Memo test: standardisation of computerised assessment of auditory verbal short-term memory

Short-term memory (STM) impairments are prevalent in adults with acquired brain injuries. While there are several published tests to assess these impairments, the majority require speech production, e.g. digit span (Wechsler, 1987). This feature may make them unsuitable for people with aphasia and motor speech disorders because of word finding difficulties and speech demands respectively. If patients perceive the speech demands of the test to be high, the may not engage with testing. Furthermore, existing STM tests are mainly ‘pen-and-paper’ tests, which can jeopardise accuracy. To address these shortcomings, we designed and standardised a novel computerised test that does not require speech output and because of the computerised delivery it would enable clinicians identify STM impairments with greater precision than current tests. The matching listening span tasks, similar to the non-normed PALPA 13 (Kay, Lesser & Coltheart, 1992) is used to test short-term memory for serial order of spoken items. Sequences of digits are presented in pairs. The person hears the first sequence, followed by the second sequence and s/he decides whether the two sequences are the same or different. In the computerised test, the sequences are presented in live voice recordings on a portable computer through a software application (Molero Martin, Laird, Hwang & Salis 2013). We collected normative data from healthy older adults (N=22-24) using digits, real words (one- and two-syllables) and non-words (one- and two- syllables). Their performance was scored following two systems. The Highest Span system was the highest span length (e.g. 2-8) at which a participant correctly responded to over 7 out of 10 trials at the highest sequence length. Test re-test reliability was also tested in a subgroup of participants. The test will be available as free of charge for clinicians and researchers to use.

Cognitive Therapy Abilities in People with Learning Disabilities

Background  There is a need to develop and adapt therapies for use with people with learning disabilities who have mental health problems. Aims  To examine the performance of people with learning disabilities on two cognitive therapy tasks (emotion recognition and discrimination among thoughts, feelings and behaviours). We hypothesized that cognitive therapy task performance would be significantly correlated with IQ and receptive vocabulary, and that providing a visual cue would improve performance. Method  Fifty-nine people with learning disabilities were assessed on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI), the British Picture Vocabulary Scale-II (BPVS-II), a test of emotion recognition and a task requiring participants to discriminate among thoughts, feelings and behaviours. In the discrimination task, participants were randomly assigned to a visual cue condition or a no-cue condition. Results  There was considerable variability in performance. Emotion recognition was significantly associated with receptive vocabulary, and discriminating among thoughts, feelings and behaviours was significantly associated with vocabulary and IQ. There was no effect of the cue on the discrimination task. Conclusion  People with learning disabilities with higher IQs and good receptive vocabulary were more likely to be able to identify different emotions and to discriminate among thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This implies that they may more easily understand the cognitive model. Structured ways of simplifying the concepts used in cognitive therapy and methods of socialization and education in the cognitive model are required to aid participation of people with learning disabilities.