Do you hear voices? Problems in assessment of mental status in deaf persons with severe language deprivation

When mental health clinicians perform mental status examinations, they examine the language patterns of patients because abnormal language patterns, sometimes referred to as language dysfluency, may indicate a thought disorder. Performing such examinations with deaf patients is a far more complex task, especially with traditionally underserved deaf people who have severe language deficits in their best language or communication modality. Many deaf patients suffer language deprivation due to late and inadequate exposure to ASL. They are also language dysfluent, but the language dysfluency is usually not due to mental illness. Others are language dysfluent due to brain disorders such as aphasia. This paper examines difficulties in performing a mental status examination with deaf patients. Issues involved in evaluating for hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking are reviewed. Guidelines are drawn for differential diagnosis of language dysfluency related to thought disorder vs. language dysfluency related to language deprivation.     

The validity of the commercially-available,low-cost,wrist-worn Movband accelerometer during treadmill exercise and free-living physical activity

Low-cost physical activity monitors may provide a more accurate measure of physical activity than subjective methods (e.g., self-report) while being less costly than research-grade accelerometers. The present study assessed the validity of a low-cost monitor (Movband 2) to estimate physical activity behavior/intensity. Participants (N = 23, n = 16 female, BMI = 22.9 ± 4.0 kg/m², age = 21.9 ± 1.6 years) completed four, five-minute treadmill stages (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 MPH) while wearing both the Movband and the previously-validated Actigraph monitor. Oxygen consumption (VO₂) was recorded during each stage (Laboratory assessment). A subset (n = 15, n = 10 female, BMI = 22.2 ± 3.2 kg/m², age = 21.5 ± 0.8 years) of these participants then wore the two accelerometers for three days (Free-living assessment). During the Laboratory assessment there were strong, significant (r = 0.94, p ≤ 0.001) relationships between Movband and Actigraph counts and VO₂. During Free-living assessment there was also a strong, significant (r = 0.97, p < 0.001) correlation between Movband and Actigraph counts. The low-cost, Movband accelerometer appears to provide a valid assessment of physical activity behavior/intensity.     

Demographics, psychiatric diagnoses, and other characteristics of North American Deaf and hard-of-hearing inpatients

This study examined demographic and clinical data from a specialty deaf inpatient unit so as to better understand characteristics of severely and chronically mentally ill deaf people. The study compares deaf and hearing psychiatric inpatients on demographic variables, psychiatric discharge diagnoses, a language assessment measure, a cognitive ability measure, and a measure of psychosocial functioning and risk of harm to self and others. Overall, findings indicate a broader range of diagnoses than in past studies with posttraumatic stress disorder being the most common diagnosis. Compared with hearing patients in the same hospital, deaf patients were less likely to be diagnosed with a psychotic or substance abuse disorder and more likely to be diagnosed with a mood, anxiety, personality, or developmental disorder. Psychosocial functioning of the deaf patients was generally similar to hearing psychiatric patients. Deaf patients presented significantly higher risks than hearing patients in areas of self-harm and risk of sexual offending. Cognitive scores show that both the deaf and hearing inpatient population is skewed toward persons who are lower functioning. An additional surprising finding was that 75% of deaf individuals fell into the nonfluent range of communication in American Sign Language.     

A comparison of first-year,fifth-year,and former teachers on efficacy,ego development,and problem solving

Differences in first-year (N=50), fifth-year (N=49) and former (N=30) teachers on measures of efficacy, ego development, and problem solving were analyzed. The three groups were graduates from the same university who responded to a written survey. ANOVA was used for each variable across all groups, with an alpha level of.05, and the Scheffé multiple range test was used to determine significance between groups. On measures of efficacy and ego development, both first-year and fifth-year teachers scored significantly higher than former teachers, but did not differ from each other. There were no significant differences among the groups on the measure of problem solving.     

The effects of classroom noise on children: Evidence for sex differences

To clarify the relationship between classroom noise and children's intellectual performance, 156 first-, third-, and fifth-grade children worked on a matrix task in either a noisy environment (70dbA) or in a quiet environment (40dbA). Children's performance on the intellectual task increased with age. Moreover, in the environment with classroom noise, boys consistently solved more complex matrix problems than did girls.     

Concept Availability in the Causal Inferences of Children and Adults

What supplies the concepts in causal inferences in story comprehension? This question was examined in 5 experiments. Elementary school children and college students listened to stories containing a "premise" sentence describing a character's intent in initiating a series of actions, followed by an unexpected "outcome." After each story, the subjects were asked inference questions about the reason for the outcome (Experiments 1-4) or asked to explain the outcome (Experiment 5). In the various experiments, the availability of object concepts for an inference was manipulated by providing 0 or 2 clues preceding the outcome, additional filler information that diluted the clue information, a mention of an object in the premise or no mention, and an object title for each story or no title. The results suggested that the availability of an object concept in sentences prior to the outcome was a critical determinant of whether an object inference occurred, especially for children. Given availability, the thematic prominence of the object influences whether the object will be used in an inference.