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Biomedical subjects

W Spaulding

Publications and source records attributed to W Spaulding.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Insight in schizophrenia: its relationship to measures of executive functions.

Lack of awareness of specific symptoms among persons with schizophrenia has not been adequately studied in the context of neuropsychological function. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether poor insight as measured by the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder is empirically related to performance measures having a known association with executive functions in a group of individuals with chronic schizophrenia. The results showed that unawareness and misattribution of negative symptoms are significantly associated with deficits in some aspects of executive functioning even after a test of general intelligence had been partialed from the analyses. We conclude that unawareness of negative symptoms is associated with executive functioning in individuals with chronic schizophrenia. Unawareness of other symptoms (i.e., positive symptoms) may reflect dysfunction in other types of neuropsychological processes, or it may reflect motivation to deceive oneself or others.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Individual cognitive-behavior therapy in the treatment of hallucinations and delusions: a review.

The limitations of biochemical treatments in reducing the severity of hallucinations and delusions has led to an increased interest in the investigation of psychological treatments for these symptoms. These investigations have spanned the last 4 decades and have covered a range of psychological approaches from psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy to behavioral approaches. More recently, findings that some psychotherapies are not effective treatments for psychosis and that cognitive-behavior therapy can be an effective treatment for neurotic disorders have led to increasing interest in the investigation of the effectiveness of cognitive-behavior therapy for psychosis. This review describes and evaluates the research on the cognitive-behavioral treatment of hallucinations and delusions and describes the cognitive models from which the treatments have developed. The conclusion is that, on the whole, the literature provides fairly strong evidence for the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral approaches in the management of chronic psychotic disorders and associated symptoms, although there are a number of areas where further development is necessary.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1998

Use of peer ratings to assess sociability among inpatients with severe psychiatric disorders.

OBJECTIVE: A critical component of inpatient treatment for persons with severe psychiatric disorders is an evaluation of their social impairments. Most existing methods for such evaluations involve staff input and can be both time-consuming and expensive. This paper reports on the use of peer ratings as a method for assessing sociability, an aspect of social functioning in this clinical population. METHODS: Thirty-two inpatients with severe psychiatric disorders who had spent an average of 18 months on an inpatient unit in a state facility rated the popularity of their inpatient peers by completing a 7-point scale measuring how much they enjoyed visiting with each patient. The reliability of peer ratings and their association with staff ratings of patients' behavior on the unit were assessed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The peer ratings had excellent test-retest reliability and were highly associated with staff members' independent evaluations of patients' behavior. Peer ratings appear to have promise as a measure of social functioning among inpatients with severe psychiatric disorders.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Cognition and social functioning in schizophrenia.

This article reviews three studies investigating the relationship between information processing and social functioning in schizophrenia. The most consistent finding is the association between vigilance performance on a hybrid continuous performance/span of apprehension task and various indices of social functioning (e.g., ward behavior). However, the nature of the information processing-social functioning relationships is mutable and appears dependent on a number of factors (e.g., cross-sectional versus longitudinal designs). This article concludes with a discussion of treatment implications and future research directions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

The relationship of social cognition to ward behavior in chronic schizophrenia.

The relationship between social cognition (i.e., cognition for social stimuli) and ward behavior among individuals with chronic schizophrenia was investigated. Twenty-seven inpatients completed a battery of cognitive and social-cognitive tasks and were rated by staff on various indices of ward behavior. Overall, there was a relationship between the measures of social cognition and behavior on the ward. Social cognition contributed unique variance beyond cognition to maladaptive behavior on the ward (i.e., irritability). Implications for assessment and future research are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Information processing, social skill, and gender in schizophrenia.

The relationships among information processing, social skill, and gender in individuals with chronic schizophrenia were investigated. Although there were no gender differences in information processing, social skill, or negative symptoms, performance on information-processing tasks was related to various indices of social skill (e.g., paralinguistic skill) for female, but not male, inpatients. This pattern of results remained after statistical controls were applied for age, illness chronicity, and positive symptoms.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Information processing and social competence in chronic schizophrenia.

The relationship between social competence and information processing among individuals with chronic schizophrenia was investigated. Thirty-eight inpatients participated in a role play test of social competence and completed a battery of information-processing tasks. Information processing was found to be significantly related to social competence, even after controlling for patient demographics, chronicity, and symptomatology. Higher global social competence was related to more efficient early information processing on a continuous performance/span of apprehension task. Composite indices of specific social competence (i.e., paralinguistic and nonverbal skills) were related to other aspects of information processing (e.g., reaction time). Implications for behavioral assessment and cognitive rehabilitation are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Social anxiety in schizophrenia.

The relationship between social anxiety and positive and negative symptomatology in schizophrenia was investigated. Thirty eight inpatients with schizophrenia completed a battery of self-report measures of anxiety, a modified Stroop task, and an unstructured role play. Positive symptoms were related to fear in a number of self-report domains (i.e., social and agoraphobic). Negative symptoms were related to global observational ratings of anxiety during the role play as well as specific behaviors associated with self-reported social anxiety (i.e., speech rate and fluency). Positive symptoms generally were not associated with role play ratings. Thus, specific behaviors related to social anxiety appear to be associated with negative symptoms, while self-report is associated with positive symptoms. Problems in the assessment of social anxiety in individuals with schizophrenia and implications of these findings for social skills training in this population are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Cognitive abnormalities in schizophrenic patients and schizotypal college students.

Twenty schizotypal college students, identified by the MMPI-168, were compared with 127 institutionalized or postinstitutional psychiatric patients with chronic schizophrenia, 140 normal control subjects, and 19 students with nonschizotypal MMPI elevations. The comparison measures were indices of cognition derived from COGLAB, a multiparadigmatic cognitive test battery. COGLAB includes measures of preattentional, attentional, conceptual, and psychomotor performance. As expected, the patients were deficient on all but one of the measures. The nonschizotypic elevation group was not different from the normal control group. Schizotypal subjects were found to have deficits in three areas of information processing: preattentional processing, response biasing, and concept attainment and manipulation. However, their performance was just as good as and less variable than that of normal subjects on psychomotor and attentional tasks. The results do not support the hypothesis that schizotypy is characterized by pervasive cognitive deficits which are simply less severe than those of other psychiatric groups. Rather, there are discrete deficits in specific areas and possibly compensatory abnormalities associated with primary deficits. The results are further discussed with regard to the hypothesis that schizotypy shares a common neurophysiological and/or developmental substrate with more severe psychiatric disorders.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1984

Clinical and etiological implications of a specific attention deficit in schizophrenia.

Forty-seven psychiatric inpatients, including 26 schizophrenics and 21 nonschizophrenics, were measured on four clinical factors (chronicity, premorbid adjustment, reported symptomatology, and diagnosis) and four indices of reaction time (RT) performance (mean RT, RT variance, and redundancy-associated deficit [RAD] at 3- and 7-second preparatory intervals [PIs] ). Each clinical factor was analyzed in turn as a dependent variable in multiple regression analyses. The RT indices comprised the predictor set in each multiple regression. RAD at 7-second PI is related to chronicity for psychiatric patients in general and for schizophrenic patients in particular. Diagnosis and premorbid adjustment are related primarily to mean RT. No evidence was found that RAD is an artifact of high intertrial variance or long RT latencies, but intertrial variance does play a role in moderating the implications of RAD. The different correlations within schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic groups suggest a) that the Elgin Scale has a different meaning when used with schizophrenics than with nonschizophrenics, and b) that it is not useful to treat schizophrenic and nonschizophrenic disorders on the same continuum. The results in general suggest that the vulnerability factor thought to be associated with RAD militates for greater chronicity across different types of patients. The RAD effect within schizophrenics is nevertheless relatively greater than within other patients.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

The relationships of some information-processing factors to severely disturbed behavior.

Thirty-five psychiatric inpatients with heterogeneous diagnoses were given four tasks: Mueller-Lyer Illusion, Wisconsin Card Sorting Text, Object Sorting, and Rokeach dogmatism questionnaire. Tasks were chosen to represent a broad sampling of paradigms, spanning levels of information processing, involving perceptual, conceptual and attitudinal processes. Subjects' behavior was assessed by the Inpatient Multidimensional Psychiatric Scale (IMPS). Each IMPS scale was analyzed in turn as a function of perceptual/cognitive variables, in multiple regression analysis. To provide basis for comparison, traditional clinical measures were included as independent variables (MMPI scales) and dependent variables (intelligence, chronicity, and premorbid adjustment). Results showed that different patterns of disordered behavior were predicted by different perceptual/cognitive variables. MMPI scores were predicted primarily by traditional measures. Interrelationships of all variables suggested three subject groups: chronic, process-type schizophrenics with perceptual abnormalities, paranoid patients with conceptual abnormalities, and affectively disordered patients with predominantly attitudinal abnormalities.

Affective Disorders, Psychotic↗