Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS
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J Int Neuropsychol Soc · May 2013
Assessing social cognition and pragmatic language in adolescents with traumatic brain injuries.
Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in children and adolescents can impair social cognition and communication skills but there are few assessment tools suitable for adolescents. The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) uses professionally enacted audiovisual vignettes of everyday conversational exchanges and is a valid measure of social perception disorders in adults. This study examined its utility for assessing impairments in social cognition in a group of 16 adolescents with TBI, compared to a group of 16 typically developing (TD) adolescents. ⋯ Within the TBI group, poor performance on TASIT correlated to both relative and self-reported communication difficulties at home. It also correlated with IQ, face recognition and severity of injury as indexed by duration of post-traumatic amnesia. Overall, this study suggests TASIT is a valid measure for adolescents although it raised questions as to how effective normative data is for comparing performance in social cognition during childhood and adolescence.
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J Int Neuropsychol Soc · May 2013
Social competence at 6 months following childhood traumatic brain injury.
Children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at risk for social impairment. This study aimed to examine social function at 6 months post-TBI and to explore the contribution of injury, cognitive, and environmental influences. The sample included 136 children, 93 survivors of TBI, and 43 healthy controls. ⋯ Greater injury severity and poorer communication skills were associated with poorer social adjustment and social participation, with the impact of family function also significant. Processing speed, younger age, and male gender also contributed to social outcomes. Further follow-up is required to track the recovery of social skills and the changing influences of cognition, brain, and environment over time.
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J Int Neuropsychol Soc · May 2013
Awareness of executive deficits in people with Parkinson's disease.
Executive functioning is frequently impaired among people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Little is known about awareness of executive functioning, in the sense of being able to accurately appraise functioning or performance, in people with PD, or about whether awareness is particularly affected in those who have impaired executive functioning. This study explored awareness of executive functioning at the levels of evaluative judgment (comparison of self- and informant ratings of executive functioning), and performance monitoring (comparison of performance on cognitive tests and self-ratings of that performance). ⋯ When the level of agreement between self- and informant ratings was considered, people with PD in both groups appeared as accurate in evaluating their overall executive functioning as healthy controls. When appraising their performance as the specific tasks were completed, people with PD who had impairments in executive functioning appeared less accurate than controls and people with PD without executive impairments. People with PD who have executive deficits may lack the ability to recognize their limitations while performing specific tasks, which may have implications for their functional abilities.