Mental rotation: a task for the assessment of visuospatial skills of children.

7 girls and 5 boys, ranging in age from 7 to 12 years, participated in the pilot testing of a mental rotation task developed for use in a comprehensive test battery of visuoperceptual abilities. Two asymmetric, three-dimensional objects were constructed from wood strips such that one object was the mirror-image of the other. Black and white photographs were taken of these objects in various spatial orientations along a horizontal plane. 16 photographs depicted the object right-side-up and in 16 the object was upside-down (rotated 180 degrees in the vertical plane). These photographs were presented to the children who were asked to match each with the corresponding object. Analysis indicated correct judgements of the right-side-up images occurred more frequently than the upside-down images (t11 = 4.73, p < .001). Using these data, adjustments were made to the task instructions to provide greater clarity for the young participants.

The cytologic diagnosis of endometrial adenocarcinoma.

An outpatient diagnositc technique comparable to the Papanicolaou smear for carcinoma of the cervix is needed to permit early recognition of adenocarcinoma of the endometrium. Five different techniques of sampling the endometrial cavity were carried out on 1, 742 patients at the University of Michigan Medical Center. A total of 2,553 specimens were correlated with operating room curettings to assess the accuracy of each sampling technique. The methods of saline irrigation with an antrum cannula, endometrial brush sampling, high-vacuum aspiration, and the Gravlee jet washer proved not to be accurate enough to be used as a routine screeening test. There was excellent correlation (96 per cent) between endometrial biopsies and curettings. In our experience, endometrial biopsy with a suction or basket curette was the diagnostic technique short of curettage which permitted accurate diagnosis.