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(EXAMINER) User Manual - UCSF Memory and Aging Center

1. Press the SPACEBAR when you are ready to begin If the examinee stops responding or appears to be looking away from the screen redirect the examinee to focus on the task Set Shifting MATERIALS amp SET UP Use Left and Right arrow keys Participants should be 30 40 inches from the screen The examinee is asked to match objects by color or by shape depending on the verbal cue presented at the bottom of the screen The examinee should respond to the stimuli as quickly as possible while trying not to make any mistakes This is a matching game You will see a picture in the middle of the screen and a word at the bottom of the screen The word at the bottom of the screen will tell you how to match the picture in the middle to one of the objects in the corners You can match the picture by SHAPE or COLOR and the word at the bottom of the screen will tell you which way to match If you forget how you re supposed to match look at the word to remind yourself When you have to match by COLOR you should push the LEFT button for RED and the RIGHT button for BLUE When you have to match by shape you should push the LEFT button for TRIANGLE and the RIGHT button for RECTANGLE Check that the participant s fingers are appropriately placed on the left and right arrow keys Encourage the examinee to keep their fingers in place until the task is complete Try to respond quickly and accurately but if you make a mistake just keep going W
2. Executive Abilities Measures and Instruments for Neurobehavioral Evaluation and Research EXAMINER User Manual NINDS Domain Specific Tasks of Executive Function HHS99271200623661 Table of Contents PRC TEMG AOTC IIIS MERE 4 Chapter T MISSION ia tes seers wn cise estima E 5 Chapter 2 Project SU UCBUEQ uni stetit tod eniet a a 6 Chapter 3 Backgrounds 7 Chapter 4 Framework for Current Battery s ssesssssussnunsnnununununununnnnnnunnnunununnnnnnanunununannnsnnnnnnnnanns 9 Sub Components of Executive Function ccccsccesssecssscecsecesseecscesecsaeesssaeeseseeceeesessuecssauecseeeessaeessaeessseeeeaees 9 The Role of Non Executive Skills eese sees eene nennen nnne entren nhnn ns en nhan ss sn nasa sss n nasa siint as 9 Broad based and Novel Strategies niei riprese repa rta tee pae dee ande Tua aae uaa dra duda a dede raa exu Te RE a Yo caa Enna 10 Current Framework oe reete operto dee en de caer aevo ee ea eco oae adeo ve aee dae vedete dera ees ede EEEE 10 Chapter 5 Description of Tasks 2e inieie totis FEIER BP AS PHI IM MERE nai 11 Domain Working Memory aite ioo reae tou ee taxe cen tha pe Se eR dee eR ERE eee ERE a HEURE Ede ve aha eese End ccsceatincscventeecs 11 DOM aI INDIO Mis cose REEL E ODE E N A A acetates 13 Domain Set Shifting teet aeaee a a R i feast edad eec exi bles tata ia sirae 14 BIoTEIBaS sa 16 Dom
3. 3 Perseverative None Mild Moderate Severe 4 Decreased initiation None Mild Moderate Severe 5 Motor stereotypies None Mild Moderate Severe 6 Distractible None Mild Moderate Severe 7 Lacks social emotional engagement None Mild Moderate Severe 8 Impulsive None Mild Moderate Severe 9 Socially inappropriate None Mild Moderate Severe GENERAL GUIDELINES Examiners should restrict their ratings to behaviors that they have observed and not use this rating scale to reflect behaviors that are described by caregivers informants or other health care professionals but not directly observed by the examiner Examiners should include all observed behaviors regardless of the context Thus although behaviors during the actual assessment will likely provide the bulk of data examiners should also note behaviors exhibited in all other situations such as the waiting room and walking to and from the exam room There will be some instances when raters will have to decide which of several potential categories to rate a particular behavior For example repeatedly pickup up a pencil from the table and scribbling on test forms could be potentially viewed as perseverative stimulus bound or motor stereotypy It is important for raters to select only one category for an observed behavior Typically raters will have to use their best clinical judgment as to the most appropriate category Some suggestions for determining which category to select a
4. 5 Components 10 t sec am Flow Insert Routine Insert Loop triat 3 Change to Coder view by selecting Open Coder View from the View menu v O ehe Source Assistant Output Welcome to PsychoPy2 4 Next from within the PsychoPy coder view open the lavatask cfg file from the Desktop Examiner3_2 folder 5 Enter a unique Site ID could be the name of your institution e g UCSF in the configuration file replacing the text that reads SITE ID HERE 6 Entera unique Machine ID in the configuration file replacing the text that reads MACHINE ID HERE This should be an id that will not change e g the machine name 7 Next measure the horizontal width of the primary screen that will be used to display the EXAMINER Tasks to research participants This is NOT the corner to corner width but rather is the side to side width Measure in centimeters and enter the value replacing the default value of 33 centimeters You can use decimals points or not e g 30 31 5 31 75 as needed Failure to accurately measure and configure the display width of the computer used for the EXAMINER battery will result in an under or over sized representation of the tasks on the screen 29 O vikide A 0 OO uH X o OG lavatask cfg lavatask cfg 1 site 1 site 2 id SITE ID HERE 2 id UCSF 3 3 4 Josse m 4 machine id MACHINE_ID_HERE 5 id TESTING_LAPTOP1 6 7 display 7 dis
5. instructions may be off 79 References Amieva H Phillips L amp Della Sala S 2003 Behavioral dysexecutive symptoms in normal aging Brain Cogn 53 2 129 132 Anderson S W Damasio H Jones R D amp Tranel D 1991 Winconsin Card Sorting Test performance as a measure of frontal lobe damage J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 13 6 909 922 Baddeley A 2002 Fractionating the central executive In D T Stuss amp R T Knight Eds Principles of frontal lobe function pp 246 260 New York Oxford University Press Baddeley A amp Della Sala S 1996 Working memory and executive control Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 351 1346 1397 1403 discussion 1403 1394 Bechara A Damasio H Tranel D amp Anderson S W 1998 Dissociation Of working memory from decision making within the human prefrontal cortex J Neurosci 18 1 428 437 Beglinger L J Gaydos B Tangphao Daniels O Duff K Kareken D A Crawford J Siemers E R 2005 Practice effects and the use of alternate forms in serial neuropsychological testing Arch Clin Neuropsychol 20 4 517 529 Berman K F Ostrem J L Randolph C Gold J Goldberg T E Coppola R Weinberger D R 1995 Physiological activation of a cortical network during performance of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test a positron emission tomography study Neuropsychologia 33 8 1027 1046 Bowden S C Benedikt R amp
6. shift score Set Shifting Shift Score Summary vf1 corr Battery Form Verbal Fluency Phonemic Trial 1 Correct vf2 corr Battery Form Verbal Fluency Phonemic Trial 2 Correct cf1 corr Battery Form Category Fluency Trial 1 Correct cf2 corr Battery Form Category Fluency Trial 2 Correct Calculating the error score Variable If the administration of the task is for an adult or child and the CPT Flanker Set Shifting Verbal Fluency 1 2 Category Fluency 1 2 and the Behavior Rating Scale have all been completed the error score can be calculated by adding together the following variables If the administration of the task is for a child less than age 7 and the verbal fluency task was not administered the error score can be calculated as below simply omitting the verbal fluency variables Otherwise if any of the tasks contributing to the error score were not completed during the administration of the battery do not provide an error score to the scoring calculation 77 Variable Source Notes nontarget_errors CPT Summary The number of nontarget trials where the subject provided a response False Alarms flanker_error_diff Flanker The difference between the number of errors on incongruent trials and Summary congruent trials shift_error_diff Set Shifting The difference between the number of errors on the shift block compared Summary to the combined errors on the color block and shape block
7. 12 month follow up Mean sd Mean sd 51 79 29 77 Selected analyses Prodromal Huntington s Disease We evaluated 13 patients with prodromal Huntington s disease HD mean age 47 1 sd 12 8 and compared them to a sample of 50 healthy individuals who were matched on age education and sex The prodromal HD patients were impaired on the Working Memory Factor p 008 In addition the Working Memory Factor evidenced a trend in association with disease burden CAP scores in the prodromal patients r 53 Working Memory Composite CAP Burden Score Figure 13 Working Memory and CAP 40 Learning Problems p 064 indicating that it may be a good candidate for marking early disease progression see Figure 13 To determine whether the Working Memory Factor is a sensitive marker of early HD related changes in striatal volume volumetric 3 tesla T1 imaging with Freesurfer segmentation of the striatum was performed on 12 patients with prodromal HD In addition to the EXAMINER patients were administered measures of language category fluency visuospatial skills Benson Figure copy and memory Benson Figure delayed recall for comparison The Working Memory Factor correlated with the left a ur striatum r 81 p 001 and the right striatum r 66 p 019 see Figure 14 In contrast correlations with measures of language visuospatial i mU Memory Compasiti skills and memory were not significantly associated
8. 6 13 5 4 8 5 2 100 5 721 2 4 5 7 5 4 5 6 5 13 5 16 5 8 5 9 5 5 721 6 110 3 7 5 8 5 6 5 7 5 16 5 17 5 9 5 10 5 6 110 6 526 4 8 5 9 5 7 5 8 5 17 5 18 5 10 5 11 5 6 526 6 867 5 9 5 10 5 8 5 9 5 18 5 20 5 11 5 12 5 6 867 7 238 6 10 5 12 5 9 5 10 5 20 5 26 12 5 13 5 7 238 9 733 7 12 5 25 10 5 21 13 5 14 5 8 14 5 20 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 N eo 56 Table 29 Correlations between Factor Scores adult sample in bold Executive Comp Cognitive Cont Working Mem Fluency Executive Comp 79 71 87 Cognitive Cont 87 58 48 Working Mem 74 60 45 Fluency 87 60 46 We highlight here two key points about the IRT measures First the Composite and Factor scores are presented in the original metric produced by the IRT algorithm used by the EXAMINER scoring program We intentionally chose not to convert the scores to standard scores scale scores or anything else that could potentially be misconstrued as a norm referenced measure The scores do not contain any type of age adjustment so it is likely that high functioning young children will have lower scores than impaired middle age adults Researchers can use these scores like any other raw score where balanced samples within subject designs and careful attention to covariates are typical The second key point concerns the standard error of these IRT scores The fewer donor scales t
9. 66 CONTINUOUS Performance ME ossis a Ee e ETa a T EEE aE AE a 67 Le d U U 68 PI reg H HU 69 Social Norms Questioririaire iiie eiie eta pite actetuer te aa rn ce nappe e aan te nag aee aa Tn e aa Donde eaa da de eaa oie eaa rR de 72 Chapter 13 Procedures for Calculating Composite and Factor Scores 76 Installing the Scoring Progra vices ecco cec errat tene Cera eo cpu xr eer a tee adeo n ra ee EUR ree a eeu ea eeu nado 76 Running th Scoring Pror aM eesis rias eot nt Peter eee ee vea EOKA AEE AEA candida 76 Preparing an Input File for the Scoring Program sessi nnne nnns enne 77 Composite and Factor Score Output Variables ssesssessssesee eese eene enne enne enn 78 Chapter 14 KNOWN L1 C RR 79 8 St BR asse neos tan nU ME MIHI qM MR ML 80 Acknowledgements The EXAMINER project represents the combined efforts of many individuals to whom we are very grateful Our external advisers were generous with their time and wisdom throughout the course of the project Kimberly Espy Josette Harris Steven Hinshaw Robert Knight David Knopman Paul Malloy Jennifer Manly Dan Mungas Ron Ruff Tim Salthouse Donatella Scabini and Phil Zelazo all made immensely valuable contributions The team at NIH Emmeline Edwards Helene Braun and Laurie Le
10. Ritter A J 1992 Delayed matching to sample and concurrent learning in nonamnesic humans with alcohol dependence Neuropsychologia 30 5 427 435 Chan R C Hoosain R amp Lee T M 2002 Reliability and validity of the Cantonese version of the Test of Everyday Attention among normal Hong Kong Chinese a preliminary report Clin Rehabil 16 8 900 909 Chan R C amp Manly T 2002 The application of dysexecutive syndrome measures across cultures performance and checklist assessment in neurologically healthy and traumatically brain injured Hong Kong Chinese volunteers J Int Neuropsychol Soc 8 6 771 780 Chan R C Robertson I H amp Crawford J R 2003 An application of individual subtest scores calculation in the Cantonese version of the Test of Everyday Attention Psychol Rep 93 3 Pt 2 1275 1282 Cummings J L Mega M Gray K Thompson Rosenberg J Carusi D A amp Gornbein J 1994 The Neuropsychiatric Inventory Comprehensive assessment of psychopathology in dementia Neurology 44 2308 2314 D Esposito M Detre J A Alsop D C Shin R K Atlas S amp Grossman M 1995 The neural basis of the central executive system of working memory Nature 378 6554 279 281 D Esposito M Postle B R Ballard D amp Lease J 1999 Maintenance versus manipulation of information held in working memory an event related fMRI study Brain Cogn 41 1 66 86 Delis D C K
11. an informant to consent for them General Exclusion Criteria Participants were excluded if they had the following o Current alcohol abuse or dependence Current drug abuse Psychiatric disorder apart from those specified in diagnostic groups of interest B12 deficiency or other metabolic syndrome Hypothyroidism i e TSH gt 150 of normal Known HIV Renal failure Respiratory failure i e requiring oxygen Significant systemic medical illnesses e g deteriorating cardiovascular disease Current medication likely to affect CNS functions e g benzodiazepines antidepressants lithium and or neuroleptics in the phenothiazine and haloperidol families OOoOo000000 Please see EXAMINER Diagnostic Table below for additional inclusion and exclusion criteria 20 Subject Diagnostic Criteria Inclusion and exclusion criteria for the diagnostic categories followed classifications as reflected in the following guidelines Principal investigators at each site reviewed and confirmed subject diagnoses Table 1 EXAMINER Diagnostic Table Diagnosis Criteria Alzheimer s Disease AD Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia bvFTD Focal Lesion Huntington s Disease HD Mild Cognitive Impairment MCI Multiple Sclerosis Parkinson s Disease Progressive Supranuclear Palsy PSP Sickle Cell Anemia Traumatic Brain Injury TBI Very Low Birth Weight VLBW McKhan
12. consensus on clinical diagnostic criteria Neurology 51 6 1546 1554 81 Petersen R C Doody R Kurz A Mohs R C Morris J C Rabins P V Winblad B 2001 Current concepts in mild cognitive impairment Arch Neurol 58 12 1985 1992 Polman C H Reingold S C Edan G Filippi M Hartung H P Kappos L Wolinsky J S 2005 Diagnostic criteria for multiple sclerosis 2005 revisions to the McDonald Criteria Ann Neurol 58 6 840 846 doi 10 1002 ana 20703 Rabin L A Barr W B amp Burton L A 2005 Assessment practices of clinical neuropsychologists in the United States and Canada a survey of INS NAN and APA Division 40 members Arch Clin Neuropsychol 20 1 33 65 Robbins T W James M Owen A M Sahakian B J McInnes L amp Rabbitt P 1994 Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery CANTAB a factor analytic study of a large sample of normal elderly volunteers Dementia 5 5 266 281 Rodriguez del Alamo A Catalan Alonso M J amp Carrasco Marin L 2003 FAB a preliminar Spanish application of the frontal assessment battery to 11 groups of patients Rev Neurol 36 7 605 608 Rogers R D Andrews T C Grasby P M Brooks D J amp Robbins T W 2000 Contrasting cortical and subcortical activations produced by attentional set shifting and reversal learning in humans J Cogn Neurosci 12 1 142 162 Rosso l M Young
13. given step yielded a greater improvement in model fit that any of the other variables that had not been differentially estimated This process was continued until further improvement in model fit was not obtained or there was only one variable left that shared the same parameters across groups The score from this last iteration was considered a DIF free standard and was compared with scores from previous iterations using the root mean square error Results showed that accounting for DIF related to age group did not substantially change resulting IRT scores but indicated that it was important to account for language for the global executive function score Consequently the same item parameters were used across all age groups but parameters for the global executive function score differed across language groups for seven of the 11 variables The item parameters from the final IRT calibrations for each score were saved and a program was created in R to apply these parameters to generate scores for the global factor and the three specific factors This program accepts raw continuous scores as input and applies IRT Empirical Bayes scoring based on the saved parameters to generate scores 52 Table 25 Binning values minimum and maximum for English speakers Ordinal value Dot Counting 1 back d prime 2 back d prime Flanker score Dysexecutive errors Anti saccades 1 1 3 5 1 110 0 175 1 941 0
14. information processing speed working memory motor speed language processing spatial processing and fundamental perceptual and motor skills For example the Trail Making Test is a very widely used neuropsychological tool for measuring set shifting or mental flexibility yet can be failed for reasons more related to problems with visual scanning hand eye coordination ability to count facility with the alphabet sustained attention motor speed and other skills Accordingly some elements of the battery were designed explicitly to enable users to parse out the inhibitory or set shifting components Broad based and Novel Strategies The third underlying premise of this proposal was that a comprehensive approach to executive functioning requires broad based and novel assessment strategies to capture cognitive and non cognitive behaviors Executive functioning is typically viewed as a cognitive ability assessed by neuropsychologists using achievement scores on tasks like Trail Making sorting tasks Stroop Interference paradigms and reasoning tasks These types of tasks evaluate critical cognitive components of executive function but can miss important executive behaviors and social abilities It is well known for example that patients with very impaired executive functioning in the real world e g impaired interpersonal conduct poor impulse control can perform normally on these neuropsychological measures of executive functioning This pattern
15. may be particularly pronounced in patients whose pathology involves ventromedial prefrontal structures these frontally damaged patients have very disturbed interpersonal behavior yet might perform normally on cognitive testing Saver amp Damasio 1991 Tranel Bechara amp Denburg 2002 Consequently battery construction requires a broad based approach that conceptualizes executive functioning as the full set of cognitive emotional and social abilities that enable successful goal directed behavior Rosso Young Femia amp Yurgelun Todd 2004 Current Framework Our ultimate approach to developing the EXAMINER battery was to integrate the cognitive literature on executive functioning with the clinical literature on the sequelae of frontal injury We selected Miyake s model as the core conceptual structure for battery design and targeted tasks that measured mental set shifting information updating and monitoring and inhibition of pre potent responses For mental set shifting we emphasized measuring performance when attention or response set must shift and contrasting this measure with performance on component tasks that did not require a shift For information updating we tapped into the larger construct of working memory recognizing that working memory tasks range in the degree to which they require updating of information versus manipulation of information in short term memory Consistent with Miyake we targeted tasks that required so
16. name Summary subject id session num date time csv A file that combines all the summary records for each task is stored in the data folder and is labeled with the following format task name Summary Combined site id machine name csv See the task documentation under Desktop Examiner3_2 docs folder for detailed descriptions of each data file format 5 Install R Software R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics It compiles and runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms Windows and Mac OS The EXAMINER battery software for calculating the executive composite and factor scores is programmed in the R language and relies on Itm module latent trait models under the Item Response Theory approach The R software only needs to be installed on computers that will be used to calculate the executive composite and factor scores e g a computer used for data management and analysis As of 12 28 2011 the current version of the R software is 2 14 1 Installing R on Windows 1 Download the R Installer for Windows from www r project org or use the copy included in the Examiner 3 2 Software Windows Scoring R directory of the EXAMINER battery distribution 2 Ensure that you have permission on the testing machine to install software i e Administrative Privileges 3 Install R by running the downloaded installer and accept all the default settings Additional installation instructions for R are located at w
17. needed The psychometric properties of executive tasks pose yet another challenge to clinical investigators interested in measuring executive functioning Construct validity refers to how well an instrument measures what it purports to measure Importantly clinical neuropsychological instruments have been criticized for being multifactorial drawing on several non executive component skills In fact listed among the top 20 executive tasks in a survey of neuropsychologists by Rabin et al Rabin Barr amp Burton 2005 were a memory task CVLT and visuospatial tasks such as clock drawing Rey Osterrieth Complex Figure and block design While no one would argue that executive skills were irrelevant to performing these tests it is not possible to untangle the various component skills Not surprisingly the ability of these tasks to differentiate between frontal and non frontal patients is fraught with error Anderson Damasio Jones amp Tranel 1991 Berman et al 1995 Dunbar amp Sussman 1995 Manchester Priestley amp Jackson 2004 Another psychometric issue is test retest reliability This has particular importance for clinical trials where researchers must be able to attribute change in cognition to the intervention and not poor reliability or practice effects Beglinger et al 2005 Bowden Benedikt amp Ritter 1992 Most current measures of executive function also have limited cross cultural application Often the stimu
18. order that the screens were presented The six trials progress in difficulty with the number of display screen ranging in span from 2 to 7 Position the computer so that both the examinee and the examiner have a clear view of the screen Read the instructions aloud as they appear on each screen Have score sheet ready to record responses You will be shown a series of images containing blue circles green circles and blue squares You will count and remember the number of BLUE CIRCLES you see on each screen Hit the Spacebar to continue Count the BLUE circles aloud one at a time and then repeat the final total aloud IMMEDIATELY This will indicate to the examiner that you have finished counting Hit the Spacebar to continue A screen with blue and green circles and blue squares will appear Instruct the examinee to count the number of blue circles that they see on the screen After participant counts each blue circle aloud hit the spacebar to continue to the next screen How many BLUE circles did you count After the examinee gives a response hit the spacebar to continue Now you will count the BLUE circles on one screen and then on another screen Please begin counting the blue circles aloud as soon as they appear on the screen When you finish counting the circles repeat the total aloud As soon as you repeat the final number you ll see a new screen Hit the Spacebar to continue Screen with blue and green circles and blue squar
19. questions Ok ready Press the SPACEBAR when you are ready to begin the task A recorded voice will announce the number of each trial Listen to the number announced to ensure you are recording each eye movement for the correct trial After the first set of 20 trials press the spacebar to continue on to the next 20 trials 71 Scoring Correct responses are scored using the recording boxes on the forms Each response is marked based on the direction of initial eye movement Count the number of marked boxes that are not grayed out as the number of correct responses then add the number of correct responses and record at the bottom of the Saccades score sheet Social Norms Questionnaire MATERIALS amp SET UP Social Interactions Questionnaire The examinee is asked to indicate whether or not a certain behavior is appropriate in mainstream culture of the United States Place the questionnaire in front of the participant and read the instruction The following is a list of behaviors that a person might do Please decide whether or not it would be socially acceptable and appropriate to do these things in the mainstream culture of the United States and answer yes or no to each Think about these questions as they would apply to interactions with a stranger or acquaintance NOT with a close friend or family member Collect the form when the examinee has finished If the participant has difficulty answering an item or asks for clarifi
20. right Point out the central arrow on the instruction screen so that it is clear to the examinee which arrow to focus on Press the LEFT button if the CENTRAL arrow is pointing to the left Press the RIGHT button if the CENTRAL arrow is pointing to the right Point to left and right arrow keys as indicated Try to respond as quickly and accurately as you can Try to keep your attention focused on the cross at the center of the screen Check that participant s fingers are appropriately placed on left and right arrow keys Encourage participant to keep fingers in place until task is complete First we ll do a practice trial Press the SPACEBAR to begin Run practice trial Provide feedback as needed If the examinee finishes the practice trial and was not able to respond to 7596 of the trials correctly another practice trial will begin If an examinee is not able to advance past the third practice trial the task will discontinue After the practice trial s is finished and it is clear that the examinee understands the directions go on to the test Now we ll move on to the task the instructions are the same except you will no longer receive feedback after your responses Press the LEFT button if the CENTRAL arrow is pointing to the 64 left Press the RIGHT button if the CENTRAL arrow is pointing to the right Remember to keep your focus on the center cross and try to respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes
21. sectional and longitudinal studies Such a battery should reflect both cognitive and non cognitive behaviors and bear some relationship to day to day executive functioning In addition to these underlying themes we believe that a successful executive function battery should have the attributes described below Modular Executive functioning encompasses multiple domains of behavior such as generation set shifting working memory inhibition concept formation and social behavior Separate modules offering the ability to quantify each of the relevant domains should be available to researchers to use separately or collectively depending on the researcher s needs Modifiable The specific needs of individual clinical investigations can vary quite considerably in terms of the types of executive tasks the age and level of impairment of the study sample and the overall study design Any standard battery of executive tasks must be flexible enough to be adapted to a range of experimental and clinical situations Efficient In most research settings executive functioning will be only one of several data points required To be maximally useful an executive function battery will need to be very efficient providing reliable and valid test data in as brief a period as possible Applicable to a broad range of subjects in terms of age and ethnicity Very few standardized neuropsychological instruments are available that can be used with both pediatric a
22. start verbal and or motor response after being given task instructions need for additional prompting to initiate a response and low motivation to perform well This would also include instances when a subject stops in the middle of a task and requires additional prompts to continue Note If decreased initiation occurs only in the context of lack of social engagement or distractibility code as those domains rather than decreased initiation 5 Motor stereotypies These are persistent repetitive behaviors without a clear purpose Examples include pacing without apparent purpose rummaging through pockets or drawers picking 74 at skin or clothes handling buttons repeatedly putting on and removing jewelry or clothing repeated lip smacking or other sounds or repeating phrases that have no communicative value Note If a behavior is coded as a motor stereotypy that same behavior should not also be coded as a perseveration 6 Distractibility Attention is easily diverted away by external stimuli people objects etc outside noise or internal thought This is observed when the subject loses his her train of thought needs multiple reminders about instructions needs to have their attention redirected to the task at hand or engages in tangential speech or thought This can be rated as mild if the distractibility is occasional and does not significantly interfere with collecting valid test data moderate if the subject needs several reminde
23. sure you can see the participant s eyes PRO SACCADE TRIAL Today we are going to be doing a task to watch your eye movements You will see a dot in the center of the screen Point to the center of the computer screen would like you to move your eyes in the direction the dot moves which will be either to the left or to the right of the screen Then follow the dot back to the center Do not move your head just your eyes Any questions Ok ready Press the SPACEBAR when you are ready to begin the task When the test begins a recorded voice on the computer program will announce the number of each trial Listen to the number announced to ensure you are recording each eye movement for the correct trial Record initial direction of eye movement There are 10 trials for Pro Saccades After the Pro Saccades test the instructions to the Anti Saccades test will appear on the screen ANTI SACCADE TRIAL Now we are going to be doing a second eye movement task Again you will see a dot in the center of the screen Point to the center of the computer screen The dot will move either to the left or to the right of the screen This time would like you to use only your eyes to look at the opposite direction of where the dot moves Do not move your head just your eyes After looking at the opposite side of where the dot is return your eyes to look at the dot at the center of the screen Here is an example Press the SPACEBAR to display example of task Any
24. task 95 8 98 9 97 4 97 8 Social norms 46 9 34 7 74 8 59 9 questionnaire Distributions As described in Chapter 11 individual EXAMINER variables can be combined into composite and factor scores using item response theory Procedures to create an Executive Composite and Working Memory Cognitive Control and Fluency Factors are laid out in Chapters 11 and 13 The distributions of the Executive Composite score and the Working Memory Cognitive Control and Fluency Factor scores were all normal when the sample was viewed in its entirety and when children and adults were viewed separately Distributions of the Executive Composite score for children and adults are shown in Figure 11 Please note that the Executive Composite and Factor scores are raw scores generated directly from the EXAMINER scoring program and are not age referenced 33 Children Adults 50 1004 407 804 Fry gt g 3 2 5 3 S F4 v 2 2 u u 204 404 104 204 0 0 3 000000 2 000000 1 000000 0 000000 1 000000 3 000000 2 000000 1 000000 0 000000 1 000000 2 000000 3 000000 Executive Composite Executive Composite Figure 11 Distributions of Executive Composite score in children and adults Reliability Individual Tests Reliability of individual tests was estimated in several ways depending on the nature of the task Internal consistency measures were appropriate for all tasks except Unstructured Task and Social Norms test retest reliability is r
25. the child sample there were 139 patients and 309 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 9 39 p 002 partial eta 02 Estimated marginal means are summarized in Table 20 Table 20 Fluency Composite Patients versus controls Patients Normals Mean SE Mean SE 18 76 05 58 03 184 21 05 51 04 Correlations with age The correlation of the Fluency Factor with age in adults was assessed using baseline data from 211 normal controls over the age of 55 The correlation between the Factor Score and age was 13 p 07 The correlation with age in children was assessed using baseline data from 277 normal controls under the age of 15 The correlation between the Factor Score and age was 70 p 001 Correlations with brain MRI Several studies have implicated left frontal regions as the primary underlying neuroanatomy for verbal fluency We examined the neuroanatomical correlates of the Fluency Factor in 152 subjects who underwent a research brain MRI within 90 days of fluency data collection The T1 MPRAGE structural MR images were analyzed using Freesurfer a freely available and semi automated parcellation system for calculating the volumes of specified regions of interest We calculated cortical volumes for the left frontal temporal and parietal lobes In a multiple regression analysis with the Fluency Factor Score as the dependent variable the three brain re
26. vf1 rep Battery Form Verbal fluency 1 repetition errors vf1l rv Battery Form Verbal fluency 1 rule violation errors vf2 rep Battery Form Verbal fluency 2 repetition errors vf2 rv Battery Form Verbal fluency 2 rule violation errors cf1 rep Battery Form Category fluency 1 repetition errors cf1 rv Battery Form Category fluency 1 rule violation errors cf2 rep Battery Form Category fluency 2 repetition errors cf2 rv Battery Form Category fluency 2 rule violation errors vf1 rep Battery Form Verbal fluency 1 repetition errors vf1 rep Battery Form Verbal fluency 1 repetition errors behav total Battery Form The total from the Behavioral Rating Scale Composite and Factor Score Output Variables The output variables generated by the scoring program are listed in the table below Variable executive composite Description The executive composite score executive se The executive composite score standard error fluency factor fluency se The fluency factor score The fluency factor score standard error cog control factor The cognitive control factor score cog control se working memory factor The cognitive control factor score standard error The working memory factor score working memory se The working memory factor score standard error 78 Chapter 14 Known Issues e If you are administering the tasks on a Linux machine the centering and alignment of the textual
27. where UTpct is the percentage of completed puzzles that were considered high value items and UTTotal is the total number of points earned The weighted composite is also normally distributed see Figure 17 The Unstructured Task did not fit well with either the one factor or three factor model and thus does not contribute to any of the IRT measures Frequency 0 0 0 5 1 0 15 2 0 25 Weighted Composite Figure 17 Distribution of Unstructured Task score Social Norms Questionnaire The Social Norms Questionnaire provides a total score reflecting the number of items endorsed in the direction of mainstream American culture Factor Scores Confirmatory factor analysis methods were used to identify homogeneous dimensions underlying the executive function measures that could be used to generate composite scores An iterative process involved exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses was carried out to identify potential donor variables from all EXAMINER tasks The process identified 11 core variables for further analyses Dot Counting total d prime measures from the 1 back and 2 back total Flanker score total Set Shifting score anti saccade total total correct responses from each of the verbal fluency tasks and total dysexecutive errors Confirmatory factor analyses were then applied to these 11 variables Two models were tested The first was a one factor model with all 11 donor variables This unidimensional model was compared
28. with a three factor model guided by a priori conceptual considerations corresponding to cognitive control total Flanker score total Set Shifting score anti saccade total total dysexecutive errors working memory Dot Counting total d prime measures from the 1 back and 2 back and fluency total correct responses from each of the four verbal fluency tasks The three factor model provided excellent fit and fit clearly was superior to that of the one factor model This suggested that composite scores related to cognitive control fluency and working memory were appropriate An additional analysis was performed to evaluate whether the one factor model was sufficiently unidimensional to support a global executive function composite score based on all eleven variables A bifactor model was fit in which all eleven variables loaded on a global factor and in addition each variable also loaded on a specific factor corresponding to the three factor model The global and specific factors were all constrained to be uncorrelated so ensure identifiability of the model This model showed excellent fit Loadings of all 11 variables on the global variable were strong and were as strong as loadings on the specific factors which was interpreted as providing support for a global executive function composite score 51 Item response theory IRT methods were used to generate scores for four variables global executive function cognitive control fluency and worki
29. with striatal volumes Figure 14 WM and striatum volume Left Striatal Volume Attention Deficit Disorder We predicted that children diagnosed with attention deficit Table 16 ADHD vs controls hyperactivity disorder ADHD would show an impairment on Controls ADHD the Working Memory Factor and Mean SE Mean SE that their performance would 17 05 48 11 correlate with learning problems as measured by the Conners Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scales We compared 32 ADHD children between the ages of 8 and 16 meanz11 1 sd 2 3 to 164 age matched healthy controls The ADHD children performed less well on the Working Memory Composite F 1 193 6 5 p 01 Working memory performance correlated with learning S Warking Memory Coniposit problems r 46 p 009 controlling for age Figure 15 Figure 15 Working Memory and Connors Parkinson s disease vs Controls We predicted that nondemented patients with Parkinson s Table 17 PD vs controls disease PD would be impaired on the Working Memory Controls PD Composite We compared 20 PD patients mean age 67 4 Mean SE Mean SE sd 7 5 to 125 controls mean age 68 2 sd 7 1 Estimated 59 07 06 16 marginal means are summarized in Table 17 Controls performed significantly better than PD patients F 1 142 9 0 p 003 controlling for age Convergent and Dive
30. you said bake you wouldn t also say baked or bakes and if you said big you wouldn t also say bigger and biggest Let s begin Tell me all the words you can as quickly as you can that begin with the letter F Ready Begin If the participant pauses for 15 seconds prompt them to continue by saying Keep going or What other words beginning with F can you think of If the participant gives three consecutive responses that do not start with the designated letter prompt them by saying Remember we are using the letter p Fluency Category The examiner will ask the examinee to list as many words as they can that belong to a certain category in one minute Now I am going to give you a category and want you to name as fast as you can all of the things that belong to that category For example if say articles of clothing you would say shirt tie or hat It doesn t matter what letter the word starts with Now want you to name things that belong to the category Animals You will have one minute want you to tell me all the animals that you can think of in one minute Ready Begin If the participant pauses for 15 seconds say Keep going What other animals can you think of If participant gives 3 consecutive words that do not fit the category say The category we are now using is animals If the participant only names animals that begin with the letter L or F remind the participant It doesn t matter what letter th
31. 1 01 is available You are running v1 70 00 You can update to the latest version automatically Auto update will fetch latest version 9 Use zip file below download a PsychoPy release file ending zip File Entry PsychoPy 1 71 01 zip Browse Install Close b Choose the option to use a zip file and browse to select the PsychoPy 1 73 05 zip located in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software OSX Tasks Psychopy folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution c Click the Install button and restart PsychoPy 27 on Linux Using a Linux operating system for the EXAMINER computer tasks requires knowledge of how to use the software packaging system for the specific Linux distribution in use to install software Users of debian based Linux distributions will find helpful installation instructions at www psychopy org installation html and will find installation packages for PsychoPy at neuro debian net Copies of the installation packages for PsychoPy 1 73 05 for the Ubuntu 10 4 operating system are included with the EXAMINER battery distribution in the Examiner 3 2 Software Linux Tasks Psychopy ubuntu10 4 directory 2 Install the EXAMINER Computer Tasks If you have already installed the EXAMINER Computer Tasks on the computer please make sure to backup the existing Examiner folder before proceeding this will ensure you don t accidentally erase any previously captured data or configuration files 1 Install PsychoPy following the ins
32. 10 15 2 25 30 Number of Trial K 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Number of Trials k T a 1 00 an e 095 t zoo c 130 E ac Le Eum 120 o om 3 100 Jo Mn a5 a 6D FS 070 wW c Am c E Figure 5a and 5b Flanker simulation 13 Continuous Performance Test CPT The continuous performance task is a classic response inhibition task which requires subjects to respond to acertain type of stimulus and withhold a response to another The examinee is presented with different images in the center of the screen instructed to press the left arrow key for only the target image e g a white five pointed star in Form A responding as quickly and accurately as possible The task consists of 100 experimental trials 8096 of which were the target image The five non target images that were presented were of a similar shape and of comparable size to the target for each form Figure 6 Example of CPT stimuli Anti saccades This is an eye movement task There are three blocks of trials in which subjects look at a fixation point in the center of a computer screen and move their eyes upon presentation of a laterally presented stimulus In the first block pro saccade subjects are instructed to move their eyes in the direction of the presented stimulus In the second and third blocks anti saccade subjects are instructed to move their eyes in the opposite direction of the presented stimulus Dysexecutive Errors An underlying assum
33. 181 1 043 3 992 0 0 5 0 14 5 2 3 5 5 5 0 175 0 067 0 181 0 096 3 992 4 462 0 5 2 5 14 5 16 5 3 5 5 6 5 0 067 0 334 0 096 0 386 4 462 4 926 2 5 4 5 16 5 18 5 4 6 5 75 0 334 0 577 0 386 0 679 4 926 5 355 4 5 6 5 18 5 20 5 5 7 5 9 5 0 577 0 815 0 679 0 970 5 355 5 791 6 5 8 5 20 5 22 5 6 9 5 10 5 0 815 1 059 0 970 1 260 5 791 6 260 8 5 10 5 22 5 24 5 7 10 5 11 5 1 059 1 301 1 260 1 559 6 260 6 690 10 5 12 5 24 5 26 5 8 11 5 13 5 1 301 1 524 1 559 1 843 6 690 7 132 12 5 15 5 26 5 28 5 9 13 5 14 5 1 524 1 811 1 843 2 128 7 132 7 576 15 5 17 5 28 5 30 5 10 14 5 15 5 1 811 2 019 2 128 2 435 7 576 8 028 17 5 19 5 30 5 32 5 11 15 5 16 5 2 019 2 245 2 435 2 707 8 028 8 472 19 5 21 5 32 5 34 5 12 16 5 18 5 2 245 2 468 2 707 3 881 8 472 8 918 21 5 25 5 34 5 36 5 13 18 5 19 5 2 468 2 693 8 918 9 363 25 5 43 36 5 38 5 14 19 5 20 5 2 693 2 974 9 363 9 809 38 5 40 15 20 5 22 5 2 974 3 414 9 809 9 961 16 22 5 23 5 3 414 3 671 17 23 5 24 5 18 24 5 27 19 20 53 Table 26 Binning values minimum and maximum for English speakers Ordinal value Verbal fluency 1 Verbal fluency 2 Category fluency 1 Category fluency 2 Shift Score 1 0 3 5 0 1 5 0 4 5 0 1 5 1 429 2 879 2 3 5 5 5 1 5 3 5 4 5 6 5 1 5 2 5 2 879 3 618 3 5 5 7 5 3 5 4 5 6 5 8 5 2 5 4 5 3 618 4 069 4 7 5 9 5 4 5 6 5 8 5 10 5 4 5 5 5 4 069 4 477 5 9 5 10 5 6 5 7 5 10 5 12 5 5 5
34. 7 5 4 477 4 894 6 10 5 12 5 7 5 9 5 12 5 14 5 7 5 8 5 4 894 5 304 7 12 5 14 5 9 5 10 5 14 5 16 5 8 5 10 5 5 304 5 699 8 14 5 16 5 10 5 12 5 16 5 18 5 10 5 11 5 5 699 6 109 9 16 5 18 5 12 5 13 5 18 5 20 5 11 5 13 5 6 109 6 510 10 18 5 19 5 13 5 15 5 20 5 22 5 13 5 14 5 6 510 6 921 11 19 5 21 5 15 5 16 5 22 5 24 5 14 5 15 5 6 921 7 329 12 21 5 36 16 5 18 5 24 5 26 5 15 5 17 5 7 329 7 733 13 18 5 19 5 26 5 28 5 17 5 18 5 7 733 8 142 14 19 5 22 5 28 5 40 18 5 21 5 8 142 8 548 15 22 5 30 21 5 29 8 548 8 956 16 8 956 9 358 17 9 358 9 861 18 19 20 54 Table 27 Binning values minimum and maximum for Spanish speakers Ordinal value Dot Counting 1 back d prime 2 back d prime Flanker score Dysexecutive errors Anti saccades 1 5 8 5 0 251 1 705 1 130 0 496 3 932 7 710 0 4 5 0 38 5 2 8 5 9 5 1 705 1 910 0 496 0 686 7 710 8 020 4 5 5 5 38 5 40 3 9 5 10 5 1 910 2 126 0 686 2 485 8 020 8 319 5 5 9 5 4 10 5 11 5 2 126 2 302 8 319 8 602 9 5 28 5 11 5 12 5 2 302 2 522 8 602 9 869 6 12 5 23 2 522 2 693 7 2 693 3 671 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 N eo 55 Table 28 Binning values minimum and maximum for Spanish speakers Ordinal value Verbal fluency 1 Verbal fluency 2 Category fluency 1 Category fluency 2 Shift Score 1 1 4 5 0 4 5
35. A D Femia L A amp Yurgelun Todd D A 2004 Cognitive and emotional components of frontal lobe functioning in childhood and adolescence Ann N Y Acad Sci 1021 355 362 Royall D R Mahurin R K amp Gray K F 1992 Bedside assessment of executive cognitive impairment the executive interview J Am Geriatr Soc 40 12 1221 1226 Saver J L amp Damasio A R 1991 Preserved access and processing of social knowledge in a patient with acquired sociopathy due to ventromedial frontal damage Neuropsychologia 29 12 1241 1249 Shallice T amp Burgess P W 1991 Deficits in strategy application following frontal lobe damagein men Brain 114 727 741 Shallice T amp Burgess P W 1996 The domain of supervisory processes and temporal organisation of behaviour Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 351 1405 1412 Stuss D T Shallice T Alexander M P amp Picton T W 1995 A multidisciplinary approach to anterior attentional functions Ann N Y Acad Sci 769 191 211 Tranel D Bechara A amp Denburg N L 2002 Asymmetric functional roles of right and left ventromedial prefrontal cortices in social conduct decision making and emotional processing Cortex 38 4 589 612 Wilson B A Alderman N Burgess P W Emslie H amp Evans J 1996 Behavioral ASsessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome Thames Valley Test Company 82
36. AD patients performing least well age matched controls performing best and patients with MCI performing in between We compared 39 AD patients mean age 72 4 sd 10 7 38 MCI patients mean age 74 0 sd 7 7 and 151 controls mean age 70 8 sd 9 3 on the Executive Composite score Estimated marginal means are Table 12 AD vs MCI vs controls summarized in Table 12 Controls Controls MCI AD performed significantly better than AD Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE and MCI and MCI patients performed 70 05 29 11 20 10 significantly better than AD patients Subcortical syndromes Impairment in executive functioning is widely considered to be a central cognitive deficit in patients with syndromes affecting subcortical frontal systems Our subcortical group consisted of 17 patients with multiple sclerosis mean age 42 5 sd 11 9 21 patients with idiopathic Parkinson s disease mean age 67 4 sd 7 0 and 13 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy mean age 65 9 sd 7 6 When compared to 172 age matched controls the subcortical group performed significantly less well estimated marginal means after controlling for age are summarized in Table 13 Table 13 Subcortical patients vs controls Subcortical group Normals Mean SE Mean SE Executive Composite score 15 10 86 05 Convergent and Divergent Validity Convergent and divergent validity was assessed in 74 normal adults
37. BAR to begin Verbalize instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help participant understand task 69 PRACTICE TRIAL 1 Let s try a few more practice squares Now each square will appear for a shorter time Remember to compare each square to the one 2 before Start responding with the 3rd square Please respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes Press the SPACEBAR to begin Run practice trial Verbalize instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help participant understand task Do not reveal correct responses If participant performs well the test will begin If they do not respond correctly Practice Trial 2 will begin PRACTICE TRIAL 2 Let s try a few more practice squares Remember each square and compare it to the one 2 before Please respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes Press the SPACEBAR to begin Run practice trial Verbalize instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help participant understand task Do not reveal correct responses If participant performs well the test will begin If they do not respond correctly Practice Trial 3 will begin PRACTICE TRIAL 3 Let s try a few more practice squares Remember each square and compare it to the one 2 before Please respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes Press the SPACEBAR to begin Run practice trial Verbalize instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help participant understand task Do not reveal co
38. It also showed a weak but significant negative association r 0 16 p lt 01 with the total score for the Behavior Rating Scale in 433 subjects indicating that subjects who performed worse in the SNQ were rated by examiners as having displayed more behavioral abnormalities during the Examiner testing session Thus the psychometric construct measured by the SNQ overlaps with both executive functioning and socio emotional sensitivity and predicts real life behavior abnormalities observed by clinicians and informants 47 Chapter 11 Variable and Scale Construction The tasks contained in the EXAMINER battery are designed to be used either individually or combined into scales In this chapter we review the dependent measures that can be derived from individual tests and describe the methods underlying scale construction Individual Tests Dot Counting In Dot Counting each of the six trials is scored as per the procedures outlined in Chapter 12 and the primary dependent variable is the total score summed across the six trials Spatial 1 and 2 back Total Correct and D prime are the primary indices for characterizing accuracy on the n back tasks In the 1 back there are 30 trials 10 yes trials and 20 no trials and in the 2 back there are 90 trials 30 yes and 60 no The total number of correct responses for each task is tabulated Because there is a 50 chance of making a correct response by chance total scores le
39. S 1 Agitation Agitation can involve inappropriate verbal screaming cursing or physical repetitive body movements hitting or throwing objects behaviors and can be aggressive or non aggressive in nature pacing versus kicking Mild agitation might manifest itself as being anxious to complete the evaluation argumentative or complaining about testing Moderate levels might include disruptive but not harmful behaviors that cannot be easily redirected Severe agitation would include physical behaviors that put others or self in danger e g hitting pushing scratching throwing things biting or kicking or extreme verbal aggression e g screaming or cursing loudly 2 Stimulus boundedness Stimulus boundedness is an inappropriate response to a salient environmental stimulus Such behaviors could include unsolicited reading of nearby text environmental dependency e g picking up a pen from the table and writing eating food from someone else s plate excessive attention to irrelevant objects e g picking up objects from floor echolalia or during cognitive testing writing or drawing on a model or adjacent stimulus The occurrence of even one instance of stimulus boundedness warrants a mild rating Examples of moderate include closing in on a stimulus or being distracted by adjacent stimuli and these behaviors result in clearly impaired performance Environmentally dependent behaviors occur often and subject cannot be easily red
40. The entire EXAMINER battery was designed to be administered to all subjects with a few notable exceptions Phonemic verbal fluency for example could not be routinely administered to children under seven or eight because the task required a minimum degree of literacy In addition the spatial 2 back was a particularly challenging task that was not administered to subjects who either had considerable difficulty with the 1 back or who were unable to complete the 2 back sample and practice items The children s version of the Social Norms Questionnaire was not ready until after data collection had started Also several subjects were administered short forms of the battery e g the 2 back was not included for some subjects Finally there were instances when a task could not be administered due to situation or subject specific issues e g computer issues sensory motor deficits lack of subject cooperation The completion rates of EXAMINER tests are summarized in the table below Data quality issues once a test was administered were relatively infrequent Table 3 Completion rates 3 7 8 17 18 and older Total Dot counting 84 4 97 5 93 4 94 0 1 back 83 3 95 9 92 0 92 5 2 back 1 0 58 7 79 3 66 3 Flanker 96 9 98 6 95 6 96 6 Set shifting 96 9 98 3 96 1 96 9 CPT 96 9 97 5 93 8 95 3 Anti saccade 2 1 76 9 66 7 64 5 Verbal fluency 5 2 98 6 99 4 91 4 Category fluency 96 9 100 0 94 6 96 5 Unstructured
41. ain Planning e RR Em 17 Domains Insiglit uuo eren ante ed eet ag teen d era penna deg deve taii a ERAT Rae RE OAE rva s ie R E dace une 18 Domain Social Cognition and Beh aviOl cscccccsssscecsesneeeceesnececeesneeecseseeeceeqeeeceeaeeecseaeeeceeaeeeeeeseeeeeees 18 Chapter 6 Data COMGCCUOM A X A 20 Diagnostic GrOUPS lt iccivadscseseeecs ea 20 Ge neralncel sion Critenig oue i tere E E EE EE E EE 20 General Excl sion Criteria e ei Trete be o ede tren et v ede E E eae be dente 20 Subject Diagnostic Criteria oec eee eee rye ties reda Ga e eov E ede Des aene ae edet ERR Fe tenance 21 Chapter 7 Software Installation and Administration eere 25 Requirements esce ene tient EXE epu ete baee eu aet Eee cauedeeseusuande ee cU enu ut de eva env epu vut Re Ee Tg epe TE E HMM S 25 Acquiring and Installing Software Dependencies cscccsscssssecsssceesecsessecseeeessaeeeesaeessneecseessaessenaeeseneess 25 Chapter B Psychometric Properties siirinsesi erisin i ra a irni i 33 Administration ISSUBS 1 doe oeste pedet en ote teas ad ees rens ede eaae dong xatd deu Re nequeas RRURI cokessennneeehes dedu RUN CUR 33 DiStribUtlOLiS coord ene asta estet E oases aaltde Reese vine deudor terea wea etos at E E 33 Reliability Individual Tests 3 2 rne Reo aea siege Res ue cea dosis peocQrect cede de pend ace g cha de pec IU Ue eue de 34 Reliability Exe
42. alue between 0 and 5 and the ultimate composite score ranges in value between 0 and 10 The accuracy score is the proportion of correct responses out of 24 trials multiplied by 5 to create a range from O to 5 Like the accuracy score the reaction time score ranges from 0 to 5 points Because RT data is often positively skewed a log Base 10 transform is applied to the median RT score To further reduce skewing we set the minimum RT to 500 msec and the maximum reaction time to 3 000 msec scores that fall outside that range are truncated e g an RT of 4000 msec is set equal to 3000 msec The range of 500 3000 msec was based on analyses of our full sample Log values are algebraically rescaled from a log 500 log 3 000 range to a 0 5 range Faster RTs result in a higher score The formula for rescaling is Reaction Time Score 5 5 log ET log 500 1og 3000 log 500 The total Flanker score is the sum of the accuracy and reaction time scores This Flanker score is the variable that contributes to the Executive Composite and the Cognitive Control factor score Continuous Performance Test This version of the CPT contains 8096 target trials and is designed to elicit false alarm errors The primary dependent measure from the task is the total number of false alarm errors and this variable contributes to the total error score which in turn is a donor scale to the Executive Composite and Cognitive Control scores Investigator
43. aplan E amp Kramer J H 2001 Delis Kaplan Executive Function System San Antonio The Psychological Corporation Delis D C Kramer J H Kaplan E amp Holdnack J 2004 Reliability and validity of the Delis Kaplan Executive Function System an update J nt Neuropsychol Soc 10 2 301 303 Delis D C Kramer J H Kaplan E amp Ober B A 2000 California Verbal Learning Test 2nd Edition San Antonio TX The Psychological Corporation Dubois B Slachevsky A Litvan l amp Pillon B 2000 The FAB a Frontal Assessment Battery at bedside Neurology 55 11 1621 1626 Dunbar K amp Sussman D 1995 Toward a cognitive account of frontal lobe function simulating frontal lobe deficits in normal subjects Ann N Y Acad Sci 769 289 304 80 Espy K A amp Cwik M F 2004 The development of a trial making test in young children the TRAILS P Clin Neuropsychol 18 3 411 422 Espy K A Kaufmann P M amp Glisky M L 2001 New procedures to assess executive functions in preschool children Clin Neuropsychol 15 1 46 58 Espy K A Kaufmann P M McDiarmid M D amp Glisky M L 1999 Executive functioning in preschool children performance on A not B and other delayed response format tasks Brain Cogn 41 2 178 199 Espy K A Stalets M M McDiarmid M M Senn T E Cwik M F amp Hamby A 2002 Executive functions in preschool children born preterm
44. application of cognitive neuroscience paradigms Neuropsychol Dev Cogn C Child Neuropsychol 8 2 83 92 Gioia G A Isquith P K Retzlaff P D amp Espy K A 2002 Confirmatory factor analysis of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function BRIEF in a clinical sample Neuropsychol Dev Cogn C Child Neuropsychol 8 4 249 257 Heflin L H Laluz V Jang J Ketelle R Miller B L amp Kramer J H 2011 Let s inhibit our excitement The relationship between Stroop behavioral inhibition and the frontal lobes Neuropsychology 25 5 655 65 Korkman M Kemp S L amp Kirk U 2001 Effects of age on neurocognitive measures of children ages 5 to 12 a cross sectional study on 800 children from the United States Dev Neuropsychol 20 1 331 354 Krueger C E Rosen H J Taylor H G Espy K A Schatz J Rey Casserly C amp Kramer J H 2011 Know thyself real world behavioral correlates of self appraisal accuracy Clin Neuropsychol 25 5 741 756 Levine B Robertson I H Clare L Carter G Hong J Wilson B A Stuss D T 2000 Rehabilitation of executive functioning an experimental clinical validation of goal management training J Int Neuropsychol Soc 6 3 299 312 Litvan l Agid Y Calne D Campbell G Dubois B Duvoisin R C Zee D S 1996 Clinical research criteria for the diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy Steele Richardson Olsz
45. asks and scoring systems Special thanks go to Dan Mungas who in addition to being an adviser and a site PI led our efforts to use item response theory for scale construction Finally we are indebted to the patients and control subjects who willingly subjected themselves to hours of testing and to their families who also assisted in so many ways Measurement tools are built to help us understand the effects of disease and aging and our patients remain our ultimate inspiration Chapter 1 Mission In May 2005 the NINDS issued a call for proposals to develop domain specific methods for defining and measuring executive functioning Our team at the University of California San Francisco led by Joel Kramer PsyD was fortunate to be awarded the contract The project entitled Executive Abilities Methods and Instruments for Neurobehavioral Evaluation and Research EXAMINER commenced on December 30 2005 Executive function refers to a constellation of cognitive abilities that include the ability to plan organize self monitor and manage multiple tasks simultaneously Despite its importance for clinical and neuroscience research the paucity of valid and reliable tasks that specifically tap domains of executive functioning remains a significant obstacle for research in this area An executive function battery should enable clinical investigators to assess executive functions reliably and validly across a variety of ages and disorders in cross
46. ately five minutes 5 Additional installation instructions for PsychoPy are located at www psychopy org installation html 6 Ensure that the installation works by running the PsychoPy2 application On some Windows XP machines you may get this error message This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect Reinstalling the application may fix this problem To resolve this error you can download and install some additional software from Microsoft currently located at www microsoft com downloads en details aspx familyid A5C84275 3B9 7 4AB7 A40D 3802B2AF5FC2 amp displaylang en 7 PsychoPy will automatically alert the user to updates that are available as shown in the screenshot below Update PsychoPy to version 1 73 05 using the automatic updater if that upgrade option is given Otherwise skip the automatic upgrade and perform a manual upgrade A PsychoPy2 auto updater PsychoPy v1 71 01 is available you are running 1 70 00 This version MAY require you to modify your scripts exps slightly Read the changelog carefully View complete Changelog Should PsychoPy update itself a To perform a manual upgrade select PsychoPy Updates from the Tools menu 26 PsychoPy Updates PsychoPy v1 71 01 is available You are running v1 70 00 You can update to the latest version automatically Auto update will fetch latest version 9 Use zip file below download a PsychoPy re
47. attery that could reliably and validly assess executive functions across a wide range of ages and disorders Data collection targets were established with this goal in mind by the EXAMINER advisory panel NINDS focus groups NINDS Project Officer and the UCSF team Piloting and ongoing data collection were conducted utilizing the large research infrastructure at UCSF and in collaboration with nine remote sites to represent a full range of geographic regions ethnic groups age groups and diagnostic disorders Diagnostic Groups The diagnostic categories below represent neurological and neuropsychiatric syndromes associated with executive deficits Data were also collected on healthy subjects across the age span Adults and children with the following neurological conditions or neurodegenerative disorders are represented in the EXAMINER battery dataset attention deficit hyperactive disorder ADHD Alzheimer s disease AD focal lesions behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia bvFTD Huntington s disease HD mild cognitive impairment amnestic and executive subtypes MCI mem MCl exec multiple sclerosis MS Parkinson s disease PD progressive supranuclear palsy PSP sickle cell anemia traumatic brain injury TBI and very low birth weight VLBW General Inclusion Criteria Collectively participants had to be between 3 90 years old and speak fluent English and or Spanish Subjects who were unable to consent for themselves required
48. blue rectangle in the bottom right corner These reference objects remain on the screen for the duration of the task At the beginning of each trial a cue that reads shape or color appears at the bottom of the screen followed by a blue triangle stimulus or a red rectangle stimulus in the top center of the screen The examinee is then instructed to match the stimulus presented with one of the reference objects based on the cue provided The right arrow key is used to match the stimulus object with the reference object on the right side of the screen and the left arrow key is used to match the stimulus object with the reference object on the left side of the screen The task was organized into three blocks homogenous block A homogenous block B and heterogeneous block AB The two homogenous blocks each consisted of 20 trials for which the same cue is presented one being all shape and one being all color The starting homogenous block was counterbalanced between color and shape across participants The heterogeneous block consisted of 64 trials 32 of which had a color cue and 32 of which had a shape cue The 64 trials were sampled randomly within the heterogeneous block requiring participants to shift between color matching and shape matching for a randomly sampled subset of the trials In order to determine how many trials we would be able to eliminate from the shifting block without sacrificing precision we plotted the mean shift effect a
49. bored when solving complex problems or starts one test item before the examiner completes the instructions or without adequate planning time For a moderate rating the examinee might respond carelessly at the expense of accuracy start test items before the examiner completes the instructions or without adequate planning time on more than one occasion or otherwise tend to do or say things rapidly and without planning An example of severe impulsivity might be when a participant s tendency to act without forethought disrupts the testing or interpersonal exchanges or markedly deviates from normal behavior 9 Socially inappropriate Refers to conduct which may not be suitable in professional settings Examples may include talking to strangers on the elevator questioning the examiner clinician about personal information or their credentials disregard for or violation of personal space e g excessive or inappropriate touching of examiner or lack of response to social cues e g when others attempt to end a conversation Out of place topics crude or sexually oriented comments jokes or opinions that may be offensive to others or poor hygiene grooming malodorous stained torn or inappropriate clothing can also fall under this category Physical behaviors such as flatulence touching private body parts belching and spitting can also be considered 75 Chapter 13 Procedures for Calculating Composite and Factor Scores Installing the Scori
50. bsolute difference between shift trials for k number of trials where k is 1 72 We observed that this curve was relatively flat at the point that k equals 64 Since there was no significant difference in mean shift cost between 64 and 72 trials we concluded that we could Shape eliminate 8 trials from the shifting block In order to determine how many trials could be eliminated from the Shape and Color blocks we ran correlations similar to those run for the Flanker task We observed that mean reaction times where k equaled 20 were not significantly different than when k equaled 24 We concluded that we could eliminate 4 trials from each of these two blocks In total we removed 16 trials bringing the number of total trials from 120 to 104 The absolute difference between median RT of k trials versus all trials is shown in figure 8a The absolute difference in shift cost number of milliseconds slower on shift trials relative to non shift trials between k and 94 trials is shown in figure 8b Figures 8c and 8d show the correlation of median RT between k trials and all trials for shift and non shift blocks Figure 7 Example of Set Shifting stimulus 15 Absolute Difference in Median RT Based Mean Absolute Difference Between Shift on K Trials vs All Trials Cost Based on K Trials and All Trials E c a D a 2 e 2 a e a i Si itg Trak 8 t a S Es 5 5 E Nors Mfg tak 2 x Number of Trials K Number of Trials K Correlation of Med
51. cation provide guidance without revealing correct responses Encourage the examinee to complete all of the items Behavioral Rating Scale The Behavioral Rating Scale is completed by the examiner after completion of the testing Examiners restrict their ratings to behaviors that they have observed directly but include all observed behaviors regardless of the context Thus although behaviors during the actual assessment will likely provide the bulk of data examiners should also note behaviors exhibited in all other situations such as the waiting room and walking to and from the exam room There are nine behavioral domains rates including agitation stimulus boundedness perseverations decreased initiation motor stereotypies distractibility degree of social emotional engagement impulsivity and social appropriateness Following the administration of the battery to the study participant the examiner should indicate the presence of the following behavioral features observed during the examiners time with the study participant None indicates the absence of the feature When a feature is present it should be rated as mild moderate or severe depending on the extent to which it disrupts the testing or interpersonal exchanges or the extent to which it deviates from accepted norms 72 ITEM DESCRIPTORS AND BEHAVIOR CHECKLIST 1 Agitated None Mild Moderate Severe 2 Stimulus bound None Mild Moderate Severe
52. core followed by validation studies of the individual factor scores Several different approaches to assessing validity have been incorporated The primary validation analysis was the relationship between EXAMINER scores and our external measures of day to day executive functioning which were the FrsBe total score in adults and the BRIEF total scores in children Executive Composite Score Correlations with external measures of executive functioning Baseline FrsBe scores were obtained on 219 adults who had informants available at the time of the EXAMINER visit and who agreed to complete the informant questionnaire The correlation between the Composite Score and FrsBe total raw score after partialling out the effect of age was 57 p lt 001 reflecting a fairly robust association between executive functioning on EXAMINER and estimates of real world executive function This relationship remained highly significant 48 p lt 001 even after controlling for estimates of baseline verbal ability WRAT 3 Reading and processing speed WAIS III Digit Symbol Baseline BRIEF scores were obtained on 404 children The correlation between the Composite Score and BRIEF total raw score partialling out the effect of age was 21 p 001 Differences between patients and normal controls Another basic validation set of analyses addressed how well the Composite Score separated patients from normal controls Separate analyses were carried out for child
53. cutive Composite and Factor Scores ssssesssesseses seen ener ener entrent nnn 36 Chapter 10 Validity T 37 Executive Composite SCOfe sesssssssssssessssessrsrnessstessrsasssssttssnsanesrsttasnsansstettasasaasstettnannessetetenaaneaseteeenaaneeent 37 Working Memory Factor SCOFe 2 ceo ces eed Eee das ted neo Ene a bar Pone a einen cas asda ee aaa 39 Cognitive Control Factor SCOFe 3 redi cite doe e rie teret EE EEEE noted NU RTL sweetie UAR XT ERR AE RRM 42 FIUCACY Factor SCONE A P IDI S EEI OD DID TET LS 43 Measures not included in factor SCOIES ccssccesssecesscesssecseseececeessaeessauecseeeeceaeeesaueesessesseeeessaeeusueesenseesaees 45 Chapter 11 Variable and Scale Construction cere erre rere ren nrneanannns 48 PVCU UH SUS centem ien men dtes used D e ELE i Eie 48 Factor SCOIGS ciii deuitm n uiui URINE 51 Chapter 12 Administration and Scoring Guidelines ee 58 Global corisiderations eicere cavanccecevanccd covesiiecensbiee covesicecensbice naa de en aas e nana de ena hice eaa ag dee 58 asm E H 58 Unstructured MEL Gee TUER 62 ath 64 Set Shitting ze 65 Poen
54. direction as the target arrow and in the incongruent trials they point in the opposite direction Examinees should respond as quickly and accurately as possible The stimuli are presented in a random order with each condition being presented 24 times resulting in 48 total trials Initially the Flanker task consisted of 64 experimental trials 32 of which were congruent and 32 of which were incongruent In order to determine how many trials we would be able to eliminate without compromising precision we ran correlations between the median RTs for k number of trials where k is 1 through 32 and the median RTs resulting from all 32 trials This was done separately for both the congruent and the incongruent conditions We observed that when k equals 24 the mean correlation between median reaction times for both congruent and incongruent trials showed a correlation greater than 95 with the median RTs for the full 32 trials In addition the difference in median RT between a 24 trial task and a 32 trial task was negligible This led us to eliminate 8 trials from each condition reducing the total number of trials down from 64 to 48 Figure 5a shows the correlation between k trials and the 32 trial median RT figure 5b shows the difference in median RT between k trials and 32 trials Mean Correlation Between Median RTs Based Mean Absolute Difference Between Median RTs on k Trials and Based on All Trials Based on k Trials and Based on All Trials o uw
55. display The number of different displays presented to the examinee in each trial increases from two to seven over six experimental trials After counting the blue circles on all of the displays presented within a trial the examinee is asked to recall the total number of blue circles that were counted in each of the different displays in the order in which they were presented Partial credit is given based on how many totals the examinee can recall correctly from each trial Figure 1 Example of Dot Counting stimuli In an effort to reduce patient burden and time of administration the number of trials administered was reduced by half Initially this task consisted of two trials at each series length two through seven After observing that the correlation between the mean percent correct for all 12 trials out of 54 total points and the mean percent correct for trials 1 3 5 7 amp 9 out of 27 total points were highly correlated we eliminated the second of the two trials for each series length This resulted in the task being reduced from 12 trials to six trials with possible scores ranging from O to 27 N back The n back paradigm is a widely used measure of working memory that requires flexible updating capabilities EXAMINER includes a spatial 1 back and 2 back task to assess spatial working memory The 1 back requires maintaining and updating 1 location at a time whereas the more difficult 2 back requires maintaining and updating two locatio
56. e The University of California Davis Department of Neurology PI Dan Mungas PhD recruited Spanish speaking subjects to ensure psychometric validity between the English and Spanish language instruments Dr Mungas and his team administered the battery to 180 older predominately healthy Spanish speaking subjects Children The Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at University of Nebraska Lincoln PI Kimberly Espy PhD administered the battery to 207 normal control children A subset of these children was evaluated longitudinally Specifically 131 children returned for a second battery administration approximately 1 year from their initial visit and 30 children received the battery a 3rd time Boston Children s Hospital Department of Neurology PI Celiane Rey Casserly PhD administered the battery to 41 children including ADHD subjects and normal controls Case Western Reserve University Rainbow Hospital PI H Gerry Taylor PhD administered the battery to 72 children with Very Low Birth Weight 22 The University of South Carolina Neuropsychology and Human Development Lab PI Jeffrey Schatz PhD administered the battery to 117 people including individuals diagnosed with Sickle Cell Anemia and normal controls 23 Table 2 EXAMINER Base Collaborating Site Case Western Reserve Boston Children s Hospital Mayo Clinic University of California Berkeley University of California Davig University of Cal
57. e Some puzzles have higher points than others Your goal is to earn as many points as possible You do not have to complete all of the pages in a book and you do not have to complete all the puzzles on each page You can go in any order you want through the puzzles Each book is 62 worth the same amount of points Be sure to read the instructions for each puzzle you do and complete the puzzles accurately to receive full credit You will only have 6 minutes to earn as many points as possible so choose your puzzles carefully A timer will be displayed to help you manage your time Start computer timer after completing the instructions and it is clear that the examinee understands the instructions Stop at 6 minutes Do NOT allow participant to complete any item in progress when the time limit is reached Collect the booklets from the examinee once the task is complete Atimer for this task must be displayed on the computer for the participant A timer program can be downloaded as freeware from the Internet using the following instructions 1 Go to www harmonyhollow net download shtml 2 Inthe Product Download table find CoolTimer 2 2 freeware license 657 KB file size Click on Harmony Hollow link for downloading 3 A prompt will be shown for file ctimer exe Follow prompts to save this file onto the computer and run the installation program 4 The program will download onto the desktop and a clock icon will appear The de
58. e added as measures of day to day executive functioning and behavior Concurrently the information technology team under the direction of Joe Hesse began work on a web based data management system for use during the data collection phase Finally subcontract sites for data collection were identified and the contracts and grants process was initiated to enable sites to begin data collection in January 2008 A second advisory meeting took place in San Francisco November 1 2007 Additional advisory meetings took place on June 24 2009 and February 9 2011 Phase II was initially designed for two years of data collection a third year was later added and EXAMINER was able to exceed its original recruitment goals Data collection is described in more detail in Chapter 6 Several different approaches to data reduction were piloted and item response theory was ultimately selected as the best method for generating a smaller set of meaningful scores with ready application to research and clinical trials settings Chapter 3 Background Executive abilities which are widely accepted to be a central component of human cognition reflect a capacity to engage in goal oriented behavior To evaluate executive abilities clinicians have tended to emphasize constructs like fluency working memory concept formation set shifting and inhibition using a range of cognitive measures Test batteries specifically designed to measure executive functioning have been devel
59. e ll try some practice trials first Press the SPACEBAR to begin Run practice trial Provide feedback as needed If the examinee finishes the practice trial and was not able to respond to 7596 of the trials correctly another practice trial will begin If an examinee is not able to advance past the third practice trial the task will discontinue After the practice trial s is finished and it is clear that the examinee understands the directions go on to the test Now let s move on to the task the instructions are the same but you will no longer receive feedback after your responses When you have to match by COLOR you should push the LEFT button for RED and the RIGHT button for BLUE When you have to match by shape you should push the LEFT button for the TRIANGLE and the RIGHT button for the RECTANGLE 65 Try to respond quickly as you can without making mistakes but if you make a mistake just keep going Press the SPACEBAR when you are ready to begin If the examinee stops responding completely or looks away from the screen redirect their focus to the task Dot Counting MATERIALS amp SET UP Record form to record responses Participants should be 30 40 inches from the screen The examinee will count and remember the total number of dots on consecutive display screens After they have finished counting the dots on all of the screens presented they will be asked to recall the total number of dots they counted on each screen in the
60. e task they will be asked to assess their performance They are instructed to assess their own performance relative to a hypothetical sample of 100 people of a similar age and level of education After the fluency task is complete they are shown a picture of a bell curve with corresponding percentile rankings at the bottom of the page Figure 10 below They are then reminded that on a typical task the majority of healthy age matched peers would perform at the 50th percentile with smaller numbers performing above or below average corresponding locations were pointed to by the examiner WORST AVERAGE BEST wn an M enda M a p eaten 2 S Figure 10 Normative graph for examinee self rating Domain Social Cognition and Behavior The Social Norms Questionnaire This task measures subjects crystallized knowledge of social norms in a linguistically and cognitively simple manner This yes no questionnaire is designed to determine the degree to which subjects actually understand and can accurately identify implicit but widely accepted social boundaries in the dominant U S culture The Social Norms Questionnaire includes both socially inappropriate behaviors e g Cut in line if you are in a hurry Pick your nose in public and Wear the same shirt every day and generally acceptable behaviors e g Tell a coworker your age Blow your nose in public and Eat ribs with your fingers The subject must d
61. e words start with Any instruction can be repeated during a trial by participant request 59 Phonemic Fluency Scoring Guidelines Record all responses including repeated words and rule violations When a rule violation e g proper nouns words beginning with the wrong letter occurs on three consecutive responses examiners should remind the participant of the correct rule Each rule can be repeated only once per trial Correct Responses Any word that begins with the specified letter can be found in a dictionary is not a proper noun number or certain grammatical variant see below and is not a repetition within that trial should be scored as a correct response Although scoring of most responses is straightforward many responses are ambiguous For example frank can refer to a man s name a food item or an adjective The scoring principle with these sorts of responses is to give the benefit of the doubt and score the item as correct for the first instance of the response in a trial In some instances the context in which the response is given can provide clues as to the participant s meaning For example the sound f r is ambiguous and could be a preposition for golf term fore or number four If the word is given along with other numbers e g four five the response can be interpreted as a number and be scored as a rule violation If the response is at all ambiguous however apply the general principle of
62. ecide whether the behavior is socially appropriate or not if it were hypothetically enacted with an acquaintance or coworker Two subscales are derived that represent a whether the subject errs in the direction of breaking a social norm the Break score e g indicating that it is permissible to cut in line if one is in a hurry or b in the direction of interpreting a social norm too rigidly the Overadhere score e g indicating that it is not permissible to eat ribs with one s fingers There is a 22 item questionnaire for adults and a 30 item questionnaire for children This measure also has an alternate form for test retest purposes Behavior Rating Scale This rating scale is completed by the examiner after completion of the testing Examiners restrict their ratings to behaviors that they have observed directly but include all observed behaviors regardless of 18 the context Thus although behaviors during the actual assessment will likely provide the bulk of data examiners should also note behaviors exhibited in all other situations such as the waiting room and walking to and from the exam room There are nine behavioral domains to rate including agitation stimulus boundedness perseverations decreased initiation motor stereotypies distractibility degree of social emotional engagement impulsivity and social appropriateness 19 Chapter 6 Data Collection A central goal of the EXAMINER project was to develop a b
63. ection for each site Adults The Memory and Aging Center at the University of California San Francisco PI Joel Kramer PsyD is the largest source of EXAMINER battery data UCSF administered the battery to a total of 249 people anda subset of these individuals had longitudinal data collected Specifically 44 subjects were administered EXAMINER twice and 3 received the battery a third time The diagnostic breakdown of subjects from UCSF includes Alzheimer s disease bvFTD Huntington s disease PSP MCI MS and Parkinson s subjects Additionally UCSF recruited and tested normal controls The University of California Berkeley s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute PI Robert Knight MD administered the battery to a total of 45 people including frontal lesion and non frontal lesion subjects as well as normal controls The Mayo Clinic Alzheimer s Disease Research Center PI Glenn Smith PhD administered the battery to a total of 79 people including AD bvFTD MCI and Parkinson s disease subjects as well as normal controls The University of lowa PI Daniel Tranel Ph D administered the batter to 87 people including frontal and non frontal lesion subjects as well as normal controls Two subjects were also evaluated longitudinally The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center PI Ramon Diaz Arrastia MD PhD administered the battery to 33 subjects including TBI subjects as well as normal controls Spanish Languag
64. ents from controls separate analyses were carried out for children and adults with baseline scores using a general linear model controlling for age In the adult sample there were 262 patients and 241 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 16 9 p 001 partial eta 03 In the child sample there were 119 patients and 368 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 37 0 p 001 partial eta 08 Estimated marginal means are summarized in Table 18 Table 18 Cognitive Control Patients vs controls Patients Normals Mean SE Mean SE 18 76 03 23 03 184 14 05 61 04 Correlations with age The correlation of the Cognitive Control Factor with age in adults was assessed using baseline data from 153 normal controls over the age of 55 The correlation between the Factor Score and age was 41 p 001 The correlation with age in children was assessed using baseline data from 341 normal controls under the age of 15 The correlation between the Cognitive Control Factor Score and age was 78 p 001 Longitudinal Change Longitudinal change in the Cognitive Control Factor Score over a 12 month period in 95 normal children between the ages of 6 and 11 was assessed The increase in the Cognitive Control Factor after 12 months was significant and approximately a half a standard deviation in size t 2 84 p 006 Table 19 Longitudinal c
65. ents with bvFTD would perform worse on the Fluency Table 22 bvFTD vs AD vs controls Factor relative to patients with bvFTD AD Controls Alzheimer s disease who in turn would Mean SE Mean SE Mean SE perform worse than controls We 39 18 07 13 61 05 compared 21 bvFTD patients mean age 66 22 sd 7 7 39 AD patients mean age 72 4 sd 10 7 and 231 controls mean age 69 5 sd 9 9 on the Fluency Factor Score controlling for age Estimated marginal means are summarized in Table 22 Controls performed significantly better than bvFTD and AD and bvFTD patients demonstrated the most impoverished fluency profile Convergent and Divergent Validity Fluency Factor Scores were calculated on a group of 302 older subjects with a mix of neurodegenerative diagnoses e g AD bvFTD MCI movement disorders progressive aphasia and normal controls We predicted that the Fluency Factor would correlate most strongly with design fluency Delis et al 2001 moderately with other measures of working memory and executive functioning e g backward digit span Stroop Interference and least strongly with episodic memory 10 minute delayed recall of the CVLT SF naming Boston Naming Test and spatial ability Benson figure copy The sample had a mean age of 65 1 years sd 8 5 and a mean MMSE of 26 6 sd 3 2 Age and MMSE were included as covariates Results were consistent with expectations and support the convergent a
66. eport the need for EXAMINER to provide a stand alone assessment without reliance on informants led us to develop and incorporate novel self report and observational methods to capture social cognition and behavior In Chapter 5 we describe in more detail our measures of working memory inhibition set shifting fluency planning insight social cognition and behavior 10 Chapter 5 Description of Tasks This chapter provides a descriptive overview of each EXAMINER measure by domain along with a brief discussion of administration time We include all the tasks that we collected data on during the field testing phase even if a task was not included in the final battery In addition after data were collected on the first 800 subjects several tasks were carefully analyzed to see if they could be shortened without losing any information Any modifications to the tasks are also described Domain Working Memory Dot counting The dot counting task measures verbal working memory The examinee is asked to look at a screen with a mixed array of green circles blue circles and blue squares The examinee is asked to count all of the blue circles on the screen one at a time out loud and remember the final total Once the examinee finishes counting the blue circles on one screen the examiner switches the display to a different mixed array of green circles blue circles and blue squares The examinee is instructed to count the blue circles in the new
67. eported for these measures In addition we report inter rater reliability estimates for Anti Saccades Verbal Fluency and Behavior Rating Internal consistency Estimates of internal consistency were derived for most individual EXAMINER tests using coefficient alpha Dot Counting The Dot Counting Task originally had 12 trials two trials for each possible screen length two through seven Coefficient alpha for the 12 item version is 81 When only one trial for each screen length is Dot Counting accuracy lt 18 used the coefficient alpha for the ensuing 6 item version is 69 Table 4 Dot Counting 6 item Flanker Coefficient alphas for accuracy were calculated separately for congruent and incongruent trials and for accuracy and reaction time These results are summarized in Table 5 Table 5 Flanker reliability Age Congruent Flanker Congruent Flanker trial incongruent Incongruent Flanker trial group RT accuracy Flanker RT accuracy Continuous Performance Test The CPT accuracy has an internal consistency reliability coefficient of 64 in children and 78 in adults 34 Anti saccade There are two blocks of antisaccade trials with 20 trials within each block At the block level the internal consistency reliability is 92 Set shifting Coefficient alphas for accuracy and reaction time were calculated separately for color shape and shifting blocks Results are summarized in Table 6 Table 6 Set Shifting reliabi
68. er Battery Session Session Info Subject ID l Session Number Tester Initials Battery Configuration Form a Options a b c Language English Options e English s Spanish mc Administer Flanker Task Age Group Adult Click OK to administer the Flanker Task Options a Adult c Child Click CANCEL to skip the Flanker Task lt 5 Before each task a dialog box will display with the option to run OK or skip Cancel each task EXAMINER Computer Task Output Files By default the Examiner Task software will create data files for each administration of an EXAMINER task These files are stored in the Desktop Examiner3_2 data folder For tasks that record responses from the research participant there will be a detail level file with each response recorded a record in the summary file one file per task type and a record in an environment monitoring file one file per 30 testing machine This Desktop Examiner3_2 data folder should be backed up to protected storage frequently There are no other copies of the test output data The output files are organized into subfolders of the data folder one per subject id A summary file for each task administration is stored in the subject id folder and is labeled with the following format task name Summary subject id session num date time csv The detail level files are stored in the subject id folder and are labeled with the following format task
69. es will appear After participant counts each blue circle aloud hit the spacebar to continue to the next screen After a number of displays you will see question marks on the screen This will be your cue to repeat the final numbers you counted Let s do some practice first Press the SPACEBAR to begin 66 Run practice trials Hit the SPACEBAR after the participant has finished counting the dots on a screen and repeated the final total Instruct participant to begin counting immediately after a new screen appears You have completed the practice trials Let s continue with the task The instructions are the same Count and remember the number of BLUE CIRCLES you see on each screen Count the blue circles aloud one at a time and then repeat the final total aloud Repeat the final numbers you counted when you see the question marks appear on the screen Press the spacebar to begin the task Record the totals that the examinee counts on the left side of the recording form Record the totals that the examinee recalls on the right side of the recording form If the participant does not repeat the total aloud after counting prompt only during the practice trials by saying Remember to repeat the total aloud when you are finished counting on the screen Scoring A participant s response is scored correct if they are able to recall the number of dots they have counted even if this is not the number of dots on the screen No penalty
70. ewski syndrome report of the NINDS SPSP international workshop Neurology 47 1 1 9 Malloy P amp Grace J 2005 A review of rating scales for measuring behavior change due to frontal systems damage Cogn Behav Neurol 18 1 18 27 Manchester D Priestley N amp Jackson H 2004 The assessment of executive functions coming out of the office Brain Inj 18 11 1067 1081 Marshall S C Mungas D Weldon M Reed B amp Haan M 1997 Differential item functioning in the Mini Mental State Examination in English and Spanish speaking older adults Psychol Aging 12 4 718 725 McDonald R J Ko C H amp Hong N S 2002 Attenuation of context specific inhibition on reversal learning of a stimulus response task in rats with neurotoxic hippocampal damage Behav Brain Res 136 1 113 126 Miyake A Friedman N P Emerson M J Witzki A H Howerter A amp Wager T D 2000 The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex Frontal Lobe tasks a latent variable analysis Cognit Psychol 41 1 49 100 Mungas D Reed B R Crane P K Haan M N amp Gonzalez H 2004 Spanish and English Neuropsychological Assessment Scales SENAS further development and psychometric characteristics Psychol Assess 16 4 347 359 Neary D Snowden J S Gustafson L Passant U Stuss D Black S Benson D F 1998 Frontotemporal lobar degeneration a
71. examinee is instructed to press the left arrow key whenever the square is presented in the same location as the square two squares before and the right arrow key if the square is presented in a different location as the square two before The 2 back consists of one block of 90 trials 30 of which match the location of the square two before and 60 that are in a different location The squares are presented in a fixed order for all participants 1 2 3 4 5 Examinee indicates Examinee indicates if Examinee indicates if if this square is in this square is in the this square is in the the same place as same place as square same place as square square in 1 in 2 in 3 Figure 3 Example of 2 back stimuli 12 Domain Inhibition Flanker The examinee is instructed to focus on a small cross in the center of the screen After a short variable duration 1000 msec 3000 msec a row of five arrows is presented in the center of the screen either above or below the fixation point The duration of the stimuli presentation for each trial is 1000 msec gt gt gt Figure 4 Example of Flanker stimuli The examinee is then required to indicate whether the centrally presented arrow is pointing either to the left or right by pressing the left or right arrow key The examinee is presented with two different conditions during the task incongruent and congruent In the congruent trials the non target arrows point in the same
72. fault colors of the timer can be altered using the Options button Please choose colors that make the numbers very visible Do not make the window of the timer smaller It is important that every participant is able to read the numbers on the computer screen The timer can be set to count down by clicking the up arrow next to the Minutes display until it reads 6 minutes Press the large Start button to begin Scoring Performance on this task is based on the number of puzzles completed the value of each puzzle and the total number of points earned Use the Unstructured Task Answer Key located in Appendix A for scoring It has correct responses highlighted and high value puzzles marked A puzzle is counted as complete if at least 75 of the puzzle has been finished correctly Items can also be counted as complete if there is a systematic error e g circling elements instead of crossing out them out that would not significantly shorten the time it takes to complete the puzzle Use the Answer Key to determine completion Each puzzle has been designated as high value or low value Value is determined by the amount of time a puzzle takes related to its point value High value puzzles have been highlighted on the Answer Key Five scores are determined 1 Count number of high value items completed High value puzzles are marked on the Answer Key beneath each puzzle The score includes all high value puzzles that have 7596 finished co
73. gions together explained an additional 896 of the variance 43 above that of age MMSE and intracranial volume Only frontal volumes remained in the model however B 31 p lt 001 In a follow up regression with parietal and temporal volumes forced into the model first left frontal volumes uniquely explained an additional 4 7 of the variance Longitudinal Change Longitudinal change in the Fluency Factor Score over a Table 21 Longitudinal change Fluency 12 month period in 115 normal children between the Baseline 12 month follow up ages of 6 and 11 was assessed The increase in the Mean sd Mean sd Fluency Factor after 12 months was significant and 77 53 54 57 approximately a half a standard deviation in size t 5 91 p 001 Selected group comparisons Lateral Frontal vs Medial Frontal vs Posterior focal lesion We evaluated 21 patients with focal lateral frontal lesions mean age 58 4 sd 10 7 21 patients with focal medial frontal lesions mean age 55 7 sd 15 1 and 39 patients with temporal and parietal focal lesions mean age 58 8 sd 11 3 As predicted lateral frontal lesion patients estimated marginal mean 296 se 17 performed less well on the Fluency Factor Score than focal posterior lesion patients mean 48 se 12 p lt 001 Medial frontal patients performed more closely to the posterior lesion patient mean 41 se 17 bvFTD vs Alzheimer s vs Controls We predicted that pati
74. giving the benefit of the doubt If a person self corrects a rule violation or repetition during the trial the response should be scored as correct Other types of responses that should be scored as correct include e Contractions e Compound words or conjoined words that convey a single meaning e g ferris wheel e Slang words if they can be found in a dictionary e Proper nouns that are not the names of people or places e g days of the week months of the year brand names Repetitions Any response that is repeated verbatim within the 60 second trial should be scored as a repetition If a repeated word has more than one meaning e g still can be an adjective and a noun or is a homophone e g flue and flew score the second response as a repetition error unless the participant explicitly or implicitly e g with intonation or gesture indicates that the second response has a different meaning or spelling or if the context strongly suggests that it is a different word For example for the string of responses felt feeling fresh fabric felt the second occurrence of felt can be scored as correct since the context implies a different meaning than the first occurrence of felt Grammatical variants should be scored as rule violations not repetitions see below Rule Violations Any response that reflects a deviation from the rules provided to the participant should be scored as a rule violation 60 Several t
75. hange Cognitive Control Baseline 12 month follow up Mean sd Mean sd 72 62 32 66 42 Convergent and Divergent Validity Convergent and divergent validity was assessed in 75 normal adults who were also administered the California Verbal Learning Test ll Delis et al 2000 to measure verbal episodic memory Boston Naming Test to measure naming and the Stroop Interference Test as a marker of cognitive control Controlling for age the correlation with Stroop Interference was 55 p lt 001 whereas the correlations with CVLT II 20 minute delayed free recall r 08 and Boston Naming Test r 07 were not significant Fluency Factor Score Correlations with external measures of executive functioning The correlation between the Fluency Factor Score and FrsBe total raw score for adults n 214 after parceling out the effect of age was 43 p lt 001 This relationship remained significant 28 p lt 001 even after controlling for estimates of baseline verbal ability WRAT 3 Reading and processing speed WAIS III Digit Symbol Baseline BRIEF scores were obtained on 398 children The correlation between the Factor Score and BRIEF total raw score partialling out the effect of age was 09 p 06 Differences between patients and normal controls In the adult sample there were 275 patients and 385 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 19 9 p 001 partial eta 03 In
76. here are contributing to the Composite and Factor scores the less reliable they will be and the more cautious researchers must be in interpreting them Each subject for whom an IRT score in generated will also have an associated standard error We recommend not using scores that are associated with a standard error greater than 75 57 Chapter 12 Administration and Scoring Guidelines Global considerations Before beginning a testing session organize your materials so you can easily move from one task to another When using alternate forms ensure that you have the appropriate version The optimal seating arrangement is to be across the testing table from the examinee Do your best to minimize factors that can affect the examinee s performance e g extraneous noises poor lighting anxiety low motivation Take time to establish rapport with the participant at the beginning of the test session Give the examinee a brief and very general overview of what the testing will entail Family members should not be present in the room during an evaluation Please administer tests in the order in which they are provided on the record form unless doing so would compromise rapport with the participant Instructions should be read verbatim Do not paraphrase unless necessary Should the examinee have difficulties understanding the instructions it is permissible to explain the task to them in another fashion while maintaining the basic concept of
77. ian RT Based on K Trials with Median RT Based on All Trials 0 9 c Cobr S 08 Shae D Shifting block Non shifting blocks S07 o 0 6 0 5 0 10 20 30 40 50 D 10 20 30 40 50 Number of Trials K Figure 8 Set Shifting simulation Domain Fluency Phonemic Fluency For the phonemic fluency task examinees are instructed to name as many words as they can that begin with a particular letter of the alphabet as quickly as they can Sixty seconds are allowed for each letter The examinee is instructed that names of people places and numbers are not acceptable responses Grammatical variants of previous responses plurals altered tenses and comparatives are also not acceptable responses All responses should be recorded by the examiner The number of correct responses repetitions and rule violations are then totaled for each letter Category Fluency For the category fluency task examinees are asked to generate as many items that they can think of that belong to a particular category as quickly as possible Sixty seconds are allowed for each category All responses are recorded by the examiner The number of correct responses repetitions and rule violations are totaled for each category 16 Domain Planning Unstructured Task This task was modeled after the 6 elements test Shallice amp Burgess 1991 Subjects are presented with three booklets each containing five pages of simple puzzles 4 per page The puzzles were des
78. ifornia San Francisco University of lowa University of Nebraska University of Texas Southwestern Medical Cente Total line Data Collaboration Table Diagnosis Normal ADHD Azheimers Frontal lesion Non frontel FTD Huntington s MCI mem MCI exec control lesion Multiple sclerosis 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 72 0 72 Two additional normal control subjects were collected from a site that subsequently withdrew from participation 24 Chapter 7 Software Installation and Administration The EXAMINER battery includes software for administering computer based tasks and for generating executive composite and factor scores The EXAMINER battery software is designed to work on multiple operating systems and to use open source readily available software This chapter describes the requirements and dependencies of the EXAMINER software provides detailed instructions on installing configuring and running the software Requirements The EXAMINER software requires the following minimum hardware e 2GB RAM Windows XP Linux 1GB RAM e 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor Windows XP Linux 1 6 GHz Pentium M processor e Atleast 14 diagonal display approximately 30 cm side to side minimum e Keyboard input device for responses e 500 MB available hard drive space for software files and e 0 25 MB available hard drive space for output data files per administration of the battery The EXAMINER software requires the follo
79. igned to be cognitively simple e g connect the dots trace the design but average completion times range from 4 to 60 seconds Each puzzle has a designated point value and subjects are given 6 minutes to earn as many points as possible Irrespective of actual point value puzzles can have a high cost benefit ratio i e the time required to complete the puzzle makes it less desirable or a low cost benefit ratio i e the time required to complete the puzzle makes it more desirable In addition the proportion of low cost benefit items decreases as subjects proceed through a booklet Subjects need to plan ahead avoid items that are strategically poor choices and be cognizant of when a particular booklet offers diminishing returns INSTRUCTIONS You can earn points by completing the puzzles in these booklets Some are easier than others You will only have 6 minutes to earn as many points as possible so choose your puzzles carefully Be sure to complete items accurately in order to receive full credit You do not have to do all of the pages in a book and you do not have to do all of the puzzles on a page GOAL Earn as many points as possible Figure 9 Example of Unstructured Task stimulus page 17 Domain Insight Insight Examinees are asked to rate themselves on their performance immediately after completing the well normed verbal fluency tasks Before the fluency tasks begin the examinee is informed that after performing th
80. ignificantly with age in normally developing children Longitudinal change over a 12 month period was assessed in 108 normal children between the ages of 6 and 11 The rest retest interval ranged from 343 to 411 days mean 361 The increase in the Executive Composite score after 12 months was significant t 10 3 p 001 and approximately one standard deviation in size data are summarized in Table 11 Table 11 Longitudinal change in children Baseline 12 month follow up Mean sd Mean sd 83 55 49 59 Selected group comparisons Lateral Frontal vs Medial Frontal vs Posterior focal lesion Several studies have shown that lateral frontal structures are more critical for the cognitive features of executive functioning than medial frontal structures Krueger et al 2010 We tested this by evaluating 21 patients with focal lateral frontal lesions mean age 58 4 sd 10 7 21 patients with focal medial frontal lesions mean age 55 7 sd 15 1 and 39 patients with temporal and parietal focal lesions mean age 58 8 sd 11 3 As predicted after controlling for age lateral frontal lesion patients mean 0 06 se 14 performed less well on the Executive Composite score than focal posterior lesion patients mean 41 se 10 Medial frontal patients performed more closely to the posterior lesion patients mean 40 se 14 38 Alzheimer s vs Mild Cognitive Impairment vs Controls We predicted a gradient of scores with
81. in the shifting block accuracy and RT on the shift trials relative to accuracy and RT on the non shift trials When using the data in this way investigators should be certain that the accuracy rates are high enough to render the reaction time data meaningful EXAMINER s approach to combining reaction time and accuracy data for Set Shifting is similar to the approach taken for the Flanker This scoring method generates accuracy and reaction time sub scales that range in value between 0 and 5 and the ultimate composite score ranges in value between 0 and 10 The accuracy score is the proportion of correct responses in the shifting block out of 64 trials multiplied by 5 to create a range from O to 5 Like the accuracy score the reaction time score ranges from 0 to 5 points Because RT data is often positively skewed a log Base 10 transform is applied to the median RT score After careful analysis of existing data we further reduced skewing by setting the minimum RT to 400 msec and the maximum reaction time to 2800 msec scores that fall outside that range are truncated e g an RT of 4000 msec is set equal to 2800 msec Log values are algebraically rescaled from a log 400 log 2800 range to a 0 5 range Faster RTs result in a higher score The formula for rescaling is Reaction Time Score 5 j log RT log 400 log 2800 log 400 The total Set Shifting score is the sum of the accuracy and reaction time scores This Set Shift
82. ing score is the variable that contributes to the Executive Composite and the Cognitive Control factor score Verbal fluency There are four verbal fluency tasks available two phonemic letter fluency and two semantic category fluency Each of these tasks generates three measures total correct responses total repetitions and total rule violations The total correct scores contribute to the Executive Composite and Fluency scores The repetition and rule violation scores contribute to the Dysexecutive Errors variable which in turn contributes to the Executive Composite and Cognitive Control scores Unstructured Task The Unstructured Task generates two variables the total number of points earned and the percentage of completed puzzles that were considered high value items Both of these variables are normally distributed correlated with FrsBe Total scores and modestly correlated with one another r 46 50 One goal of the Unstructured Task is to measure strategic planning A possible disadvantage of relying solely on the total number of points earned is that examinees who are fast can still earn a high number of points even if they make many poor choices One the other hand subjects who solve only one or two puzzles can potentially have inflated values for the percentage of high value puzzles Accordingly a weighted composite combining the two values is generated using the following formula Weighted composite UTpct log10 UTTotal 1
83. ion of the next Let s try some more squares Remember the location of each square so you can compare it to the next one When you see a number in the middle of the screen say the number aloud Press the SPACEBAR to begin Read instructions for first three squares and continue reading if examinee shows difficulty understanding task Repeat instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help examinee understand task 68 Let s try a few more squares This time you won t receive any directions or feedback Compare the location of each square to the one just before Please say the number aloud when you see it Press the SPACEBAR to begin Verbalize instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help participant understand the instructions After the examinee has successfully completed the practice trials they will go on to the actual task It is now time to begin the test Please respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes Press the SPACEBAR when you are ready to begin Provide guidance if needed on how to perform task but without revealing correct responses If participant indicates that he she does not remember if a current square matches the one before say Take your best guess and try to get the next one correct 2 Back MATERIALS amp SET UP Use Left and Right arrow keys The 2 back should always be administered immediately after the 1 back Participants should be 30 40 inches from the screen Read instruct
84. ion scheduling is sufficient and novel problems that require more top down control Shallice amp Burgess 1996 Stuss et al Stuss Shallice Alexander amp Picton 1995 have refined and extended this model to incorporate a range of anterior attentional functions Miyake and colleagues 2000 reported three different executive functions shifting inhibition and updating that were modestly correlated but separable Updating as viewed by Miyake overlaps with the broader concept of working memory Models of working memory have included a central executive mediated largely by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex Baddeley 2002 Baddeley amp Della Sala 1996 and sub processes that include storage maintenance rehearsal interference control inhibition and scanning functions D Esposito et al 1995 D Esposito Postle Ballard amp Lease 1999 Decision making reward processing self regulation and inhibition are additional key components of executive functioning that have been studied experimentally and their relationships with medial ventral and dorsolateral prefrontal structures are being defined Bechara Damasio Tranel amp Anderson 1998 Levine et al 2000 McDonald Ko amp Hong 2002 Shallice amp Burgess 1991 It has also become clear that simple paper and pencil tasks will not always capture real life social and executive deficits Tasks that capture deficits in executive control in the area of social cognition are
85. ions out loud as they appear on each screen Remember the location of this square so you can compare it to the location of the square after the next one Press SPACEBAR to continue Also remember the location of this square so you can compare it to the location of the square after the next one Press SPACEBAR to continue Does this location match the one TWO before If YES press the LEFT key If NO press the RIGHT key Read Feedback If Correct Correct Now remember the location of this square so you can compare it to the location of the one after next If Incorrect Try to get the next one right Remember the location of this square so you can compare it to the one after next Repeat instructions and provide guidance as necessary to help participant understand task Good Let s start over with some more squares Press the SPACEBAR to begin Read instructions for the first 4 squares as follows and continue reading if participant demonstrates any difficulty understanding task Provide additional guidance as necessary Remember this location Screen advances Also remember this location Screen advances Does this location match the location 2 before Does this location match the location 2 before Let s try a few more squares This time you won t receive any directions or feedback Compare each square to the one 2 before Start responding with the 3rd square Please respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes Press the SPACE
86. irected Subjects whose environmental dependency makes task completion very difficult would be rated as severe 3 Perseverative Perseveration is the inappropriate and unintentional persistence of a behavior and can be observed behaviorally on testing and in conversational speech As observed on testing the persisting behavior may be 1 a repetition of a previously generated response within a task or 2 a repetition of a response appropriate to an earlier task or condition As observed in conversation speech a participant appears stuck on an idea or persistently returns to a previously voiced idea or story A few repeated responses during testing are not uncommon in normal individuals so this behavior should only be scored as present when the frequency deviates from normative expectations Repetitions that slightly exceed normative expectations would be rated as mild A moderate rating would be given any time the subject makes a perseverate response without any intervening responses e g drawing the exact same design two or more times in a row on Design Fluency or reverts to previously established response set e g on Category Fluency gives responses only beginning with the letter L as required by the previous task or makes numerous perseverations of any type A pervasive tendency to perseverate that interrupts the testing would be rated as severe 4 Decreased initiation Behaviors suggesting decreased initiation include delayed time to
87. is given for counting the dots on the screen incorrectly Scoring is solely based on the participant s ability to recall the numbers they have verbalized Record verbatim the numbers recalled by the participant in the order in which they are given Give one point for each correct number that is in the correct place See examples below Number of dots on screen ee CORSO CY Numbers recalled Total score 3 5 3 5 3 5 2 4 6 2 4 6 2 4 2 6 1 8 2 1 7 8 2 1 7 8 2 1 6 3 2 5 4 8 7 5 2 5 4 7 6 5 2 5 4 7 6 5 6 Continuous Performance Test MATERIALS amp SET UP Use Left arrow key only Participants should be 30 40 inches from the screen The examinee is asked to press the left arrow key every time the target image is presented If anything other than the target image is presented they will not press any key Please note that the instructions below are for Form A You will be presented with different shapes on the screen If a 5 pointed star is presented on the screen press the LEFT ARROW key If any shape other than a 5 pointed star is presented do not press any button Respond as quickly as you can without making mistakes If you do make a mistake just keep going 67 Check that examinee s finger is appropriately placed on the left arrow key Encourage participant to keep finger in place until task is complete Let s start with some practice trials Press the SPACEBAR to begin Run practice trial Pro
88. lease file ending zip File Entry PsychoPy 1 71 01 zip Browse Install Close b Choose the option to use a zip file and browse to select the PsychoPy 1 73 05 zip located in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software Windows Tasks Psychopy folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution c Click the Install button and restart PsychoPy on MacOS X 1 Download from EXAMINER 3 2 Software OSX Tasks Psychopy directory of the EXAMINER battery distribution 2 Install PsychoPy by opening the dmg file disk image and dragging PsychoPy2 app to your Applications folder 3 If needed additional installation instructions for PsychoPy are located at www psychopy org installation html 4 Ensure that the installation works by running the PsychoPy2 application 5 PsychoPy will automatically alert the user to updates that are available as shown in the screenshot below Update PsychoPy to version 1 73 05 using the automatic updater if that upgrade option is given Otherwise skip the automatic upgrade and perform a manual upgrade Or perform the upgrade below A PsychoPy2 auto updater PsychoPy v1 71 01 is available you are running 1 70 00 This version MAY require you to modify your scripts exps slightly Read the changelog carefully View compl han Should PsychoPy update itself Skip this version Not now BERN Seri a To perform a manual upgrade select PsychoPy Updates from the Tools menu Fc PsychoPy Updates PsychoPy v1 7
89. li require reasonable mastery of English e g Similarities Stroop DKEFS Card Sorting or they are culturally based e g proverb interpretation Executive tasks also tend to be highly correlated with education and education levels vary across ethnic groups Even when tasks appear to be readily translatable assessment of differential item functioning has revealed item bias Marshall Mungas Weldon Reed amp Haan 1997 While progress is being made Chan Hoosain amp Lee 2002 Chan amp Manly 2002 Chan Robertson amp Crawford 2003 Mungas Reed Crane Haan amp Gonzalez 2004 Rodriguez del Alamo Catalan Alonso amp Carrasco Marin 2003 the shortage of validated clinical measures that are applicable across ethnic and language groups poses a major obstacle to clinical research In sum despite the wealth of available instruments there are continued concerns about psychometric properties validity applicability to settings and populations other than the ones the tests were developed for suitability for all ages and non English speaking subjects and adaptability for clinical trials There is also no consensus on what the primary components of executive functioning are or how they are best operationalized There remains a compelling need to have a battery of tests that can be routinely integrated into neurobehavioral research that will reliably and validly measure constructs that clinical investigators agree are important Cha
90. lity Color trials RT Color trial Shape trials RT Shape trials Set shift trials RT Set shift trial accuracy accuracy accuracy Verbal fluency Reliability estimates for verbal fluency were based on having two 1 minute trials for phonemic fluency and two 1 minute trials for semantic fluency The reliability of phonemic fluency is 88 and the reliability of category fluency is 78 Reliabilities of phonemic fluency in the two alternate forms of EXAMINER are 91 and 97 Inter rater reliability While most EXAMINER measures are straightforward measures of accuracy or reaction time scoring of the verbal fluency and anti saccade tasks often relies on examiner judgment We report on the inter rater reliability of these measures below Verbal fluency Twenty trained raters each scored ten written verbal fluency protocols indicating the number of correct words rule violations and repetitions The intraclass coefficient ICC was calculated for correct words rule violations and repetitions for combined letter fluency F and L words and combined category fluency animals and vegetables measures Overall results indicated high ICC values for number correct words in phonemic ICC 814 and semantic fluency ICC 984 ICC values for repetitions 830 and 768 were also good whereas rule violations 552 and 779 were more variable Table 7 Verbal fluency inter rater reliability Correct Repetitions Rule Violatio
91. lt were the highest priorities for battery development These results are also summarized on the website Priorities identified by the NINDS the external advisers and the survey of experts were to 1 have a brief 30 40 minute battery designed for clinical trials with alternate forms and a single composite score 2 create a menu of tasks from which investigators can select to meet specific research goals 3 use non copyrighted tasks that NIH could distribute freely and 4 validate the battery by demonstrating a relationship with real world markers During Phase l s second year attention shifted toward defining the conceptual framework for the EXAMINER battery selecting extant executive paradigms from the research and clinical literature and developing novel tasks Extensive piloting was undertaken at UCSF and UC Davis Dan Mungas PI and tasks were continually revised Record forms test stimuli software for computerized tasks and training materials were created Translation of test materials was carried out by a professional translation service with back translation Traditional neuropsychological measures like Trail Making Stroop Interference WAIS III Digit Symbol D KEFS Design Fluency and Wide Range Achievement Test lll Reading subtest were added to the battery as control measures The Frontal Systems Behavior Scale FrsBe and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function BRIEF copyrighted informant based questionnaires wer
92. luded 24 items that were administered to a validation sample of 35 healthy controls to determine agreement Two items were rejected because agreement among controls was low resulting in a 22 item version see Table 20 Final level of agreement for each item was determined based on a larger sample of healthy controls N 203 ranging in age from 18 94 There were no significant age or sex differences in SNQ performance 45 Table 24 Social Norms Questionnaire Would it be socially acceptable to Tell a stranger you don t like their hairstyle Spit on the floor Blow your nose in public Ask a coworker their age Cry during a movie at the theater Cut in line if you are in a hurry Laugh when you yourself trip and fall Eat pasta with your fingers Hug an acquaintance without asking first Tell a coworker your age CON DU A UNBE Tell someone your opinion of a movie they haven t seen 86 0 Laugh when someone else trips and falls Wear the same shirt every day Keep money you find on the sidewalk Pick your nose in public Tell a coworker you think they are overweight Drive fast if you are in a hurry Eat ribs with your fingers Tell a stranger you like their hairstyle Wear the same shirt twice in two weeks Tell someone the ending of a movie they haven t seen 91 0 Hug a stranger without asking first Talk out loud during a movie at the theater Tell a coworker
93. me degree of updating information Inhibition of pre potent responses covered a broad range of tasks that potentially measure cognitive and behavior control in varying degrees To this core set of constructs we added fluency a measure with a rich clinical tradition Fluency refers to the ability to utilize one or more strategies that maximize the production of responses while avoiding response repetition Ruff Allen et al 1994 Word fluency tests are typically considered measures of executive function because they tap organizational strategies required for retrieval and recall as well as self monitoring self initiation and inhibition Planning is another concept that is widely considered to be a component of executive functioning although very challenging to operationalize and quantify Unlike the components of Miyake s model planning is clearly heterogeneous and multifactorial requiring a number of component processes like sustained attention abstract thinking temporal sequencing and reasoning Insight is another construct that is often included in discussions of executive functioning and linked to the frontal lobes so we inserted methods to evaluate subjects ability to accurately appraise their performance Finally how someone actually behaves and functions in real life is an important non cognitive measure of executive functioning and includes social cognition as well as behavioral control While traditionally assessed using collateral r
94. ms of this similarity effect Although all examinees are expected to have more difficulty on similar trials than dissimilar trials elevated errors on the similar trials may reflect impairment in accurately representing spatial information Visual Hemifield Performance can be evaluated separately for left hemifield targets or right hemifield targets Elevated errors for one hemifield may reflect difficulty attending to or processing information in that hemifield e g neglect 48 Flanker In addition to storing individual trial data the EXAMINER scoring program generates several Flanker summary scores The first set of scores consists of the accuracy and median reaction times for the congruent and incongruent trials Researchers often use the relationship between the incongruent and congruent trials e g incongruent RT regressed over the congruent RT as a marker of cognitive control although careful attention should be paid to the accuracy rates to ensure that they are high enough to render the reaction time data meaningful Scores that contrast congruent and incongruent RT data often do not have sufficient reliability to make them suitable for clinical trial use Accordingly using an approach similar to that taken by the NIH Toolbox EXAMINER also generates a more reliable variable that combines reaction time and accuracy data from the incongruent trials This scoring method generates accuracy and reaction time sub scales that range in v
95. n and category based word generation The examiner should recite the instructions for each fluency task verbatim Should the participant have difficulties understanding the instructions it is permissible to explain the task to them further or answer any questions they may have Start the stopwatch once it is clear that the examinee understands the instructions Write the actual responses as legibly as possible Record all responses including repeated words and rule violations When a rule violation occurs on three consecutive 58 responses remind the participant of the correct rule Each rule can be repeated only once per trial Stop the procedure at 1 minute If the examinee gives a response that is unclear during the task make a note of it and query about it after the 1 minute has elapsed Fluency Phonemic The examiner asks the examinee to list as many words as they can that begin with a particular letter in one minute The examinee is asked not to give names of people names of places or numbers as responses I m going to say a letter of the alphabet When I ask you to start tell me as many words as you can that begin with that letter You will have one minute before tell you to stop None of the words can be numbers or names of people or places For example if I gave you the letter B you could say brown bottle or bake but you wouldn t say Barbara Boston or billion Also don t give me the same word with different endings so if
96. n et al NINCDS ADRDA Criteria 1984 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DSM IV 1994 Age range of 7 16 yrs and IQ gt 90 Additional Exclusion Criteria Comorbid mental retardation MR neurological diagnosis psychiatric condition or major learning disability Neary et al Criteria Neary et al 1998 Focal lesions included lateral frontal ventromedial frontal non frontal and basal ganglia lesions secondary to ischemic stroke tumor or focal injury HD mutation gene positive Petersen et al Petersen et al 2001 In addition MCI participants were further subdivided into those that met criteria for a primarily amnestic presentation MCI mem or dysexecutive presentation MCI exec McDonald Revised Criteria Polman et al 2005 Albanese Criteria 2003 Litvan et al NINDS SPSP Criteria Litvan et al 1996 Confirmed diagnosis of sickle cell anemia Age range of 8 17 yrs Moderate to severe as defined by a Glasgow Coma Scale GCS 12 Age range of 18 50 yrs Injury at least 6 months prior to testing Birth weight of 1000 grams and or 28 weeks gestational age Age range of 10 12 yrs 21 Data Collection Sites The EXAMINER battery was administered at nine collaborating sites across the country The final dataset includes adults and children Spanish and English speaking across a wide range of diagnostic cohorts Please see the Data Collaboration Table below for details regarding baseline data coll
97. nd adult populations In addition executive tasks like most cognitive measures tend to be culture and language specific and their utility for administration in other languages has not been established As a result the issue of measurement bias is of central importance in cross cultural applications of neuropsychological tests Executive measures should detect cognitive change and an unbiased measure should be equally sensitive to change in individuals from different age and ethnic groups Psychometrically robust Extant executive measures are often criticized for low or unmeasured reliability questionable relationships with frontal lobe injury or real world behavior Heflin et al 2011 Stuss et al 1995 or skewed distributions Good psychometric properties are a key element for measures designed for clinical trials as are the availability of equivalent alternate forms Chapter 2 Project Structure EXAMINER was developed in two general phases Phase lasted two years and emphasized battery development In the first year of Phase I the UCSF team was built and a website was created to facilitate communication to NIH and the public examiner ucsf edu The literature on executive functioning was extensively reviewed by the UCSF team and posted on the website A team of external advisers was created with the first meeting taking place in San Francisco April 24 2006 Finally the advisers and experts in the field were surveyed on what they fe
98. nd divergent validity of the Fluency Factor see Table 23 44 Table 23 Correlations between Fluency Factor and other cognitive tasks Design Digits Stroop Delay recall Benson copy fluency backward Fluency Factor 36 29 30 11 04 p value lt 001 lt 001 lt 001 048 496 Measures not included in factor scores Unstructured Task The weighted composite score on the Unstructured Task correlates well with FrsBe r 29 separates adult patients from controls F 11 2 p lt 005 and correlates well with age in normal children r 70 and older adults r 35 Insight Krueger et al 2011 studied 91 children mean age 11 9 years sd 1 7 including 47 typically developing children and 44 patients Per standard EXAMINER procedures after completion of each fluency task each child assessed his or her performance relative to a hypothetical sample of children of the same age sex and education The relationship between self appraisal accuracy and parents rating of executive behavior BRIEF Shifting score was significant when examining typically developing children alone with r 40 p 006 and without r 41 p 006 controlling for actual performance Social Norms Questionnaire Content Validity The initial phase of validity testing for the SNQ was to determine whether healthy control subjects agreed about the implicit social rules represented in each item The preliminary adult version inc
99. ng Program The EXAMINER battery includes software for generating the executive composite and factor scores The software for calculating the executive composite and factor scores is programmed in the R language and relies on Itm module latent trait models under the Item Response Theory approach The R software only needs to be installed on computers that will be used to calculate the executive composite and factor scores e g a computer used for data management and analysis 1 Install the R software following instructions in Chapter 7 of this manual 2 Locate and copy the ExaminerScoring installation file for your operating system to the computer where the scoring program will be installed a For Windows the installation file is ExaminerScoring zip and is located in the Battery and Stimulus Software Windows Scoring folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution b ForOSXthe installation file is ExaminerScoring dmg and is located in the Battery and Stimulus Software OSX Scoring folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution c For Linux the installation file is ExaminerScoring tar gz and is located in the Battery and Stimulus Software Linux Scoring folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution 3 Extract the contents of the ExaminerScoring installation file to a location of your choice on the computer where the scoring program will be installed Running the Scoring Program The scoring program will read in a data file in CSV comma separated value
100. ng memory IRT has important invariance properties and of particular relevance to EXAMINER examinee scores generated by IRT analysis are invariant to specific items used Consequently an IRT score should provide an unbiased estimate of the examinee s ability even if different variables are used to generate that score Each of the 11 continuous variables was recoded into an ordinal score with up to 20 response categories see Tables 25 28 This process yielded ordinal scores that roughly matched the distributions of the raw continuous variables but had at least 10 observations in each response category These ordinal scores were then entered into an IRT analyses corresponding to the four scores of interest The R Itm module was used to fit a two parameter graded response model Item parameters were calibrated and saved and examinee scores and standard errors were calculated using Empirical Bayes scoring This initially was performed with 18 64 year old English speakers but subsequent analyses tested for differential item function related to age group 3 10 11 17 18 64 65 and language English Spanish This was an iterative process in which the baseline model used the same parameters for all groups and then in each subsequent step one additional variable was split so that parameters were freely estimated in the groups of interest This process was empirically guided such that the variable selected for differential parameter estimation in any
101. ns 11 During both the 1 back and the 2 back the examinee is shown a series of 2 4 cm white squares that appear in 15 different locations on a black screen Each square is presented for 1000 msec All of the locations are equidistant from the center of the screen During the 1 back the examinee is instructed to press the left arrow key whenever the square is presented in the same location as the previous one and the right arrow key if the square is presented in a different location as the previous one Responses should be given as quickly as possible while trying to maintain accuracy throughout the trials The next square appears on the screen after each response is given A number varying from 1 9 selected randomly appears in the center of the screen 500 msec after each response and remains on the screen for 1000 msec The examinee should say this number out loud immediately when it appears on the screen before responding to the next square The 1 back consists of one block of 30 trials ten of which match the location of the previous square and 20 that are in a different location The stimuli are presented in a fixed order for all participants Examinee says this 2 Examinee says this 3 number out loud Examinee indicates number out loud Participant indicates whether this square is whether this square is in same place as the in same place as the first square second square Figure 2 Example of 1 back stimuli During the 2 back the
102. ns F words 989 811 701 L words 974 730 625 Animals 979 704 319 Vegetables 972 827 814 F L words 814 830 552 An Veg words 984 768 779 35 Anti saccade We videotaped the eye movements of six people who were instructed to make mistakes and atypical eye movements during the anti saccade task Three raters scored each eye movement The ICC was 98 Behavior rating scale Two raters independently viewed and scored the videotaped testing sessions of 15 patients including five patients with Alzheimer s disease five patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and five patients with the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia Each patient was rated on the presence and degree of stimulus boundedness perseverations lack of emotional engagement and initiation The ICC was 0 61 for a single rater and 0 76 for two raters Test Retest Reliability Test retest reliability was estimated for Unstructured Task and Social Norms Questionnaire on 85 normal subjects who were evaluated twice within 150 days Results are summarized in Table 8 Table 8 Test retest reliability n Reliability estimate Unstructured Task 85 71 Social Norms Questionnaire Children 15 93 Social Norms Questionnaire Adults 52 69 Reliability Executive Composite and Factor Scores Short term test retest reliability for the Executive Composite and Factor scores was assessed with 53 n
103. o cause social deficits i e behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy while patients with Alzheimer s disease performed normally despite their cognitive deficits see Figure 16 Convergent and Divergent Validity Convergent and divergent validity for the adult form of the SNQ were assessed in a large sample of diagnostically mixed adults Correlation with tests of dysexecutive behavior Controlling for age and sex the correlation with FrsBe total score in 178 subjects was r 0 39 p lt 001 indicating that poorer ability to evaluate social norms on the SNQ predicts higher levels of dysexecutive behavior in daily life according to informant ratings including apathy disinhibition and executive dysfunction Correlation with tests of social behavior social sensitivity SNQ total score also correlated at r 0 22 p lt 001 with informant ratings of 212 subjects empathy using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index IRI indicating that individuals with lower SNQ scores had decreased ability to take another person s perspective in an empathic manner in daily life It also correlated at r 0 32 p lt 001 with ability to detect subtle social cues according to Revised Self Monitoring Scale RSMS score in 204 subjects The SNQ correlated at r 0 33 p lt 0 001 with ability to read emotions in 168 subjects who also were tested using the Emotion Evaluation Test from The Awareness of Social Inference Task TASIT EET
104. onard provided able stewardship guidance and assistance helping us navigate through a great many scientific and administrative challenges We are extremely grateful to the Pls and coordinators at all of the data collection sites including Ramon Diaz Arrestia Kimberly Espy Robert Knight Dan Mungas Celiane Rey Casserly Jeffrey Schatz Glenn Smith Gerry Taylor and Daniel Tranel We were fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate with so many gifted generous and capable colleagues The UCSF team members each contributed their own unique brand of creativity hard work and brilliance to make this project happen Special thanks go to Blaire Benavides Caroline Becerra Ashley Berhel Lauren Gritzer Caroline Latham Lena Sinha Susan Verde and Mary Widmeyer Katherine Possin was instrumental in all aspects of our working memory tasks and Katherine Rankin took the lead on the social cognition measures Adam Boxer played a key role in our eye movement task Howard Rosen assisted with the insight measures Katrin Schenk inspired novel analytic approaches to random number generation Bruce Miller Ari Green and Chad Christine facilitated subject recruitment and offered ongoing advice Kathleen Drew was the backbone of our administrative team and John Neuhaus and Alan Bostrom provided valuable biostatistical input at every step of the way Joe Hesse and Charlie Toohey built the best data management system imaginable and programmed the computer t
105. oped including the Frontal Assessment Battery FAB Dubois Slachevsky Litvan amp Pillon 2000 Executive Interview EXIT25 Royall Mahurin amp Gray 1992 Behavioral Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome Wilson 1996 Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery CANTAB Robbins et al 1994 and the Delis Kaplan Executive Function System Delis Kaplan amp Kramer 2001 Espy Espy amp Cwik 2004 Espy Kaufmann amp Glisky 2001 Espy Kaufmann McDiarmid amp Glisky 1999 Espy et al 2002 and others D C Delis et al 2001 Delis Kramer Kaplan amp Holdnack 2004 Korkman Kemp amp Kirk 2001 have thoughtfully extended assessment of executive function to younger children Methods for assessing frontally mediated neuropsychiatric symptoms and dysexecutive syndromes have also been developed Cummings et al 1994 Malloy amp Grace 2005 Despite the proliferation of executive measures there is little agreement about what the primary executive abilities are how they are organized what the underlying neuroanatomy is or how they should best be measured There are also no widely accepted unified models of executive functions Nonetheless several key concepts have been proposed that have had a significant influence on our understanding of executive control For example Shallice has proposed that the frontal lobes organize a Supervisory Attention System that distinguishes between routine tasks for which content
106. ormal children age range 7 2 to 12 5 years and 32 normal adults age range 21 to 76 years The battery was administered twice within a 4 month period range from O to 122 days Test retest reliabilities are summarized in Table 9 The reliability of the Working Memory score was only 39 in the adults The reliabilities of the individual working memory tests were 85 for 2 back d prime 56 for Dot Counting and 04 for 1 back d prime The poor reliability for 1 back was due to ceiling effects in the adult control sample a relatively small sample and restricted age range Reliability for the full sample is 75 and higher reliability in a patient sample is expected Table 9 Test retest reliability of Executive Composite and Factor scores Age group Executive Composite Cognitive Control Working Fluency Memory 18 0 87 0 83 0 77 0 76 18 0 78 0 73 0 39 0 86 Total 0 94 0 91 0 75 0 91 One year test retest reliability was evaluated in 108 normal children between the ages of 6 and 11 The test retest interval ranged from 343 to 411 days mean 361 Reliability of the Executive Composite over the one year interval was 0 80 The Cognitive Control Working Memory and Fluency scores were 0 77 0 52 and 0 73 respectively 36 Chapter 10 Validity Validity reflects how well a particular task measures what it purports to measure In this section we report first on the validity of the executive composite s
107. play B screen 0 B screen 0 3 8 10 measure the actual width of your display in cm and enter the value below for th Wo 33 cmis approx the width ofa 15 laptop screen 12 30 cm s approx the width of a 13 laptop screen ta widthcm 30 10 measure the actual width of your display in cm and enter the value below for the w 3h 4 33 cmis opprox the width of 0 15 laptop screen iZ 30cmis approx the width of a 13 laptop screen Ja widthcm 32 5 16 font osx 47 name Courier 1B sizecm 60 Template Completed Example 16 font osx 3 name Courier 8 Save the configuration file 4 Run the EXAMINER Computer Tasks Before running the EXAMINER computer tasks first configure the tasks as described above this only needs to be done the first time the tasks are run Open the PsychoPy application If PsychoPy opens in builder view change to coder view open coder view from the view menu Open examiner adult english py from Desktop Examiner3_2 scripts examiner folder Additional scripts that default the configuration settings to child and or Spanish language settings are also available in the same folder Click the run icon or selecting Run from the Tools menu A black screen will appear while setting up and the configure examiner battery session screen will appear in minutes Enter the task administration details and click the OK button to begin the EXAMINER battery computer tasks f Configure Examin
108. pter 4 Framework for Current Battery This proposal to develop psychometrically robust measures of executive function was guided by three basic premises that influenced the initial stages of task selection First the term executive function is a broad term that requires breaking down into smaller conceptual units Second because executive abilities are measured using tasks that require multiple abilities methods that parse the executive component from other skills are needed Finally executive function encompasses both cognitive and non cognitive behaviors A multimodal approach using cognitive and observational methods is necessary to capture the broad range of deficits seen in patients with executive dysfunction Sub Components of Executive Function The first underlying premise is that the term executive functioning is an overarching rubric that encompasses multiple domains that are mediated by different neural structures and networks Various executive abilities include maintenance and manipulation of information temporal organization set shifting self monitoring concept formation fluency inhibition motivation organization and planning There is no single executive function that investigators can turn to when conducting clinical studies In many instances patients with deficits in executive functioning will perform well on certain domains but poorly on others For example patients with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex inju
109. ption in developing the EXAMINER battery is that executive related deficits can manifest as impulsive errors failure to shift set perseverative behavior and stimulus boundedness even when achievement scores on tests are unremarkable Accordingly we generated a composite error score using several EXAMINER tasks This composite includes false alarm responses on the CPT rule violations on the verbal fluency tasks the tendency to make errors on Flanker incongruent trials relative to congruent trials the tendency to make errors on the Set Shifting shift trials relative to the non shift trials and the total score on the Behavior Rating Scale Domain Set Shifting Set Shifting Participants are required to match a stimulus on the top of the screen to one of two stimuli in the lower corners of the screen In task homogeneous blocks participants perform either Task A e g classifying shapes or Task B e g classifying colors In task heterogeneous blocks participants alternate between the two tasks pseudo randomly The combination of task homogeneous and task heterogeneous blocks allows measurement of general switch costs latency differences between heterogeneous and homogeneous blocks and specific switch costs differences between switch and non switch trials within the heterogeneous block 14 The examinee should be positioned in front of the computer screen The screen on each trial contains a red triangle in the bottom left corner and a
110. re mentioned below Use the space in the bottom half of the rating page to describe the behavior This is particular important step for subjects being evaluated longitudinally in the event that a different rater will be seeing the subject at the next visit DETERMINING SEVERITY As a general rule the severity of the observed behavior should reflect the extent to which it disrupts the testing or interpersonal exchanges or the extent to which it deviates from generally accepted norms Mild refers to an infrequent occurrence of the behavior or if the behaviors observed are present but relatively insignificant Subjects are easily redirected and there is no or minimal impact on the quality of the testing A rating of moderate would indicate that the occurrence of behaviors begin to infringe on the quality of the data and neuropsychological test performance Subjects are less easily redirected For example if a subject cannot take social cues from the examiner and continues discussing topics that are inappropriate for the clinical setting Socially Inappropriate Behavior would be rated as moderate A rating of severe indicates that the behavior occurs very 73 frequently throughout the testing situation For example Distractibility would be rated as severe when the subject is very difficult to redirect to the task at hand to the point that test validity is questionable Additional examples are provided below SPECIFIC BEHAVIOR
111. ren and adults with baseline scores using general linear model controlling for age In the adult sample there were 275 patients and 386 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 41 6 p 001 partial eta 06 In the child sample there were 139 patients and 310 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 32 4 p lt 001 partial eta 07 Estimated marginal means are summarized in Table 10 Table 10 Patients versus controls Patients Normals Mean SE Mean SE 18 81 04 50 03 184 19 05 57 04 37 Correlations with age Executive function changes with age so another approach to validating the Composite Score was to measure the correlation with age in normal older 0 00007 adults and children 1 00001 1 00007 The correlation with age in older adults was assessed using baseline data from 212 normal controls over the age of 55 The correlation between the Composite Score and age was 30 p lt 001 Composite Score 2 00007 R Linear 0 682 The correlation with age in children was assessed 30009 using baseline data from 278 normal controls under 20 40 so ao 160 ido n the age of 15 The correlation between the Composite Score and age was 83 p lt 001 see Figure 12 Figure 12 Executive Composite and age in children Longitudinal Change We also predicted that executive functioning improves s
112. rgent Validity Convergent and divergent validity was assessed in 96 normal adults who were also administered the California Verbal Learning Test ll Delis et al 2000 to measure verbal episodic memory the Digit Span Backward test to measure verbal working memory and the modified Boston Naming Test to measure confrontation naming Controlling for age the correlation with Digits Backward r 38 p lt 001 was greater than the correlation with long delay free recall r 21 p 04 The correlation with Digit Span remained significant even after controlling for long delay free recall r 36 p lt 001 supporting the Working Memory Factor as a measure of working memory The Working Memory Factor did not correlate with the Boston Naming Test of confrontation naming r 09 p 40 41 Cognitive Control Factor Score Correlations with external measures of executive functioning The correlation between the Cognitive Control Factor Score and FrsBe total raw score after partialling out the effect of age was 56 p lt 001 reflecting a fairly robust association between Cognitive Control on EXAMINER and estimates of real world executive function The Cognitive Control Factor correlated with the BRIEF total score 22 p lt 001 Shifting Scale 20 p lt 001 and Inhibition Scale 22 p lt 001 partialling out the effect of age Differences between patients and normal controls To determine how well the Cognitive Control Factor separated pati
113. rrect responses If participant performs well the test trials will begin Otherwise the test will END TEST It is now time to begin the test Please respond as quickly as possible without making mistakes Press the spacebar when you are ready to begin Provide guidance if participant expresses confusion about how to perform task but without revealing correct responses If participant indicates that he she does not remember if a current square matches the one 2 before say Take your best guess and try to get the next one correct After test is complete The test is complete This was a challenging test and we want to make sure you understood the instructions Please explain the instructions to the examiner On the record form if the response displays correct understanding of the task check Yes Otherwise check No 70 Anti Saccades MATERIALS amp SET UP Record form to record responses Audio setting on the computer should be adjusted to an audible level For both Pro Trials and Anti Trials sit across from the participant so that you are facing him her Be sure you can see the examinee s eyes Set computer centered in front of participant Computer screen should be approximately 31 inches 80 cm away from participant and as close to eye level as possible For both Pro Trials and Anti Trials sit across from the participant so that you are facing him her You will not be able to see the computer display Be
114. rrectly or have been completed with systematic errors that do not affect the puzzle significantly 2 Count number of low value items completed This includes puzzles that have 7596 finished correctly and puzzles completed with minor systematic errors 63 3 Count number of high value items attempted in all three booklets Attempted high value puzzles include every puzzle that has been started but is not complete This includes puzzles with less than 75 completed correctly and puzzles with consistent errors that would shorten time e g crossing out every item instead of only given ones and puzzles started but not completed when time is called 4 Count number of low value puzzles attempted in all three booklets Include all low value puzzles started that are incomplete or incorrect 5 Add the points for all items completed This value will be the sum of the point values for both low and high value puzzles completed Flanker MATERIALS amp SET UP Use Left and Right arrow keys Participants should be 30 40 inches from the screen The examinee will be shown a row of five arrows on a computer screen and asked to indicate whether the center arrow is pointing to the right or to the left The right and left arrow keys will be used to indicate direction The examinee should respond to the stimuli as quickly as possible while trying not to make any mistakes You will be shown a row of five arrows on the screen pointing to the left or
115. rs and redirection but still able to complete evaluation and severe if the distractibility significantly disrupts testing to the point that validity is questionable 7 Lack of Social Emotional Engagement This refers to the examiner s impression that the subject displays signs of diminished social interest interrelatedness or personal warmth Examples of behaviors might include lack of eye contact excessive eye contact e g staring lack of smiling or reduced range of facial affect unrelated to Parkinson s disease lack of awareness of how subject s behavior might affect others lack of interest in others Additional behaviors include lack of spontaneity and not initiating conversations The main distinction between lack of social engagement and social inappropriateness is that lack of social engagement typically reflects an absence of behavior e g empathy warmth whereas social inappropriateness typically reflects the distinct presence of an inappropriate behavior e g inappropriate touching or remarks 8 Impulsivity This refers to acting with insufficient forethought or patience Potential behaviors include beginning a task before examiner completes instructions responding to only part of the instructions e g the first part of multi step instructions a careless approach to work finishing too quickly and interrupting the examiner A mild rating would refer to when the examinee works quickly without checking work appears
116. ry tend to perform least well on working memory measures and set shifting tasks that require shifts between dimensions Rogers Andrews Grasby Brooks amp Robbins 2000 yet do well on reversal learning and inhibition tasks The opposite pattern can be seen in patients with more ventromedial involvement Most factor analytic studies support a fractionated multi component view of executive function Although the number and type of factors depend on the variables that are included some overlap is evident Miyake et al 2000 identified three related but separable functions mental set shifting information updating and monitoring and inhibition of pre potent responses Another 3 factor model generated by observational data identified behavior regulation emotional regulation and a metacognition factor Gioia Isquith Retzlaff amp Espy 2002 while a 5 factor model yielded constructs like intentionality interference management inhibition planning and social regulation Amieva Phillips amp Della Sala 2003 These findings support the need for an executive battery that includes a range of executive abilities that are non redundant The Role of Non Executive Skills The second underlying premise is that the measurement of these executive abilities is typically carried out using heterogeneous tasks that require multiple non executive skills Most tasks designed to assess some aspect of executive functioning also involve varying degrees of
117. s format will validate that all required data elements are present will score the records and generate an output file with the data from the input file and the composite and factor scores This section describes how to run the scoring program See the following section for information in preparing an input file for the scoring program 1 Startthe R program The R Console will appear 2 Move the Examiner Software folder to your desktop This folder contains a Scoring and Tasks folder 3 Setthe working directory in the R Console to the folder that contains the EXAMINER scoring folder Every time you run R you will need to change the working directory to this directory This directory is the one that contains the test and lookup folder a On Windows choose Change Dir from the File menu b On OSX select Change Working Directory from the Misc menu 4 Typesource examiner scoring R inthe R Console and hit the RETURN key 5 Type score file test ExampleScoringInput csv test TestOutputil csv in the R Console and hit the RETURN key When using the scoring program replace the file names in the score file function call with the name of the prepared input file and the desired name of the output file 6 TheR program will run the scoring routine and write the output file with the calculated composite and factor scores 76 Preparing an Input File for the Scoring Program The scoring program requires a file in CSV comma
118. s can derive several other measures in addition to the primary dependent measure Accuracy and reaction time are recorded for each trial so response speed and omission data are available In addition the 100 trials of the CPT are divided into four blocks of 25 so rates of change in response speed and accuracy can be derived Anti Saccade Test Individual trial data as well as separate total scores for the prosaccade trial and two anti saccade trials can be derived The primary dependent measure that contributes to the Executive Composite and Cognitive Control scores is the total number of correct responses on the two anti saccade trials 49 Set Shifting The EXAMINER scoring program generates several summary scores There are three blocks of trials one in which the matching criterion is only color one in which the matching criterion is only shape and one in which the matching criterion shifts pseudo randomly Accuracy and reaction time are recorded for each trial In addition total accuracy and median RT are generated for each block and within the shifting block total accuracy and median RT are generated for trials in which the matching criterion is the same as the previous trial and for trials in which the matching criterion is different from the previous trial Investigators can use the block data to measure general shift costs i e accuracy and RT on the shifting block relative to the non shift blocks and specific shift costs i e with
119. separated values format with 11 donor variables and a variable that indicates the language of the battery administration There is an example input file in the test subdirectory of the scoring program called ExampleScoringInput csv Data procedures should be established for projects or trials using the EXAMINER battery that will generate the scoring input file from the data files generated by the EXAMINER computer tasks and the CRF Case Report Form used to record the paper and pencil tasks The input file for the scoring program requires the variables in the following table Additional optional variables e g subject id session num can be included in the input file to identify the rows being scored The variable names in the table below are the column names from the summary data files from the computer based tasks and the suggested column names for data tables used to store the EXAMINER battery CRFs see the CRF Suggested Data Dictionary included with the EXAMINER battery distribution Variable Source Notes language Battery Form The language of battery administration 1 English 2 Spanish dot total Battery Form Dot Counting Total Correct nb1 score NBack Summary One back score dprime nb2 score NBack Summary Two back score dprime flanker score Flanker Flanker Score Summary error score Calculated See calculation details below antisacc Battery Form Antisaccade Total Correct T1 T2
120. ses animals Breeds e g terriers Male and female Infant names of a species e g bull cow calf Both superordinate and subordinate examples of a species e g both dog and terrier are credited Birds Fish Reptiles Insects Repetitions Any response that is repeated verbatim within the 60 second trial should be scored as a repetition When responses are plurals e g mouse mice or different terms for the same animal e g dog canine score the second response as a repetition Rule Violations Mythical animals e g unicorn Wrong category Correct responses vegetables e Both superordinate and subordinate responses e g peppers and jalapefios are credited 61 e Less specific names e g greens e Names of vegetables found in other cultures but perhaps unfamiliar to you e g jicama are acceptable only if they can be verified in the dictionary After completion of the task ask the participant to spell the word if you are unsure of the correct spelling e Grains e g rice wheat oats etc gourds sugarcane herbs legumes nuts and seaweed e Tomato avocado and pumpkin Responses not given credit but not scored as errors Prepared vegetable products e g pickles tomato sauce ketchup Spices e g cinnamon nutmeg paprika cumin salt Repetitions Any response that is repeated verbatim within the 60 second trial should be scored as a repetition Rule Violations Wrong category Un
121. ss than 10 on the 1 back and less than 30 on the 2 back should be carefully scrutinized The EXAMINER scoring program also generates measures of discriminability d prime using signal detection parameters where 1 back d prime is the difference between the z transforms of the hit rate number of hits 05 11 and the false positive rate false positives 5 21 D prime for 2 back is based on a hit rate number of hits 5 31 and a false positive rate number of false positives 5 61 The primary dependent variables that contribute to the Working Memory Factor and Executive Composite scores are the 1 back and 2 back d prime scores There are additional process variables that may be of interest to some users Response bias is the mean of the hit rate and false positive rate z transforms Higher scores represent a yes bias Note that d prime but not total correct is independent of response bias Interference Trials On the 2 back there are 8 trials on which the current square does not match the comparison square 2 before but it does match the square 1 before Elevated errors on these interference trials may represent difficulties with inhibitory control Similarity Effect Each trial consists of the display of a probe square in one of 15 possible locations equidistant from the center of the screen On no trials the probe can differ from the location of the comparison target square by 1 2 3 or 4 positions Accuracy can be evaluated in ter
122. structured Task MATERIALS amp SET UP Computer Timer 6 minutes Practice Page 3 Stimulus Booklets The examinee will be provided with three test booklets full of puzzles of varying point values and varying average times of completion They will be asked to choose and complete the puzzles that will allow them to earn as many points as possible in six minutes Position the practice form in front of the examinee Have participant complete the page On this practice page there are six puzzles for you to try Each puzzle has a different instruction and some puzzles are easier than others Go ahead and complete this page so you can see the kinds of puzzles you will do Answer any questions the examinee may have regarding the puzzles on the practice form Once the practice form has been completed look over it to make sure all of the puzzles have been completed correctly If an error has been made on the practice form point this out to the examinee and explain why it is incorrect Once the practice form has been completed and any errors have been explained move on to the task Position the three stimulus books in front of participant Display the computer timer so that it is in clear view of the examinee Set the timer for 6 minutes Here are three booklets Each of the booklets has different puzzles you can do In these booklets there are four puzzles on each page Each puzzle has a number of points that you will earn when you complete the puzzl
123. te analyses were carried out for children and adults with baseline scores using general linear model controlling for age In the adult sample there were 262 patients and 241 controls Estimated marginal means are summarized in Table 14 The difference between patients and controls was significant F 50 8 p lt 001 partial eta 17 In the child sample there were 119 patients and 368 controls Estimated marginal means are summarized in Table 14 The difference between patients and controls was significant F 90 7 p 001 partial eta 27 Table 14 Working Memory Patients vs controls Patients Normals Mean SE Mean SE 18 76 03 23 03 184 14 05 61 04 Correlations with age The correlation of the Working Memory Factor Score with age in adults was assessed using baseline data from 153 normal controls over the age of 55 The correlation between the Factor Score and age was 32 p 001 The correlation with age in children was assessed using baseline data from 341 normal controls under the age of 15 The correlation between the Factor Score and age was 53 p lt 001 Longitudinal Change Longitudinal change in Working Memory Composite over a 12 month period in 95 normal children between the ages of 6 and 11 was assessed The increase in the Working Memory Factor after 12 months was significant t 2 84 p 006 Table 15 Longitudinal change Working Memory Baseline
124. the instructions however you should always read the verbatim instructions first Always try to elicit the examinee s best performance Encouraging remarks are important but do not provide specific feedback regarding whether individual responses are correct or incorrect except during practice trials If the examinee seems discouraged or anxious about his or her performance encouraging remarks like I can tell you are trying your best No one gets all of these correct or That was a tough one for you but you did it are often helpful If the examinee s motivation wanes it is okay to explain in general terms what the task is trying to measure e g This is a measure of a particular kind of attention Provide breaks when needed Examiners should pay attention to the examinee s motivation emotional state physical discomfort and other factors that potentially compromise test validity Many of the tasks have discontinuation rules For those that do not please attempt to complete all tasks whenever possible Examinees can use pen or pencil for carrying out Trails Design Fluency and the Unstructured Test However if pencil is used please provide a pencil without an eraser Examinees should be instructed to cross out incorrect responses rather than attempt to erase them Fluency MATERIALS amp SET UP Timer 1 minute record form to record responses The fluency task has two conditions phonemic based word generatio
125. tion and PsychoPy must be installed on every computer that will run the EXAMINER battery computer tasks 25 As of April 15 2011 the current web site for acquiring the PsychoPy software is www psychopy org and the current released version of PsychoPy is 1 73 05 For Windows and OS X operating systems the easiest way to install PsychoPy is to download the current Standalone version of PsychoPy 1 73 02 and to upgrade this standalone version to 1 73 05 using the built in PsychoPy updater included in your EXAMINER installation package For Debian based Linux operating systems e g Ubuntu you can use the packages located at neuro debian net Therefore you will need to install three things PsychoPy software EXAMINER tasks to run on PsychoPy and R All three of these items are included on the EXAMINER distribution disk and installation instructions are detailed below Installing PsychoPy on Windows 1 Download the copy included in the directory of the EXAMINER battery distribution in Examiner 3 2 Software Windows Tasks PsychoPy Alternatively you can download the standalone PsychoPy Installer from code google com p psychopy 2 Ensure that you have permission on the testing machine to install software i e Administrative Privileges 3 Install PsychoPy by running the downloaded installer called StandalonePsychopy 1 73 102 win32 exe and accept License Agreement and all the default settings 4 Installation will take approxim
126. tructions for your operating system above 2 Locate and copy the Examiner installation file for your operating system to the desktop of the computer where EXAMINER will be installed a For Windows the installation file is Examiner zip and is located in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software Windows Tasks folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution b ForOSXthe installation file is Examiner dmg and is located in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software OSX Tasks folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution c For Linux the installation file is Examiner tar gz and is located in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software Linux Tasks folder of the EXAMINER battery distribution 3 Extract the contents of the Examiner installation file to your desktop To extract right click on zipped file and choose extract all When prompted for destination choose desktop and click extract button This should create an Examiner3_2 folder on your desktop The desktop is the recommended location for the Examiner3 2 installation folder 3 Configure the EXAMINER Computer Tasks After installing the PsychoPy and Examiner Tasks software you need to configure the software to run on the specific testing machine 1 Run PsychoPy by double clinking on the PsychoPy2 Icon under Applications on Mac or by selecting it from the Start Menu on Windows 2 The first time you open PsychoPy it will open to the Builder view shown below 28 untitled psyexp PsychoPy Builder Oo okiki A wy Oo trial
127. vide feedback as needed If the examinee finishes the practice trial and was not able to respond to 80 of the trials correctly another practice trial will begin Let s try another practice trial If an examinee is not able to advance past the third practice trial the task will discontinue After the practice trial s is finished and it is clear that the examinee understands the directions go on to the test Now let s move on to the actual test Press the SPACEBAR when you are ready to begin If the examinee stops responding completely or looks away from the screen redirect their focus to the task 1 Back MATERIALS amp SET UP Use Left and Right arrow keys Participants should be 30 40 inches from the screen The examinee is asked to remember the location of a square on the screen They are then instructed to indicate whether the next square is in the same location as the previous one using the left arrow key for yes and the right arrow key for no Read instructions aloud as they appear on each screen Remember the location of this square so you can compare it to the location of the next square Press SPACEBAR to continue A number will appear in the middle of the screen Say this number aloud The next square will appear on the screen Is this location the same as the one just before If YES press the LEFT key If NO press the RIGHT key Now remember the location of this square so you can compare it to the locat
128. who were also administered the California Verbal Learning Test Il D C Delis Kramer Kaplan amp Ober 2000 and the Stroop Interference Test The correlation between the Executive Composite score and 20 minute delayed free recall was 05 p 65 whereas the correlation between the Executive Composite score and Stroop Interference was 58 p 001 The correlation between the Executive Composite score and Stroop Interference remained significant even after controlling for Stroop Color Naming r 35 p lt 005 further supporting the Executive Composite score as a measure of executive ability Working Memory Factor Score Correlations with external measures of executive functioning The correlation between the Working Memory Factor Score and FrsBe total raw score after partialling out the effect of age was 54 p 001 reflecting a fairly robust association between working memory on EXAMINER and estimates of real world executive control This relationship remained highly significant r 35 p 001 even after controlling for estimates of baseline verbal ability WRAT 3 Reading and processing speed WAIS III Digit Symbol The Working Memory Factor correlated with the BRIEF total raw score 21 p 001 and the BRIEF working memory subscore 23 p 001 partialling out the effect of age 39 Differences between patients and normal controls To determine how well the Working Memory Composites separated patients from controls separa
129. wing minimum software e Windows XP Service Pack 3 Windows 7 Apple OS X 10 6 or Ubuntu 10 4 e PsychoPy Version 1 73 05 e R Statistical Software Version 2 14 included on EXAMINER distribution CD Acquiring and Installing Software Dependencies The EXAMINER battery is distributed with copies of the installation files for the PsychoPy and R software dependencies These files are located in the SOFTWARE directory of the EXAMINER battery distribution and are further organized by the target operating system Person s responsible for installing and configuring the EXAMINER battery are encouraged to review the web sites for these software dependencies for updated versions of the software and for detailed installation and configuration instructions The EXAMINER battery has been tested with the versions of the software dependencies available on April 15 2011 Use of updated versions of software dependencies may require additional testing and verification You will complete software installation in five steps 1 Install PsychoPy and update to version 1 71 05 2 Install EXAMINER computer tasks 3 Configure EXAMINER computer tasks 4 Run EXAMINER computer tasks 5 Install R 1 Install PsychoPy PsychoPy is an open source application to allow the presentation of stimuli and collection of data for a wide range of neuroscience psychology and psychophysics experiments The EXAMINER battery computer tasks are designed to run within the PsychoPy applica
130. ww r project org 5 Ensure that the installation works by running the R application and installing the Itm package a Start the R application b Select Install Packages from the Packages menu C Select Itm from the list of packages to install d Select the option to install all dependencies of Itm gt Installing R on Mac OS X 1 Download the R Installer for OS X from www r project org or use the copy included in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software OSX Scoring R directory of the EXAMINER battery distribution 2 Install R by running the downloaded package installer and accept all the default settings 3 Additional installation instructions for R are located at www r project org 31 4 Ensure that the installation works by running the R application and installing the Itm package a mango Start the R application Select Package Installer from the Packages amp Data menu Click the Get List button Select Itm from the list of packages to install Select the option to install all dependencies of Itm Installing R on Linux 1 Download the R Installer for Linux from www r project org or use the copy included in the EXAMINER 3 2 Software OSX Scoring R directory of the EXAMINER battery distribution 2 Install R by running the downloaded package installer and accept all the default settings 3 Additional installation instructions for R are located at www r project org 32 Chapter 8 Psychometric Properties Administration Issues
131. you think they have lost weight Differences between patients and normal controls Initial Final Validation Validation Sample Sample NC 35 NC 203 97 0 100 0 74 0 80 0 97 0 100 0 89 0 89 0 46 0 80 0 95 6 97 5 65 5 76 8 95 6 97 5 90 5 93 5 87 2 72 8 91 6 91 6 78 6 97 0 96 1 95 0 85 7 95 6 96 1 92 6 96 1 83 3 94 0 94 0 77 0 100 0 97 0 51 0 100 0 83 0 97 0 100 0 97 0 83 0 To determine how well the Social Norms Questionnaire separated patients from controls separate analyses were carried out for children and adults with baseline scores using general linear model controlling for age 22 0 21 0 20 0 4 19 0 18 0 SNQ Total 17 0 4 16 0 15 0 NC AD PSP bvFTD E differs from NCs at p lt 0 001 Figure 16 SNQ performance in controls and patients with neurodegenerative disease In the adult sample there were 242 patients and 202 controls The difference between patients and controls was significant F 11 5 p lt 001 partial eta 03 In additional selected comparisons between healthy controls and patients with neurodegenerative disease patients performed significantly worse than controls overall F 16 74 p lt 0 001 but this effect was driven 46 particularly by patients with diseases known t
132. ypes of responses are potentially rule violations and include e Words beginning with letters other than the designated letter This includes words that have the same initial sound but begin with a different letter e g phone for f words e Non words e Proper nouns that are names of people or places e Numbers e Grammatical variants of a previous response These include words that are exactly the same as a previous response but with a different ending that represents a plural altered tense or other grammatical variant e g present participle comparatives It is important to note that the examples in the instructions only explicitly prohibit plurals e g bake bakes alteration in tense bake baking and comparatives big bigger and thus only these types of variants should be scored as rule violations e Responses that are at all ambiguous should not be scored as rule violations This particularly applies to responses that use the same root word as a previous response but the addition is not a plural or change in tense For example give credit for bakery even if bake was a previous response Repeated rule violations count as repetitions not rule violations Category Fluency Scoring Guidelines The animal total score is the number of correct unique animals produced within the one minute time limit If a person self corrects a rule violation or repetition during the trial no error is counted Correct respon

(EXAMINER) User Manual - UCSF Memory and Aging Center

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