Academic skills, self-perceptions, and grades in university students with a history of multiple concussions: The mediating roles of processing speed and psychological symptoms.

This study determined if university students with a history of multiple concussions may be at risk for academic difficulties and poor academic performance. We investigated if executive functioning, processing speed, and/or psychological symptoms might partially account for differences in academic performance of students with and without a history of multiple concussions.University students with a history of three or more concussions (n = 58), one concussion (n = 57), or no concussion (n = 57) completed academic, cognitive, and psychological assessments.Students with a history of multiple concussions read fewer words per minute and reported more learning difficulties than the no concussion group. Processing speed mediated the association between concussion status and reading rate. Psychological symptoms mediated the association between concussion status and self-reported learning difficulties.University students with a history of multiple concussions may be at risk for poor academic outcomes due, at least in part, to slower processing speed and psychological symptoms.Treatment of psychological symptoms, cognitive rehabilitation to augment processing speed, and academic accommodations might improve academic outcomes for students with a history of three or more concussions.

Screening for reading disability in university students with phonological processing and working memory tasks.

Many students in higher education have undiagnosed reading disabilities (RDs), but there are few measures to screen for RD in this population. The aim of this study was to determine the ability of tasks that are sensitive to RDs-such as measures of phonemic awareness and working memory-to differentiate university students previously diagnosed with RDs from controls. Participants were university students with an RD (n = 26), a clinical control group diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (n = 24), and neurotypical controls (n = 44). Participants completed brief phonological processing and working memory tasks. The RD group scored significantly lower on all tasks than both control groups. The phonological processing tasks alone-without the working memory task-discriminated participants with RDs from controls with excellent sensitivity and specificity. A brief battery of phonemic tasks could be an effective screening instrument for persons with RDs on university campuses.

Two Novel Psychomotor Tasks in Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus.

OBJECTIVE: Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (INPH) is a neurological disorder presenting with gait, cognitive, and bladder symptoms in the context of ventricular enlargement. Although gait is the primary indicator for treatment candidacy and outcome, additional monitoring tools are needed. Line Tracing Test (LTT) and Serial Dotting Test (SDT), two psychomotor tasks, have been introduced as potential outcome measures but have not been widely studied. This preliminary study examined whether LTT and SDT are sensitive to motor dysfunction in INPH and determined if accuracy and time are important aspects of performance. METHODS: Eighty-four INPH subjects and 36 healthy older adults were administered LTT and SDT. Novel error scoring procedures were developed to make scoring practical and efficient; interclass correlation showed good reliability of scoring procedures for both tasks (0.997; p<.001). RESULTS: The INPH group demonstrated slower performance on SDT (p<.001) and made a greater number of errors on both tasks (p<.001). Combined Time/Error scores revealed poorer performance in the INPH group for original-LTT (p<.001), modified-LTT (p ≤ .001) and SDT (p<.001). CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate LTT and SDT may prove useful for monitoring psychomotor skills in INPH. While completion time reflects impaired processing speed, reduced accuracy may suggest planning and self-monitoring difficulties, aspects of executive functioning known to be compromised in INPH. This is the first study to underscore the importance of performance accuracy in INPH and introduce practical/reliable error scoring for these tasks. Future work will establish reliability and validity of these measures and determine their utility as outcome tools.