BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterised by social and communication difficulties in day-to-day life, including problems in recognising emotions. However, experimental investigations of emotion recognition ability in ASD have been equivocal, hampered by small sample sizes, narrow IQ range and over-focus on the visual modality. METHODS We tested 99 adolescents (mean age 15;...

This study investigated whether working memory training is effective in enhancing verbal memory in children with low language abilities (LLA). Cogmed Working Memory Training was completed by a community sample of children aged 8-11 years with LLA and a comparison group with matched non-verbal abilities and age-typical language performance. Short-term memory (STM), working memory, language, and ...

Background Previous studies investigating neuropsychological functioning of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have only analysed certain abilities, such as executive functions or language. While comprehensive assessment of the neuropsychological profile of children with ASD has been the focus of recent research, most of the published evidence originates from single centres. Though st...

We performed a retrospective review of 65 children with developmental delay. The male-to-female ratio was 2.25 : 1, and the mean age was 5.8 years; performance IQ was 94.8, verbal IQ was 83, and full-scale IQ was 87.4. Twenty-three (35%) children had normal language development, 13 (20%) had below average language development, and 29 (45%) had developmental language disorder. Performance IQ was...

OBJECTIVE Season of birth has repeatedly been found to be a risk indicator for adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Several explanations for this finding have been put forward but no conclusion has been reached. In the current study, we explored the role of sociodemographic and biological factors in the association between season of birth and child IQ. DESIGN In a prenatally recruited birth c...

Results 44 subjects from 42 families (22 men), mean age of 42 years were included. KBIT-2 Composite IQ score was 98.4 ± 12.4, (95% CI (confidence interval) 94.5-102.3) which is within the average range of 90-109. 27 % of patients scored below average (less than 90) and 15% scored above average (greater than 109), not a significant imbalance (sign test p=0.33). Nonverbal IQ scores show no differ...

This study examined the relationship between performance on the K-ABC and the WISC-R for 67 students referred for evaluation as a result of serious academic or academic/behavioral problems. Of the 67 students referred, 32 were identified as severely learning disabled (LD) and 35 were not. The correlational results of the study documented strong relationships among all of the global standard sco...

The negative effects of very low birthweight on intellectual development have been well documented, and more recently this effect has been shown to generalize to birthweights within the normal range. In this study we investigate the etiology of this relationship by using a classical twin design to disentangle the contributions of genes and environment. A previous Dutch study (Boomsma et al., 20...