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PubMed2004

Executive function in preschool children: examination through everyday behavior.

Clinical assessment of executive function in preschool-age children is challenging given limited availability of standardized tasks and preschoolers' variable ability to participate in lengthy formal evaluation procedures. Given the benefits of ecological validity of measuring behavior by rating scales, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000) was modified for use with children ages 2 through 5 years to assess executive functions in an everyday context. The scale development process, based on samples of 460 parents and 302 teachers, yielded a single 63-item measure with 5 related, but nonoverlapping, scales, with good internal consistency and temporal stability. Exploratory factor analyses identified 3 consistent factors: Emergent Metacognition, Flexibility, and Inhibitory Self-Control across parent and teacher samples. In a second study with a mixed sample of preschool children with various developmental disorders, parents and teachers rated these preschool children as having greater executive difficulties in most domains than matched controls. Such rating-scale methodology may be a useful complementary tool by which to reliably assess executive functions in preschool children via everyday behaviors in the natural environment.

Child Behavior↗
PubMed1999

Assessment of optimistic self-beliefs: further validation of the Chinese version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale.

The Chinese version of the General Self-efficacy Scale developed by Jerusalem and Schwarzer was tested in a sample of 74 Chinese adults with mild mental health symptoms. Analysis showed the scale was unidimensional and had good internal reliability (alpha = .92). The scale score also differentiated groups of different mental health status and correlated strongly with scores on the General Health Questionnaire, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Center for Epidemiologic Studies--Depression Scale. Test-retest reliability over six months was also adequate.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Neurologic and psychosocial disorders in children with brain tumors].

We studied 15 tumor-free patients, that had already finished treatment at the university-hospital Essen. Beside from a neurological check-up our complete assessment included the following tests: CMM (Columbia Mental Maturity Scale), BM and CM (Raven Test), PPVT (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), BA (Following Directions), KP (Dotting), d2, HAWIK-Test (Mathematical part), LOS (Lincoln Oseretzky Motor Development Scale) and GFT (Göttinger Formreproduktionstest). A half structured interview of parents was performed, too. All, but two patients, had neurological disorders of different degrees. All these 13 patients had signs of ataxia. For the intelligence- and development-tests (CMM, BA, BM, CM and PPVT) the results for all patients were better than the 50th percentile, for the KP and LOS-test worse (40-47%). A diminished ability for concentration and slowness shows the d2-reached only a rate of 22 percent. The results of the HAWIK-test shows a test-age-equivalent, which is 3,4 years above the actual age. From the results of the GFT you can conclude, that these disorders are caused by brain damage. Parents mentioned during the interviews abnormalities in behaviour, interaction-problems between siblings and inadequate emotional reactions. For all these reasons we want to point out, that for an overall assessment of these patients and there families a well-planed therapeutical procedure including rehabilitive measures is necessary for diminishing the described disturbances as far as possible.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1981

Development of the cell wall in Tetraselmis: role of the Golgi apparatus and extracellular wall assembly.

The green algal flagellate, Tetraselmis, is a key transition organism in the phylogeny of green algae. It has been proposed that the cell wall of Tetraselmis arose evolutionarily from the fusion of scales and that this event secondarily caused the alteration of some cytoplasmic processes such as mitotic and cytokinetic mechanisms. Ultrastructural and developmental studies of the cell wall were performed with several strains of Tetraselmis. Two major wall types are reported. The wall of type 1 cells consists of a thick inner region covered by a layer of regularly repeating subunits of 26 nm, comparable to the subunits found in the median W2-W6 layer of Chlamydomonas. The more elaborate type 2 cell wall consists of a thick median wall layer, homologous to the type 1 inner wall, with additional inner and outer strata of hairs, grains and scales. Development of the cell wall begins in the endomembrane system, particularly the Golgi apparatus, where fibrillar tufts and electron-dense droplets are synthesized, modified and transported to the outside. Here, the tufts and droplets are displaced around the protoplast and assemble in several steps to yield the intact wall. Edge-growth assembly of the wall occurs here synchronously with cytoplasmic developments to yield the characteristic anterior flagellar pit. Models explaining various aspects of this development are discussed. When released from the cell, the wall subunits are not completely comparable to stellate scales, but appear to correspond to developmental stages of scales in green flagellates possessing body scales.

Biological Evolution↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Evaluation indicators of the Healthy Municipalities for Peace strategy in Colombia].

OBJECTIVES: The work that is presented is the first phase of a scale development study. The objectives are: selecting, developing and evaluating indicators for the evaluation of the healthy cities project in Colombia, in order to offer the bases for the construction of a measurement scale. METHODS: The project was executed from January 2001 to August 2002. A validation by construct and an assessment of indicators, according to their importance, data availability and formulation were carried out. A theoretical heuristic model for evaluating the Colombian Healthy Cities Project was developed; based on these model 128 indicators were defined. A preliminary instrument was then made and evaluated by experts in the strategy. A test was carried out in five cities in order to test data availability and formulation. RESULTS: The final results are a heuristic model for the evaluation of the project and an evaluation of each indicator. CONCLUSIONS: The final results are not finished. A greater effort is needed for developing good heuristic models and for building instruments for assessing the healthy cities project in Colombia.

Colombia↗
PubMed1984

Democratic consensus and the young: a cross national comparison of Britain and America.

In previous decades research has suggested that the young, especially those in higher education, were increasingly cynical , distrustful and disenchanted with the democratic process in Britain and America. The aim of this paper is to see how far this is still the case by assessing democratic attitudes amongst college students in a sample from Britain and America, using scales developed by McClosky (1964). The paper concludes that the responses from the American and British sample were fairly similar across a number of scales on the rules of the game, free speech and equality. On all these both groups of students displayed relatively high support for democratic attitudes. The main contrast was found on feelings of trust and efficacy, with the British sample showing much lower feelings that government was honest and responsive to their needs. The paper concludes with some suggestions about how these responses can be explained.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

The search for symptoms predictive of schizophrenia.

Of several scales developed in our laboratory for identifying psychosis-prone young adults, the most promising appears to be the Perceptual Aberration-Magical Ideation Scale. High-scoring subjects (2 SD greater than the mean) report many psychotic-like and isolated psychotic symptoms. Subjects were seen for a followup interview 25 months after the initial identification and interview. Three of 162 high-scoring perceptual aberration-magical ideation subjects reported having received their first clinical attention for psychosis during the followup period. Additional measures are being used in attempts to eliminate the false positives as well as to distinguish persons prone to schizophrenia from those prone to affective disorder with psychosis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

The Minnesota Child Development Inventory: a valid maternal-report form for assessing development in infancy.

The concurrent validity of the Minnesota Child Development Inventory (MCDI) was assessed by comparing the MCDI General Development Scale score and each of the seven area subscale scores to mental age on the Bayley Mental Scale. Subjects were 115 infants (8-30 months old) with suspected developmental delay who were referred to one of two hospitals' pediatric psychology services by their physicians. Correlations were obtained for the entire sample as well as for three chronological age (CA) groups within the sample. Overall validity was supported by significant correlations ranging from 0.75 to 0.91 in the total sample. Variations in the magnitude and patterns of correlations within CA were noted, and suggested groups for which certain scales of the MCDI may be less comparable to the Bayley. Overall results suggest that the MDCI may yield consistent information about the development of infants' skills.

Child Development↗
PubMed2006

A perspective on the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scale Project.

The articles in this issue by Nichols (2006/this issue) and Rogers, Sewell, Harrison, and Jordan (2006/this issue) provide evaluations and critiques of the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales developed by Tellegen et al. (2003) to reduce the high intercorrelations typically found among MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) Basic scales and to correspondingly improve the discriminate validity of these scales. This manuscript provides another perspective that acknowledges that it would be premature to discontinue the use of the standard MMPI-2 basic scales until more research has been accumulated on the RC Scales. However, it is also proposed that the RC Scales are an innovative and important contribution that holds substantial potential for addressing a number of significant limitations in the MMPI-2 and thereby improving the assessment of psychopathology with this instrument.

MMPI↗
PubMed1997

The Health Student Academic Locus of Control Scale.

The Health Student Academic Locus of Control Scale is a 20-item context-specific scale, developed to measure Internal and External control beliefs of students in courses allied to medicine. Psychometric properties are acceptable (N = 164) so the scale can be used to measure control beliefs in a longitudinal study.

Achievement↗
PubMed2003

Brief assessment of motor function: reliability and concurrent validity of the Gross Motor Scale.

OBJECTIVE: The Brief Assessment of Motor Function (BAMF) is a series of 10-point ordinal scales developed for rapid description of gross motor, fine motor, and oral motor performance. We examined interrater and intrarater reliability and concurrent validity of the BAMF Gross Motor Scale. DESIGN: This validation study included 48 children (age, 5 mo to 17 yr) with a wide range of gross motor capability. Ten children with varied diagnoses participated in the reliability study. For concurrent validity, the BAMF performance of 38 children with osteogenesis imperfecta was compared with scores on the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales, laboratory gait analysis, and manual muscle testing. RESULTS: Reliability values for intraclass correlations were 0.996 (interrater) and 1.00 (intrarater). Significant relationships were identified between the BAMF and gait speed ( r = 0.68, P < 0.0001), stride length (r = 0.71, P < 0.0001), duration of double-limb support ( r = -0.40, P < 0.03), number of weak muscles (r = -0.74, P< 0.0001), and the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (r = 0.95, P < 0.0001). Number of weak muscles was the strongest predictor of BAMF score R2 = 0.5080, F = 24.77, P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: The BAMF demonstrates good reliability for children with a range of diagnoses and acceptable concurrent validity with gross motor development, muscle strength, and formal gait assessment in children with osteogenesis imperfecta.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Epidemiological dementia index: a screening instrument for Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia suitable for use in populations with low education level.

INTRODUCTION: MMSE and CAMCOG are neuropsychological scales developed for use in everyday clinical practice and epidemiological surveys. MATERIAL AND METHODS: These two instruments were used as part of the assessment during an epidemiological survey in the municipality of Pylaia, Greece. The project was based on the World Health Organization Program for Research on Aging and Age-Associated Dementias (1992). It had two phases. During phase I, nursing students collected demographic data, risk factors, personal and family history data and they applied MMSE, CAMCOG and scales of everyday life functioning. During phase II, 4 physicians examined all subjects that manifested possible cognitive deterioration (MMSE<27), in order to reach a final diagnosis. The final diagnosis was made according to DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. MMSE and CAMCOG were not taken into consideration in the diagnostic process. Three hundred and eighty subjects were initially screened. All were aged over 70 years. After the exclusion of subjects who were illiterate, blind, etc., the results of 277 subjects were finally analyzed. Subjects with 6 years of education or less accounted for 92.42% of the total study sample. Twelve of them (5.33%) suffered from Alzheimer's disease, 7 from vascular dementia (2.52%) and 1 suffered from secondary dementia (0.36%). RESULTS: MMSE exceeded 90% sensitivity at the level 22/23 and specificity at 14/15. The levels for CAMCOG were 56/57 and 43/44, respectively. This low performance of both tests is to a large extent due to the functional illiteracy of elderly individuals in Greece, to possible coexistence of mood disorders or simply to lack of cooperation. The analysis of data led to the development of an Epidemiological Dementia Index (EDI), with a scale ranging from 0 to 7. Nondemented subjects had a mean EDI of 5.12 (SD = 1.67) and demented patients had a mean EDI of 1.6 (SD = 1. 92). At the level 4/5 sensitivity was 93.33. Specificity was 93.56 at the level 2/3.

Aged↗
PubMed1992

Methadone maintenance detoxification fear: a study of its components.

These studies added three hypothesized fear components to the Detoxification Fear Survey Schedule (DFSS-14) and compared its psychometric properties to the original. Two disparate methadone maintenance populations (N = 226) were used in scale development. Thirty-one items and three factors emerged. A validation sample (N = 159) from two diverse methadone maintenance populations yielded a 27-item scale that discriminated between interview-diagnosed detoxification fear and non-fear (91.8% and 85.4% correctly classified). Finally, in methadone maintenance patients from three disparate programs in which the prevalence of detoxification fear was known, the DFSS-27 and DFSS-14 were compared. The DFSS-27 showed substantially improved sensitivity. The DFSS-27 seems a useful screen for detoxification fear in methadone maintenance, may aid intervention planning, and may prove a useful interventions outcome measure.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗
PubMed1999

The Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) scale: replication and refinement in 632 breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: Assessment of adjustment of patients in cancer treatment trials is becoming more common and increasingly regarded as a useful outcome measure. The widely used Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) Scale was designed to measure Fighting Spirit (FS), Anxious Preoccupation (AP), Helpless-hopelessness (HH) and Fatalism. METHODS: Questionnaire responses from 632 breast cancer patients were randomly divided into two groups, one for exploratory analyses and possible scale refinement, and the other for validation purposes. RESULTS: Estimates of reliability (Cronbach's alpha) were satisfactory for two scales, FS (alpha = 0.85) and HH (alpha = 0.81), but lower for AP (alpha = 0.65) and Fatalism (alpha = 0.64). Exploratory factor analysis suggested that the MAC Scale might be measuring six independent constructs including two related to Fighting Spirit (Positive Orientation to the Illness, Minimizing the Illness), two related to Fatalism (Fatalism-revised, Loss of Control), a construct we have named Angst, and an unchanged HH construct. Scales developed to measure these constructs were satisfactorily replicated in confirmatory analyses but some reliabilities were lower than desirable. The general structure of the MAC Scale remained little changed despite the division of two scales and the suggested removal of six items. The refined scales correlated with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale and the Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire, indicating good concurrent validity. CONCLUSIONS: While reasonable reliability of the original scales persists through analyses of the MAC Scale, the original factor structure could not be reproduced. Six refined constructs with strong construct validity were identified within the overall domain of mental adjustment to cancer.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1993

MMPI assessment of the DSM-III-R histrionic personality disorder.

This study investigated the MMPI characteristics of a group of 25 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) histrionic personality disorder patients, contrasted with a mixed group of 57 other personality disorder patients. All patients were diagnosed by means of a semistructured interview (SCID-II; Spitzer, Williams, & Gibbon, 1987). Effects for diagnostic category were found for MMPI Scales 9 (Ma), 0 (Si) and for the HST scale, developed by Morey, Waugh, and Blashfield (1985) for the diagnosis of the histrionic personality disorder. Further analysis of the results revealed that these MMPI scales, and especially the HST scale, mainly assess a social introversion-extraversion dimension, on which histrionic inpatients can be differentiated from nonhistrionic inpatients. This study does not offer direct empirical support for the use of the HST scale as a measurement of the DSM-III-R histrionic personality disorder concept.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Scales for teachers' assessment of inhibition and security seeking in kindergarten children.

For young children separation from their primary caregivers can give rise to feelings of emotional insecurity, which are manifested by inhibition of behavior and seeking security from a substitute caregiver. The present study examined the quality of two new scales, the Inhibition Scale and the Security Seeking Scale, developed for teachers' assessment of inhibition and security-seeking behaviors. Participants were 121 kindergarten children. Reliability and short-term stability of both scales proved to be good. Relationships with four major dimensions of personality, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Emotional Stability, were examined by means of teachers' judgements on the School Behavior Checklist Revised. The validity of the Inhibition Scale and the Security Seeking Scale was supported by the findings. Scores on both scales appeared to be negatively related to those on Extraversion and Emotional Stability. The negative association with scores on Extraversion was stronger for scores on the Inhibition Scale than for those on the Security Seeking Scale. Neither scale was related to the nonemotional dimension Conscientiousness. In addition, scores on both the Inhibition and Security Seeking Scale appeared negatively related to the time passed since entry into kindergarten.

Child Behavior↗
PubMed2002

[Relationship between self-management behavior and cognitive skills in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients].

OBJECTIVES: The relationship between general self-management skill (SMS) and specific SMS, and associations with self-management behavior were investigated in diabetes patients. METHODS: A total of 306 diabetes patients were asked to complete questionnaires and additional information was collected from medical records. The contents of the questionnaires covered attributes, the SMS scale developed by Takahashi, the specific SMS score (diabetes skills score), and self-management behavior, referring to items of Yasukata's and Kinoshita's scales. RESULTS: 1. The SMS scale correlated with the diabetes skills score, although high values were observed for the latter, and these skills influenced self-management behavior. 2. Path analysis was applied to examine association between cognitive skills and self-management behavior. The results showed direct associations between self-management behavior and the SMS scale, the diabetes skills score and the presence or absence of a job. The SMS scale, the degree of knowledge, family support, and the presence or absence of a job were indirectly associated with self-management behavior through the diabetes skills score. The standardized partial regression coefficient (beta) showed self-management behavior to be much more related to the diabetes skills score than the SMS scale. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that support of cognitive skills related to diabetes may be effective for improvement of the self-management behavior of diabetes patients.

Behavior↗