The Test of Variables of Attention (T.O.V.A.; R. A. Leark, T. R. Dupuy, L. M. Greenberg, C. L. Corman, & C. L. Kindeschi, 1996) is a continuous performance test used widely to help diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in both hearing and deaf people. The T.O.V.A. previously has been normed only on the hearing population.…

The objective of the study is to assess the relationships between personality traits, lifetime psychosocial functioning, and crime scene behavior. Thirty-five male offenders referred for forensic psychiatric assessment in Sweden (1996-2001) and assigned a main diagnosis of either antisocial personality disorder (APD) or autism spectrum disorder…

Objective: Controlled study of the long-term outcome of selective mutism (SM) in childhood. Method: A sample of 33 young adults with SM in childhood and two age- and gender-matched comparison groups were studied. The latter comprised 26 young adults with anxiety disorders in childhood (ANX) and 30 young adults with no psychiatric disorders during…

The purpose of this study was to investigate concordance of reports of hyperactive and distractible behavior from three different sources: parents, teachers, and the child, using two different instruments, the ADHD Rating Scale and the Gordon Diagnostic System (GDS). The incidence rate of attentional problems that any of the sources reported in…

Previous research has shown that expert physicians' diagnostic performance improves when contextual information about a patient is available, while the performance of novices is not influenced by this source of information. These results are explained by supposing that experts' knowledge is organized in illness-scripts. This study examined this…

An exploratory study of structured and unstructured play was conducted with a small number of severely disturbed and normal children 9 to 13 years of age. Specifically, the investigators characterized psychopathology from a cognitive-developmental perspective by focusing on the Piagetian "scheme" and its manifestation in the play and…

A modified Payne process and the JCAH intermediate outcome medical audits were applied to 6,980 cases in eight diagnostic categories within 22 hospitals, representing 1,321 attending physicians. The effects of item specificity, total number of items, outcome versus process indicators, and item weights on measurement characteristics of audit…

Senior medical students have originated and taught an elective course in physical diagnosis to entering students at Stanford since 1971. This study tested the ability of these first-year students against that of students taking the traditional faculty-taught course. It emphasizes the effectiveness and benefits of the student-taught course. (LBH)

There is evidence that students who are given information about how they appear to weigh information in reaching a judgment can learn to make judgments more accurately. A microcomputer system was used to generate simulated cases and then calculate the relationship between the data presented and the student's diagnosis. (Author/MLW)

Examined how systemic and nonsystemic clinicians differ in diagnostic processes. Experienced therapists, with family systems or psychodynamic orientations viewed a stimulus film of a family session and individual interviews with parent and patients. Compared to nonsystems clinicians systemic clinicians identified as clinically relevant more…

Responses to questionnaires were compared between 106 students in nursing homes with those of 171 students in hospitals to evaluate interview and physical examination instruction for medical students. The nursing home was assessed as an appropriate alternative site for teaching the medical interview and physical diagnosis. (GLR)

Compares the functioning of true-positive, false-positive, and true-negative adolescents on clinical and psychosocial functioning. False-positive persons did not differ significantly from the true-positive (diagnosed) participants on most of the measures of psychosocial dysfunction, indicating that "false positive" is not a benign…

Compared clinical and psycholinguistic approaches to the measurement of verbal behavior according to their ability to discriminate among individuals with schizophrenia, manic- depression, and controls. On the linguistic measures, the speech of individuals with schizophrenia differed significantly from the other two groups in productivity and…

The psychometric characteristics of 12 adults with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and a group without PWS but with other similar traits were compared. Results found cognitive, behavioral and educational traits often associated with PWS to be present in both groups, illustrating the importance of control/comparison groups in research establishing…

Platelet serotonin (5HT) levels of 5 autistic subjects (ages 16-37) who had siblings with either autism or pervasive developmental disorder were significantly higher than levels of 23 autistic subjects without affected siblings. Autistic subjects without affected siblings had 5HT levels significantly higher than 10 normal controls. Sex, age, and…