Biomedical subjects

Judith R O'Jile

Publications and source records attributed to Judith R O'Jile.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Information processing following mild head injury.

Research has shown that individuals who have sustained mild head injury demonstrate a slowed speed of processing that is exacerbated by fatigue/stress. We administered the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) at the beginning and at the end of a 4-h experimental protocol to determine whether fatigue or a stressor would result in poorer scores for individuals who had previously sustained mild head injury. A significant improvement was found between the first and second administration for both head-injured and control subjects, but difference scores revealed a significant between-groups difference for the first of the four trials, with the head-injured participants performing worse than controls. Apparently, head-injured participants were slower to develop, as well as slower to regain, a means of efficiently processing rapidly presented information.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Complex partial seizure symptom endorsement in individuals with a history of head injury.

Research has shown that subjects at risk for cerebral dysfunction endorse more complex partial seizure symptoms than low risk controls. It has been suggested that seizure activity be regarded as occurring on a continuum of neurobehavioral dysfunction, rather than as a discrete syndrome. The present study assessed seizure symptom endorsement in individuals reporting a positive history of head injury. There were three groups of college student participants: head injury with loss of consciousness (LOC; n=31); head injury followed by a dazed period or alteration of consciousness (AOC; n=36); non-injured controls (NHI; n=60). In general, the LOC group reported greater frequency of symptomatology and a greater number of clinically significant symptoms (above the 90th percentile) than the NHI group, and a greater number of clinically significant symptoms than the AOC group. The AOC group did not differ from the NHI group on either variable. These results lend credence to the concept of a continuum representing an epilepsy spectrum disorder.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

The relation of self-report of mood and anxiety to CVLT-C, CVLT, and CVLT-2 in a psychiatric sample.

The relation between mood and cognitive status has been examined extensively over the years suggesting a significant impact of mood and potentially anxiety on memory. This relation is of particular interest to practitioners conducting evaluations in settings that regularly treat individuals diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. With this in mind, the present study sought to evaluate the impact of self-report of depression and anxiety on the California Verbal Learning Test-children's version (CVLT-C), the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), and the California Verbal Learning Test-2nd edition (CVLT-2) in a mixed psychiatric sample. Records from 107 patients aged 6-78 evaluated in an outpatient psychiatry unit were examined. Results indicated minimal predictive utility was provided from self-report symptoms of anxiety or depression on CVLT-C, CVLT, or CVLT-2: Trial 1, Trial 5, total score, Short Delay Free Recall, Short Delay Cued Recall, long delay free recall, or long delay cued recall performance above the variance predicted by age, gender, and Full Scale IQ. Additional variance predicted by depression as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Child Depression Inventory (CDI) or anxiety as measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was less than 3.0% over that accounted for by the covariates for the great majority of measurements from the various CVLT versions. Exceptions included the CDI that tended to account for approximately 5.0% of the variance on all of the CVLT-C measures and the STAI that accounted for approximately 5.0-10.0% additional variance on the short and long delay measures of the CVLT-2. The present results suggest that performance on the various forms of the CVLT are minimally predicted by self-reported depression and anxiety in a psychiatric setting.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

The California Verbal Learning Test-Children's Version: relation to factor indices of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition.

The California Verbal Learning Test-Children's Version (CVLT-C) provides clinicians with a method of assessing various aspects of children's verbal memory and has been found to be sensitive to memory deficits resulting from a variety of neurological conditions. Intuitively, the CVLT-C would be expected to be highly related to a child's verbal cognitive abilities; however, with only a few exceptions, the relationship of this test to various domains of cognitive function has not been broadly studied empirically. To examine this issue, we evaluated the amount of unique variance in CVLT-C scores that could be predicted by the Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Organization, Freedom from Distractibility, and Processing Speed indices of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Edition (WISC-III) beyond that accounted for by age and gender in a sample of 62 children referred to an outpatient psychiatry clinic for neuropsychological evaluation. While the Processing Speed Index predicted a significant amount of variance for both short and long delay free and cued recall, the Verbal Comprehension Index was a poor predictor of CVLT-C performance on all outcome variables, accounting for only 1.5 to 4.5% additional variance above age and gender. These findings indicate that while the CVLT-C may be relatively independent of influences of verbal intelligence and abstract verbal reasoning, general speed and efficiency of processing play an important role in successful encoding for later retrieval on the CVLT-C.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Discrepancies between self-reported years of education and estimated reading level: potential implications for neuropsychologists.

Current standard neuropsychology practice is to examine normative sample performance for systematic influences of demographic variables and then to correct for these influences. The most commonly examined demographic variables are age, gender, and years of education, and current normative databases frequently take these into consideration. However, there is a literature to suggest that self-reported years of educational attainment may not be an accurate reflection of some patients' level of performance and may actually overpredict grade estimates based on reading level. Many of these studies have focused on older samples of individuals who were free of neurological or psychiatric symptoms. In this study, a younger sample (average age = 44.5) of African American (N = 62) and Caucasian (N = 133) patients referred to an outpatient psychiatry unit was examined. Results suggest that the prior findings of a significant discrepancy between self-reported years of education and Wide Range Achievement Test-3rd Edition Reading Recognition performance hold for a younger sample with a broad range of clinical diagnoses. How these findings might influence clinical practice are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Reporting of demographic variables in neuropsychological research: trends in the current literature.

Demographic variables have long been known to exert effects on psychological testing. Variables such as age, education, and gender have been thoroughly researched, and their effects are well documented. Other demographic variables such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, native language, and acculturation are less well researched within the field of neuropsychology. Research that has been produced to date has demonstrated that each of these variables does indeed wield some effect on neuropsychological test performance. Therefore, it is important that these variables be reported in the literature so that neuropsychologists are able to generalize research findings to their everyday practice with patients from diverse backgrounds. With this in mind, the current study was undertaken in order to determine the frequency with which a range of demographic variables are being reported in current neuropsychological research journals. Publications from 1995 to 2000 in five of the most frequently utilized neuropsychology journals were reviewed. Results showed that while age, education, and gender are frequently reported, information on race, ethnicity, native language, and acculturation are rarely, if ever, reported. These results show that even though great strides have been taken in the burgeoning field of cross-cultural neuropsychology, current trends need to be changed in order for progress to continue.

Demography↗

PubMed2004

Sensation seeking and risk behaviors in young adults with and without a history of head injury.

Research has demonstrated a relation between sensation seeking and risky behavior as well as an association between risky behavior and the occurrence of head injury. This study assessed sensation seeking in young adults with and without a history of head injury by administration of the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS), the Driver Risk Index (DRI), and the MacAndrews Scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). There was a significant difference between the groups for the Thrill and Adventure Seeking Subscale of the SSS and the MacAndrews Scale of the MMPI, with head-injured participants scoring higher. Gender differences were seen in both groups for subscales of the SSS, with men scoring higher. Significant correlations were found for head-injured participants between the DRI and the Boredom Susceptiblity Subscale of the SSS, suggesting that as knowledge of risk increased for these participants, so did their preferences for risky behaviors. However, non-head-injured participants indicated a lower interest in risky behaviors as their knowledge of risk increased.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Attenuating demographic influences on verbal fluency and animal naming in a psychiatric sample.

Measures of verbal fluency are common additions to neuropsychological evaluations. Due to the literature demonstrating the impact of demographic variables on these measures, corrective norms have recently been published. However, these norms have yet to be cross-validated. This study sought to cross-validate these norms in a racially diverse psychiatric sample. In addition, this study sought to evaluate the utility of Wide Range Achievement Test, 3rd Edition (WRAT3) Reading Recognition and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III) Vocabulary in attenuating the effect of demographic variables on these measures of verbal fluency. Results supported the utility of Gladsjo et al.'s (1999) norms. Further analysis revealed that both WRAT3 Reading Recognition and WAIS-III Vocabulary scores also attenuated the impact of demographic variables on these measures and accounted for more of the variance. Together, these results suggest that, although the demographically corrected norms adequately attenuate the impact of these variables, norms corrected for WRAT3 Reading Recognition or WAIS-III Vocabulary may account for more of the variance and therefore might be more appropriate and universally applicable.

Adolescent↗