral reading and negatively related to WISC Performance IQ. Silent reading and WISC Verbal IQ were related to neither processing strategy. These findings were considered in the broader context of the processing demands underlying decoding and comprehension skills in different subject populations.

Achievement↗
PubMed1977

Changes in GSR and heart rate during listening to tones, words, and nonsense syllables.

In order to compare the habituation of orienting responses to tones, words, and nonsense syllables, GSR and heart rate were recorded following mass (habituation) and discrete presentations of the stimuli. Each of 36 10-yr.-old boys and 36 male undergraduates listened to two presentations of a tone (word and nonsense syllable in a random order) under discrete condition in contrast to 40 presentations under mass condition. Immediately following 2 or 40 presentations, habituation of orienting response was measured while five instances of the stimulus were slowly presented. Results indicated (i) habituation of GSR but not of heart rate, (ii) nonsense syllables evoked the strongest GSRs and heart-rate changes among the three stimuli, and (iii) children showed stronger reactions than the adults in some measure of GSR and heart rate. These results were discussed in terms of the theory of Sokolov.

Acoustic Stimulation↗