O transtorno cognitivo no idoso acarreta repercussões na sua vida, na família e na relação com a sociedade. Um instrumento de avaliação cognitiva amplamente utilizado é o MEEM - Mini Exame do Estado Mental - que é um teste de rastreamento com o objetivo de selecionar pessoas com provável déficit cognitivo. Uma amostra representativa da população de 394 idosos do município de Batatais SP foi avaliada através de inquérito domiciliar em relação às condições socioeconômicas e de saúde, e foi feito rastreamento dos sintomas depressivos e do desempenho cognitivo através de um instrumento baseado no MEEM. A maioria dos entrevistados era do sexo feminino (66%), sendo que 75,4% dos idosos pertenciam a uma faixa etária de 60-74 anos, chamada idoso jovem. Com relação à escolaridade a grande maioria (62.2%) cursou o primeiro grau. Com relação aos analfabetos 77,1% eram mulheres e 22,9% eram homens. Para o estado conjugal a diferença foi na proporção da viuvez 80.2% para o sexo feminino e 19.8% para o masculino. Quanto à renda familiar, 43.7% da população recebiam menos de 2,5 salários mínimos. Para avaliação do desempenho cognitivo usou um ponto de corte ? a 23 para o MEEM. Observou-se que 81.7% ficaram acima deste ponto e 18.3% ficaram abaixo. Os idosos que tiveram os escores mais elevados foram associados aos fatores como idade (60-69 anos), maior nível escolaridade, ter hábito de leitura, ter boa relação social principalmente com parentes, não ter hipertensão arterial, diabete, incontinência urinária, catarata e ausência de sintomas depressivos. / The cognitive impairment in the old has its effects on their lives, families and relationships with society. A widely used instrument of cognitive assessment is the MMSE- Mini Mental State - that is a screening test whose aim is to select people with probable cognitive deficiency. A significant sample of the population of 394 old people from Batatais - SP, was evaluated through a home survey considering the socioeconomic and health conditions and a screening of depressive symptoms and cognitive performance was done through an instrument based on MMSE. The great majority of people who were interviewed were female (66%) and 75.4% of the old belonged to an age group from 60 to 74 years old, being considered \"younger old\". Regarding scholarship, most of them had attended primary school (62.2%). Considering the illiterate 77.1% were women and 22.9% were men. Concerning marital status a huge difference between the proportion of widows (80.2%) and widowers (19.8%) was found. With reference to familiar income 43.7% of the population earned less than 2.5 minimum wages. To evaluate the cognitive performance a cut off ? 23 for MMSE was used. It was observed that 81.7% of the old were above and 18.3% were under this point. The old who achieved the highest scores had factors such as age (60-69 years old), better scholarship level, reading habits, a good social relationship (mainly with relatives), no high blood pressure, no diabetes, no urinary incontinence, no cataract and absence of depressive symptoms.

Abstract Older adults with complex memory problems benefit when they have the opportunity to consult with a specialist for a comprehensive cognitive assessment. Specialists such as geriatricians, psychogeriatricians or neurologists often work in major cities or large metropolitan towns. Travelling to see a specialist either alone or with a carer is complicated for an older person because of medical issues or disability. The use of videoconferencing may provide a way to link a specialist with a patient without the need for the patient, or the specialist, to travel long distances. Two literature reviews were carried out. The initial review identified studies of the diagnosis of cognition via telemedicine. Thirty-two studies were identified which assessed cognition via telephone or video conference. The focus of the study was either the administration of a standardised cognitive assessment tool (n=30) or an unstructured comprehensive cognitive assessment interview (all via video conference) (n=2). The sample sizes were small but the levels of agreement were high, suggesting that further work in this area may identify that diagnosis of dementia via video conference is reliable. There has been limited work in the area of diagnostic agreement when a specialist is assessing a patient for the first time via video conference, even less work in the area of mental health assessment of older people. The second literature review identified 19 studies of diagnostic agreement using video conference with a sample size of 20 or more. The fields of research were: Dermatology (n=10); Mental Health (n=4); Minor Injuries (n=2); Neurology (n=2); and Rheumatology (n=1). Of the four studies in the area of mental health, one focused on the diagnosis of dementia with the publication of a protocol for assessing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) via video conference. The review highlighted that diagnosis via video conference in other medical fields had been shown to be reliable but that limited work was evident regarding the reliability of diagnosing dementia via video conference. A range of statistical analyses have been used to measure agreement in studies of diagnosis via VC. Overall Proportional Agreement (Po) and Cohen’s kappa (K) are the two most common calculations. There was little uniformity of reporting in the studies identified in the literature review. The variation in reporting made it difficult to compare results or provide data for a meta-analysis of similar studies. Consideration of the methods for analysing diagnostic agreement was undertaken using the approaches identified in the literature review as a starting point. The aim of this research was to identify if a diagnosis of the presence of dementia in an older adult by a specialist is reliable when the assessment interview occurs via video conference. A pilot study was carried out prior to the implementation of a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) funded multi-site project to test inter-rater agreement for the diagnosis of dementia and subsidiary questions. The candidate is a Chief Investigator (CI) on the NHMRC project grant and participated in writing the grant submission. A pilot study was completed for the purpose of refining the research protocol and establishing preliminary data for the calculation of sample size. A geriatrician carried out a cognitive assessment via video conference with the patient and the carer. The doctor had access to the patient’s chart and the results of a battery of standardised cognitive assessments administered face-to-face (FTF) by the clinic nurse earlier in the day. A second interview was carried out, face-to-face, by a second doctor on the same day. Inter-rater reliability was assessed between doctors. To place the level of agreement in context, inter-rater reliability between paired face-to-face assessments was also measured. Forty-two participants were divided into two groups: paired face-to-face assessments (FF, n=22) or paired video conference and face-to-face assessments (FV/VF, n=20). Twenty-two participants were male. Their average age was 70 years (SD=11.1, Range 50-90). The mean Standardised Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE) score was 23.93 (SD=5.42, Range 8-30)[1]. The outcome of agreement was measured using PO and Cohen’s K. FF group (PO=0.636; K=0.430, p=0.005) and the FV/VF group (PO=0.650; K=0.650, p=0.004) showed similar levels of agreement. The main study was a non-inferiority, prospective cohort study following a similar format as the pilot. Patients were randomised to two groups. The first group participated in two interviews; one via VC, the other was face-to-face (FV/VF). The second group was subjected to dual face-to-face assessments (FF). The video conference interview consisted of real-time video conference with the doctor interacting with both the carer and the patient. A battery of standardised assessments, a medical history, imaging and blood tests were prepared before hand and available to the doctor for use in the interview. One hundred and fifty-five participants were divided into two groups: paired face-to-face assessments (FF, n=73) or paired video conference and face-to-face assessments (FV or VF, n=82). Seventy-five of the participants were male. The average age was 76-years (SD=9, Range 54-95). The mean SMMSE was 23.8 (SD=4.4, Range 8-30). Overall proportional agreement (Po) and Weighted K were calculated as a measure of agreement for the presence of dementia. The FF group (Po=0.740; K=0.57, p<0.0001) and the FV/VF group (Po=0.780; K=0.64, p<0.0001) showed similar levels of agreement. Using the same study cohort, additional data were collected to identify the significance of the physical examination (PE) for diagnosing dementia. One of two doctors was allocated the task of completing a physical examination of the patient following initial assessment interview and after the diagnosis decisions had been recorded. Following the physical examination a second record of diagnosis decisions were recorded by the same doctor. The doctor was asked to identify if the diagnosis, formulation, treating options or additional investigations had altered as a result of the in-person physical examination. The physical examination supported clarity of the diagnosis particularly if a vascular element was involved. This dissertation provides evidence of the reliability of a diagnosis of dementia obtained via video conference. Furthermore, the work detailed in this dissertation represents the largest international study on assessing diagnostic accuracy of cognition and makes a significant contribution to the work in telemedicine in the area of mental health. This dissertation provides generalisations that can impact the use of video conference for diagnosis across a range of specialities, with the ultimate goal of improving access to specialist advice for people living in rural areas.

In spite of the long-standing tradition of including measures of visual-motor integration in psychological evaluations, visual-motor abilities have not been included in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of cognitive abilities or its complementary cross-battery approach to assessment. The purpose of this research was to identify the shared constructs of a popular test of visual-motor integration and a test of intellectual functioning, and to investigate how a test of visual-motor integration would be classified within the CHC model. A large normative sample of 3,015 participants that ranged in age from 5 to 97 years completed the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, Second Edition (Bender-Gestalt II; Brannigan & Decker, 2003) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (SB5; Roid, 2003). Correlational analyses indicated positive moderate correlations across all age ranges between the Bender-Gestalt II Copy measure and the SB5 Nonverbal Visual-Spatial Processing subscale and between the Bender-Gestalt II Recall measure and the SB5 Nonverbal Visual-Spatial Processing and Nonverbal Working Memory subscales. Exploratory factor analyses revealed a three-factor model for four age groupings and four-factor model for one age grouping, suggesting factors which represent crystallized ability, fluid reasoning, and visual-motor ability. The results of this study suggest that the Bender-Gestalt II measures abilities that are not included in the SB5. Therefore, the Bender-Gestalt II would complement an intelligence test such as the SB5 in order to form a CHC Visual Processing (Gv) broad ability factor. These findings also address the need for further research to validate the constructs measured by newer versions of widely-used tests of cognitive ability.

This work describes three case studies conducted to address two major problems in the area of chemistry education research, the lack of reported psychometrics regarding instrument scores, and the need for well-characterized assessments to evaluate college chemistry curricula. The first case study describes a psychometric evaluation of the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), an instrument designed to assess student beliefs about the learning of chemistry. Results from this work suggest that the CLASS instrument provides fertile ground for short instruments with reasonable psychometric properties. Responses to a single scale instrument, created from CLASS, showed that students in an introductory general chemistry course tend to be slightly more expert-like than novice-like in their beliefs about chemistry towards the end of the semester. The second case study discusses the use of a two-tier diagnostic instrument in assessing student understanding of the particulate nature of matter and chemical bonding. In addition to examining psychometric properties of the instrument's scores, this study uses student responses to think about the role of a preparatory chemistry course in promoting understanding of the measured concepts. Results of this study showed that the performance of students with the preparatory chemistry course was slightly better than those without it. The third case study focuses on the development of the Targeted Misconception Inventory (TMI), a two-tier instrument designed to measure student understanding of Bond Energy, Ionic, Bonding, and Phase Changes. The TMI was used to create an instructional intervention. Results from the intervention suggested a learning gain for Bond Energy concept. The three instruments discussed above were multiple-choice given as paper and pencil tests in an introductory chemistry course. The work described in this dissertation showcase a method for examining psychometric evidence. The three case studies provide a significant addition to the psychometric information available on existing instruments. This work makes an emphasis on the importance of pilot testing instruments and gathering psychometric information to provide evidence that the instrument is functioning as intended when used with different samples. This work provides a model for researchers to follow when refining an instrument, and implications for the use of assessment tools in chemistry curricula evaluation.

Two models for learning disabilities (LD) identification are explicitly allowed in federal regulations: (a) ability-achievement discrepancy and (b) response to intervention. Dissatisfaction with both models has led to calls for a third model, which identifies a pattern of cognitive processing strengths and weaknesses (PSW model) as a marker of LD. However, little empirical research has investigated this proposed model. This study investigated two proposed approaches for implementing a PSW model: (a) the concordance/discordance model (C/DM) and (b) the cross battery assessment (XBA) approach. All 139 participants demonstrated inadequate response to a Tier 2 intervention in sixth or seventh grade. Following Tier 2 intervention, participants completed a comprehensive battery of cognitive and academic tests. I utilized results to empirically categorize each participant as either meeting or not meeting LD criteria according to the two PSW approaches at different academic deficit cut points. Resulting group status was utilized to determine: (a) LD identification rates, (b) agreement between approaches, and (c) the relative academic performance and sociodemographic characteristics of resulting groups. The number of participants that met LD criteria varied widely, dependent upon the approach and deficit cut point (range: 10.8% - 47.5%). More participants met criteria for both approaches at higher deficit cut points. More participants met C/DM criteria than XBA criteria at similar cut points. Agreement between the two approaches was generally low. Kappa ranged from -.04 - .56 when comparing classification decisions across different iterations of the two approaches. Comparisons of groups that met and did not meet C/DM and XBA criteria on external academic and sociodemographic variables were largely null. The results highlight several potential challenges to widespread implementation of a PSW model. Both approaches identified a low percentage of students, raising questions of efficiency. Low agreement is an inevitable result of measurement error and implementation differences between the two approaches. Such variability in classification decisions suggests the models may be incompatible and should be independently validated. Further, the failure to find qualitative differences in academic needs between groups that met and did not meet LD criteria for either approach raises questions about the utility of the identification model. / text

Thesis (Specialist in School Psychology)--Eastern Illinois University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-52).

Le polyhandicap est la conséquence d'une atteinte massive et précoce du Système Nerveux Central. Les personnes polyhandicapées présentent donc des difficultés motrices sévères ainsi qu'une déficience intellectuelle profonde, leur QI étant statistiquement estimé comme étant inférieur à 20. De ce fait, ces personnes ont besoin d'une assistance dans la réalisation des actes de la vie quotidienne, présentent des capacités d'apprentissage très limitées et n'ont pas accès à une communication symbolique. Aujourd'hui, nous ne savons que très peu de choses sur la vie cognitive des personnes polyhandicapées, et sur la manière unique et originale dont chacune d'entre elles construit ses connaissances sur le monde et développe ses propres compétences. Si l'étude et la compréhension du développement de l'enfant et du jeune polyhandicapé peut s'adosser sur les modèles et outils d'évaluation issus de la psychologie du développement, l'appréhension de sujets adultes reste, en revanche, très peu balisée. Ceci serait principalement lié au fait que chaque personne polyhandicapée présente des restrictions motrices importantes, une absence de langage oral et un répertoire de réponses comportementales dont l'interprétation va rester soumise à une importante variabilité inter-observateurs. L'objectif de ce projet de recherche est de mettre au point une méthode d'étude des compétences cognitives des personnes polyhandicapées de tout âge qui puisse tenir compte à la fois des spécificités liées à leurs handicaps multiples, tout en favorisant un cadre d'interprétation objectif des réponses comportementales de chaque personne. Pour cela, nous nous sommes donc inspirés des études menées chez des nourrissons âgés de quelques mois, basées sur le principe de l'habituation visuelle. Le paradigme d'habituation visuelle postule qu'un sujet exposé de manière répétée à un même stimulus visuel présentera un déclin progressif de la durée de fixation, correspondant à la construction et à la consolidation d'une représentation en mémoire de l'objet. La présentation d'un nouveau stimulus va donc entraîner une augmentation des temps de fixation, signe que le sujet s'est montré capable de comparer le nouvel objet à la représentation interne du précédent. Ainsi, il est possible d'étudier les capacités de discrimination et de mémorisation de sujets humains et non-humains, indépendamment de toute aptitude motrice ou verbale, seul le comportement visuel étant pris en compte. La première étape de notre travail de recherche a d'abord consisté à créer des conditions favorables à l'implémentation d'épreuves basées sur le paradigme d'habituation visuelle auprès d'un public de personnes polyhandicapées adultes. Une étude de faisabilité a donc d'abord été conduite à travers laquelle nous avons pu traiter d'aspects aussi bien matériels que méthodologiques. Nous avons ainsi pu mettre au point des conditions de passation et un matériel adapté. Ensuite, nous avons pu valider l'utilisation de cette approche auprès d'un échantillon plus large d'individus, en mettant en évidence un phénomène d'habituation et de déshabituation sur une épreuve de perception simple. Enfin, nous nous sommes penchés plus spécifiquement sur la manière dont ce paradigme pouvait s'appliquer à l'étude de certains domaines de compétences cognitives, et plus spécifiquement la perception du nombre et des quantités. Pour cela, trois tâches inspirées de la littérature en psychologie du développement ont été mises au point. Nous avons trouvé que les participants sont capables de différencier deux quantités d'objets lorsqu'aucune variable confondue n'est contrôlée, et que la position des objets reste déterminante dans leur capacité d'encodage des stimuli. Ces données nous ont conduits à réfléchir de manière plus globale sur la manière dont ces personnes peuvent construire leurs connaissances en l'absence d'action directe sur les objets de leur environnement. / L'auteur n'a pas fourni de résumé en anglais.

O transtorno cognitivo no idoso acarreta repercussões na sua vida, na família e na relação com a sociedade. Um instrumento de avaliação cognitiva amplamente utilizado é o MEEM - Mini Exame do Estado Mental - que é um teste de rastreamento com o objetivo de selecionar pessoas com provável déficit cognitivo. Uma amostra representativa da população de 394 idosos do município de Batatais SP foi avaliada através de inquérito domiciliar em relação às condições socioeconômicas e de saúde, e foi feito rastreamento dos sintomas depressivos e do desempenho cognitivo através de um instrumento baseado no MEEM. A maioria dos entrevistados era do sexo feminino (66%), sendo que 75,4% dos idosos pertenciam a uma faixa etária de 60-74 anos, chamada idoso jovem. Com relação à escolaridade a grande maioria (62.2%) cursou o primeiro grau. Com relação aos analfabetos 77,1% eram mulheres e 22,9% eram homens. Para o estado conjugal a diferença foi na proporção da viuvez 80.2% para o sexo feminino e 19.8% para o masculino. Quanto à renda familiar, 43.7% da população recebiam menos de 2,5 salários mínimos. Para avaliação do desempenho cognitivo usou um ponto de corte ? a 23 para o MEEM. Observou-se que 81.7% ficaram acima deste ponto e 18.3% ficaram abaixo. Os idosos que tiveram os escores mais elevados foram associados aos fatores como idade (60-69 anos), maior nível escolaridade, ter hábito de leitura, ter boa relação social principalmente com parentes, não ter hipertensão arterial, diabete, incontinência urinária, catarata e ausência de sintomas depressivos. / The cognitive impairment in the old has its effects on their lives, families and relationships with society. A widely used instrument of cognitive assessment is the MMSE- Mini Mental State - that is a screening test whose aim is to select people with probable cognitive deficiency. A significant sample of the population of 394 old people from Batatais - SP, was evaluated through a home survey considering the socioeconomic and health conditions and a screening of depressive symptoms and cognitive performance was done through an instrument based on MMSE. The great majority of people who were interviewed were female (66%) and 75.4% of the old belonged to an age group from 60 to 74 years old, being considered \"younger old\". Regarding scholarship, most of them had attended primary school (62.2%). Considering the illiterate 77.1% were women and 22.9% were men. Concerning marital status a huge difference between the proportion of widows (80.2%) and widowers (19.8%) was found. With reference to familiar income 43.7% of the population earned less than 2.5 minimum wages. To evaluate the cognitive performance a cut off ? 23 for MMSE was used. It was observed that 81.7% of the old were above and 18.3% were under this point. The old who achieved the highest scores had factors such as age (60-69 years old), better scholarship level, reading habits, a good social relationship (mainly with relatives), no high blood pressure, no diabetes, no urinary incontinence, no cataract and absence of depressive symptoms.

This study explores cognitive impairment and its correlation to early- life adverse experiences in non-patient population between the ages of 50 to 65. This developmental approach and observational study design explores cognition in pre-clinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Using a standardized neuropsychological instrument, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and clinically administered questionnaire, the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences), I hypothesized that participants with high ACE scores will inversely have low MoCA scores. My goal was to use a multiple linear regression model with 3 covariates and 1 predictor of interest (ACEs). At 80% power, a sample size of 40 was calculated as needed. This would mean that the results would have 80 % chance of declaring statistical significance. This corresponds to an R-squared value (percentage of variation in MoCA score explained by the predictor) of 17.2%. The desired sample size was not attained successfully due to several barriers in receiving sample data from the collaborating site and the 2017 Hurricane Irma causing a drop in participation rate. Overall 13 participants had successfully participated. The analysis of the results is demonstrated in a line graph indicating a relationship between ACE and MoCA scores. The accuracy of the descriptive statistics could be argued against due to the low sample size. The analysis of the ethnographic interviews brings out some trends in the participant responses. The focus here has been to discuss these responses as to how they advocate for the entanglement theory of aging. In other words, how the exposure to social and environmental factors at various stages of an individual’s lifecourse can interact with one’s physiology, resulting in exposure- specific health conditions at later life stages. Among the period of exposure, my focus through this study is specifically on the early exposures in the lifecourse. This is facilitated by the use of the ACE questionnaire regarding exposures to adverse experiences such as sexual/ physical abuse, familial mental health issues, alcohol/ drug abuse in the family and loss or separation from parents. The entanglement theory further allows for race or culture specific exposures to adversity that raises the question of varying health consequences among cultural or racial groups and the need for a more critical approach in providing access to healthcare and healthcare policy development. Trends in ethnographic results obtained have allowed for the critical discourse in the transgenerational effects of social adversity, effects of resilience- building from adversity and the need for care- giver mental health services. The study brought out critiques on how the ACE module could be made more inclusive of experiences specific to diverse cultures and regions, as well as the need to address the severity of individual experiences. We conclude by discussing how effects of social or environmental experiences can be used toward AD and aging research and what supporting literature and initiatives currently exist. The discussion is also inspired by the existing political discourse around the medicalization of AD and how that influences the reductionist methods in AD research. This new direction of applied and holistic approach derives its perspective from neuroanthropology and applied medical anthropology. The overall aim of this study is to ask questions challenging existing research methods with the ultimate hope to newly influence the allocation of AD research and risk reduction toward interdisciplinary focus and funding, involving early-life lived experiences and life course perspectives.

Reading disability, as the most commonly diagnosed learning disability, continues to pose a tenacious problem to teachers, practitioners and researchers. In an effort to understand the causes of reading disability, voluminous research has been undertaken over the past decades to pinpoint its causes or developmental stumbling blocks. One approach, the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive processing (PASS) model, combines neuropsychological theory with elements from cognitive psychology. Based on this model, the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS), as well as methods of intervention for reading disability were developed. Although many studies have been conducted that investigated reading disability in terms of PASS cognitive processes, the final version of the CAS and its predictive utility with respect to reading disability has not been explored to date. The present study aimed to investigate the utility of the CAS, administered at the beginning of grade 1, to predict reading proficiency at the end of grade 1. The sample was comprised of 119 “average” (i.e., belonging to the general population) grade 1 students from schools of the Calgary Board of Education (CBE). The Basic Battery of the CAS was administered to the children in the sample at the beginning of grade 1, as well as four reading subtests of the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement – Third Edition (WJ-III ACH) at the end of grade 1. The WJ-III ACH yielded a cluster score for basic reading and one for reading comprehension. Correlational and regression analyses were used to address the first aim of this study, namely to explore the relationship between students’ scores on the CAS and their later reading proficiency. To this end, the children’s CAS Full Scale scores and WJ-III ACH cluster scores were subjected to a hierarchical regression analysis, whereby age, gender, and - xviii - SES were kept constant by entering them first in the equation. Next, the relationship between students’ PASS scale scores and the CAS subtest scores respectively and scores on the WJ-III ACH Basic Reading and Reading Comprehension Cluster scores was explored by means of stepwise regression analysis. To improve on the generalizability of results, the regression analyses were conducted on a randomly drawn analysis sample consisting of 80% of the sample, and cross-validated on the remaining 20% of the sample. The second aim of the present study was to ascertain whether clusters could be identified on the basis of CAS performance as well as levels of reading proficiency. To this end, the children’s CAS FS scores, PASS scale scores, and CAS subtest scores were subjected to cluster analyses. The investigation of aim 1 yielded some encouraging results, in that it was found that, together with the covariates: • The CAS FS emerged as a moderately strong predictor of both basic reading and reading comprehension; • Successive processing, in particular the Word Series subtest, significantly predicted basic reading skills; • Successive and simultaneous processing, particularly the Nonverbal Matrices and Sentence Repetition subtests, were significant predictors of reading comprehension; The second aim, which explored the relationship between patterns of CAS cognitive processes and their relationship with reading proficiency, yielded: • Two clusters with distinctly different PASS scale scores and with significant differences between their levels of reading proficiency. Higher PASS scales scores, particularly on the Attention and Planning scales, were associated with higher reading proficiency scores. • Four clusters with distinctly different CAS subtest scores that were also associated with distinctly different levels of reading performance. Good - xix - reading proficiency was associated with good CAS performance, whereas weaker reading proficiency was linked to weaker CAS performance. Biographical variables, such as age and SES were found to be related to performance on the CAS and reading proficiency, while gender did not emerge as an important predictor variable. The present study demonstrated the usefulness of the CAS, particularly its Successive and Simultaneous scales, as potential early predictor of reading disability. An exploration of the relationship between patterns of CAS cognitive processes and later reading proficiency also yielded encouraging and interesting results.