Meet the Authors: A Neuropsychology Podcast

In this episode, Dr. Scott Sperling and student leader, Ms. Grace Goodwin, discuss the article The role of working memory and organizational skills in academic functioning for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with the paper's first author, doctoral candidate, Ms. Alissa Cole. Using bias-corrected, bootstrapped latent path analyses, this study explored the unique and shared contributions of working memory and organizational skills on academic achievement and performance in a sample of 309 children with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Results highlight the extent to which working memory and organizational skills both separately and together impact academic achievement and academic performance, explaining as much as 100% of the variance, as well as eclipsing the diagnosis of ADHD itself in certain models. Overall, findings have strong real-world implications for interventions related to learning for children with ADHD. 

In this episode, Dr. Scott Sperling and student leader, Dr. Elaine Schultz, discuss the article Psychometric properties of two instruments assessing catastrophizing and fear-avoidance behavior in mild traumatic brain injury with two of the paper's authors, Skye King and Dr. Melloney Wijenberg. This study aimed to invesigate the factor structure, internal consistency, test-restest reliability, and concurrent and construct validity of the Postconcussion Symptom Catastrophizing Scale (PCS-CS) and the Fear of Mental Activity Scale (FMA) in a sample of participants with mild TBI compared to orthopedic injury and healthy adults. The sample was comprised of 185 mTBI participants, 180 with orthopedic injury, and 116 healthy adults. Findings supported a three-factor model (magnification, rumination, helplessness) with a higher order factor (catastrophizing) for the PCS-CS and a two-factor model (activity avoidance and somatic focus) for the FMA. Results supported strong internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity. Overall, this study provided evidence of psychometric strength for these measures and support their use in research and cllinical practice in mTBI to better understand prolonged recovery. 

In this episode Dr. Scott Sperling and student leader, Dr. Kritika Nayar, discuss the paper  Language Switching and Speaking a Non-Dominant Language Challenge Executive Control: Preliminary Data for Novel Behavioral Markers of Alzheimer's Risk in Spanish-English Bilinguals, with the paper's authors, Ms. Dalia Lopez Garcia and Dr. Tamar Gollan. In this study, using psycholinguistic analyses, authors explored language switching and speaking a nondominant language as markers of Alzheimer's risk in Spanish-English bilinguals. All 19 participants, who were cognitively healthy, completed neuropsychological testing, a structured interview (in both Spanish and English), and language switching tasks. Following this, 8 individuals were diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). In analyzing differences in their performance in this earlier testing, results showed that certain utterances in their nondominant language (e.g., revisions, repetitions, filled pauses) as well errors in a language switching test were particularly indicative of AD risk. Overall, these measures may reflect early decline in executive control abilities and may be valuable indicators of AD risk in this bilingual population.

In this episode, Dr. Scott Sperling and early career leader, Dr. Zachary Resch, will be discussing the paper, Signs and Symptoms Method in Neuropsychology: A Standardized Observational Examination of Cognitive Functions Can Be Effective in Detecting Mild Cognitive Impairment, with two of the study authors, Dr. Carlo Abbate & Dr. Alessia Gallucci. In their study, the authors examined the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of what they term the "NeuroPsychological Examination" or "NPE", which is a systematic method of collecting and quantifying cognitive and behavioral symptoms during a clinical interview. The NPE was implemented for 475 participants (208 with MCI, 188 with dementia, and 79 with subjective cognitive decline). Results demonstrated that the number of neuropsychological signs from the NPE could discriminate between all three groups with good sensitivity and specificity, which highlights its utility for clinical neuropsychologists.  

In this podcast, Dr. Scott Sperling and student leader, Dr. Kritika Nayar, discuss the paper, Cross-sectional associations of CSF tau levels with Rey’s AVLT: A recency ratio study, with the paper's author, Dr. Davide Bruno. In the paper, associations between traditional memory scores from the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, a novel process-based memory score based on knowledge of serial position effect (i.e, the recency ratio), and CSF biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease, were compared. The study has important implications for the identification of individuals at-risk of developing a neurodegenerative disorder.