The current study investigated the capacity of a new test assessing phonological awareness to detect differences between Italian children with and without developmental dyslexia. Specifically, the task involves blending of a list of pseudo-words, and excludes lexical knowledge as a source of task performance. Fifty-four third to fifith Italian graders were presented a battery of tests assessing phonological awareness, reading, writing, and verbal short-term memory abilities. A multivariate analysis of covariance, with age as a covariate, revealed that proficient readers outperformed students with developmental dyslexia in all cognitive measures considered, except verbal short-term memory. Moreover, high concordance was found between the new pseudo-word blending task, and well-known word blending, writing, and reading tests, respectively. In conclusion, the new phonological awareness task seems to be a useful tool for the detection of poor blending abilities of Italian children and thus it could be used to screen phonological awareness in primary schools. Implications for school psychology research and practice, including across linguistic contexts, are emphasized; for example, the new blending task could aid discrimination of proficient and dyslexic readers speaking other languages characterized by a transparent orthography, such as Greek, Spanish, Turkish.
A current research trend is the examination of the interplay between cognitive functioning, higher-order processes, and motor efficiency in late adulthood. However, the association between motor and cognitive functions when cognitive decline occurs has not been extensively explored. This study investigated whether gait features, functional mobility, and handgrip strength were associated with executive functions in older people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia.127 older participants (Mage = 77.9 years, SD = 5.8 years) who had received a diagnosis of MCI and dementia voluntarily took part in the study. A battery of tests assessing global cognitive function, executive functions, muscular strength, functional mobility, and spatio-temporal parameters of gait was completed by the participants.Statistically significant correlations were obtained between global cognitive function, executive functions, and motor efficiency measures. Moreover, a series of regression analyses showed that 8-13% of the variance of several motor parameters was predicted by several executive functions. Additionally, walking, functional mobility, and global cognitive function predicted 53-71% of the variance relative to the occurrence of dementia. In conclusion, motor functioning is closely related to cognitive functioning in late adulthood.The assessment of muscular strength and functional mobility should be promoted in clinical settings.
A computerized version of the Corsi blocks task (Milner, 1971) was assessed for standard forward‐recall order (Experiments 1 and 3) and for reversed‐recall order (Experiments 2 and 3) either in a single‐task or in a dual‐task design combined with articulatory suppression, matrix‐tapping, random‐interval generation or fixed‐interval generation as concurrent tasks during the encoding stage. Concurrent performance of the matrix‐tapping task impaired memory performance for short as well as for longer block sequences. The random‐interval generation task, which loads executive processes, impaired memory performance mainly at intermediate‐ and longer‐sequence lengths, while fixed‐interval generation, which is presumed to put no load on executive processing, did not show any effect. Articulatory suppression did not impair memory performance on forward‐recall order, but it impaired memory for longer sequences in the backward‐recall condition in Experiment 2, but not in Experiment 3. The results are discussed within the context of the working‐memory model of Baddeley and Hitch (1974).
Several studies show that both positive mental health in late adulthood and longevity are positively associated with indices of psychological well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, coping) and negatively associated with signs of depression. However, the self-assessment of mental health in the elderly may be biased by social desirability as they attempt to present themselves more positively in order to impress the interlocutor and preserve their social image. A primary aim of the current study was to explore whether social desirability influenced self-assessment of depression in a sample of cognitively healthy elderly people residing in Sardinia, an Italian isle characterized by higher longevity indexes. Moreover, it was investigated the relationship between perceived physical health and depression and whether this relationship was impacted by social desirability. Each participant was presented a battery of inventories including measures of metacognitive efficiency, subjective well-being, depression, socially desirability. Overall, An ANCOVA and a path analysis highlighted the role played by social desirability on participants' self-assessment of mental health. The implications of these findings with respect to current research trends and clinical practice will be discussed.
The use of a mobile phone for texting purposes results in distracted walking which may lead to injuries. In particular, texting while walking has been shown to induce significant alterations in gait patterns. This study aimed to assess whether changes in the main spatio-temporal parameters of gait when simultaneously engaged in texting on a smartphone and walking are different in older adults relative to young and middle- aged individuals. A total of 57 participants divided in three groups (19 older adults aged over 65, 19 young aged 20-40 and 19 middle-aged aged 41-64) were tested in two conditions: walking, and walking while texting on a smartphone. Spatio-temporal parameters of gait were assessed using a wearable accelerometer located on the lower back. The results show that texting induced similar reduction of gait speed, stride length and cadence in all groups. Slight (although significant) alterations of stance, swing and double support phases duration were found only for middle-aged participants. Such findings suggest that modifications of gait patterns due to texting seem unaffected by age, probably due to different perceptions of the cognitive complexity of the task and differential prioritization of its motor and cognitive aspects.
Background: older adults from the Sardinian Blue Zone self-report low depressive symptoms and high psychological well-being. However, the role of dispositional resilience as a determinant of these characteristics is unknown. Objectives: the current study had three aims. First, to investigate associations among several putative predictors, including dispositional resilience and three established markers of positive and negative mental health. Second, to determine if gender differences in dispositional resilience, independent of age and cognitive impairment, are present in this population. Third, to examine the relative importance of the predictors of self-reported mental health and well-being. Methods: 160 elders were recruited in the Sardinian Blue Zone. The participants completed self-report measures of dispositional resilience, satisfaction with social ties, physical health, depressive symptoms, and psychological well-being. Results: trait resilience was significantly associated with predictors and markers of mental health. Males had significantly greater trait resilience. In regression analyses, dispositional resilience and satisfaction with social ties were significant predictors of all markers of mental health. Other factors were significantly associated only with certain markers. Conclusions: trait resilience and strong social ties appear to be key determinants of the high mental health of Sardinian Blue Zone older adults.
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