Perfil de desempenho escolares nas funções cognitivas atenção e funções executivas : um estudo exploratório na cidade de Salvador-BA

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

Behavioral problems and learning disabilities are the main reasons for bringing children to be evaluated by a clinical psychologist. Neuropsychological evaluation is of great interest to clinical and school psychologists because it has been useful for the conceptualization of a variety of learning problems, for the development of interventions and for promoting a better understanding of quantitative and qualitative differences between various groups of children. Attention and executive functions tasks have been increasingly used as instruments for making learning problems diagnosis. Thus, the adequacy and usefulness of the neuropsychological executive functions assessment instruments for children have been the focus of several investigations abroad as well as in Brazil. This investigation aims at verifying Bahia schoolchildrens achievement profile of executive functions assessed through a recent, not yet validated in Brazil, neuropsychological assessment instrument (NEPSY) Performance profile in Escala de TDAH, a brazilian attention deficits and hyperactivity behavior scale and WISC III are also attempted . Besides the performance profile, the investigation also aims at verifying the existence of associations among the used instruments and socio-demographic variables, observing the existence of correlations between achievement results obtained with the different instruments, and the adequacy of the above mentioned instruments for Bahia subject sample. Data relative to 60 schoolchildren, ranging from 6 to 12 years of age from public and private schools in Salvador were clipped from a preexisting data base and submitted to analysis in terms of frequency, inferential methods, correlations and analysis of covariance. Important associations between achievement in WISC III and in NEPSY and social-demographic variables such as sex, type of school, family income, degree of parents schooling were found; associations between NEPSY attention and executive functions results and WISC III subtests and factors were also found; statistically significant differences between the results of the Bahia sample and the normatization samples were also found; the ADHD Scale results seem to have suffered influence of age variable and there were no associations with WISC III or NEPSY results. The most important conclusions of this investigation are related to the existing associations between WISC III and NEPSY results which suggest the inadequacy of the interpretation of the results obtained by the Bahia sample when the existing normative tables were used. The clinical implications of the results are discussed and future research needs are suggested.

ASSUNTO(S)

desenvolvimento infantil executive function neuropsychological assessment nepsy escala de tdah atenção wisc iii attention psychometrics wisc iii escala de tdah psicometria child development dificuldades escolares psicologia nepsy funções executivas poor school performance avaliação neuropsicológica

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