DIGIT SPAN BACKWARDS TEST SERIES

DIGIT SPAN BACKWARDS TEST SERIES

In a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) case series of ours consisting of 193 children and adolescents referred exclusively for clinical neuropsychological evaluation, 17% of the sample failed the Medical Symptom Validity Test (MSVT), which was the same percentage estimated to have put forth noncredible effort more broadly across the examinations ( Kirkwood & Kirk, 2010). Two other recent studies suggest that, under certain conditions, rates of negative response bias in children are likely to be considerably higher. Several recent clinical case series have also consistently found that a small percentage of general pediatric patients perform suboptimally because of effort-related problems ( Carone, 2008 Donders, 2005 Kirk et al., 2011 MacAllister, Nakhutina, Bender, Karantzoulis, & Carlson, 2009). However, a number of single-case reports have clearly documented that children can feign cognitive impairment during neuropsychological examination ( Flaro & Boone, 2009 Henry, 2005 Kirkwood, Kirk, Blaha, & Wilson, 2010 Lu & Boone, 2002 McCaffrey & Lynch, 2009). In comparison to the vast literature focused on noncredible neuropsychological performance in adults, the pediatric literature is relatively sparse. Indeed, classification statistics produced in this pediatric sample compare favorably with those produced in many real-world adult patients.ĭigit span, Reliable digit span, Wechsler intelligence scale for children, Symptom validity testing, Response bias, Postconcussion, Mild traumatic brain injury Introduction Although only moderately sensitive, Digit Span scores are likely to have good utility in identifying noncredible performance in relatively high-functioning older children and adolescents. For Reliable Digit Span, the optimal cut-score was ≤6, with sensitivity of 51% and specificity of 92%. For age-corrected scaled scores, a score of ≤5 resulted in the optimal cut-score, yielding sensitivity of 51% and specificity of 96%. Fourteen percent of the participants failed both the Medical Symptom Validity Test and Test of Memory Malingering, which was used as the criterion for noncredible effort. The sample consisted of 274 clinically referred mild traumatic brain injury patients aged 8 through 16 years. The present study examined the classification value of several scores derived from the WISC-IV Digit Span subtest. Although several recent studies have demonstrated the appropriateness of using stand-alone symptom validity tests with younger populations, a near absence of pediatric work has investigated embedded validity indicators. Far less work has focused on methods appropriate for children. Results suggest that the Corsi backward task is not the spatial analogue of the Digit backward task and that it involves specific spatial processes.In adult populations, research on methodologies to identify negative response bias has grown exponentially in the last two decades. In fact, results revealed a significant impairment in the backward version of the Corsi test in the VSLD group, but not in the forward version, and in the Digit Span tasks. However, for the Corsi task, this difference was present only for VSLD children. The comparison between the forward and backward span versions showed that both visuospatial learning disabled children (VSLD) and controls presented with the Digit Span had a lower performance with the backward version. In Study 1, participants were administered a verbal span test (Digit Span test) and a visuospatial span test (Corsi Blocks task) both in the forward and backward versions, while in Study 2 only the Corsi test was administered. This research tested the hypotheses that the backward spatial span does not involve the controlled use of the same type of sequential spatial processing involved in the forward version, that its impairment is modality specific, and that children with specific visuospatial learning disabilities (VSLD) have lower performance in backward than in forward Corsi Blocks test, compared to a control group. For example, it has been argued that (in its comparison with the forward version) it has the same implications as the backward digit span and/or it requires the use of amodal central executive components of working memory.

The clinical use of backward spatial short-term memory tasks, and in particular of the Corsi backward task, it has increased and it has generated a series of theoretical hypotheses.

Digit span backwards test