MA, Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand

The capacity of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and the Booklet Category Test (BCT) to discriminate between groups of brain-injured, simulated malingering, and normal participants was investigated in this study. Exploratory analyses were also conducted to examine the differences between groups categorized as sophisticated and naive fakers. Clinical decision rules and discriminant function analyses were utilized to identify malingerers. Clinical decision rules ranged in hit rates from 41% to 78%, in sensitivity from 2% to 100%, and in specificity from 86% to 100%. Discriminant functions ranged in hit rates from 81% to 86%, in sensitivity from 68% to 73% and in specificity from 82% to 87%. Overall, the least helpful detection method examined was below chance responding on either measure, while the most efficient was gross errors for SPM.

Bibliographic Identification Name and surname of the author: Mgr. Jan Jirovec Name of dissertation: The level of influence of motor proficiency on the performance in the nonverbal aspect of intelligence in younger school-age children (6 - 11 years): A longitudinal study. Workplace: Department of Kinanthropology and Humanities Supervisor of the work: doc. PhDr. Martin Musálek, Ph.D Year of presentation: 2021 Abstract Motor development in children is often linked to the development of cognitive or executive functions. Nevertheless, it still remains unclear how much the level of children's motor proficiency can impact the level of nonverbal intelligence, which is an important part of academic achievement of children. Objectives: The aim of the dissertation thesis is to determine the level of influence and its stability in time between the level of motor proficiency and the performance in the nonverbal aspect of intelligence in younger school-age children with age (categories: 6 - 7 years, 8 - 9 years and 10 -11 years) and sex being considered. Methods: The research sample consisted of 396 children (n=214 girls, n=182 boys) aged 6 - 11 years (age 8,9±1.3) from two elementary schools (Karlovy Vary Region, Prague). The children were divided into 3 groups by age: 6 - 7 years, 8 - 9 years, 10 - 11 years. The...