Abstract
The cognitive abilities of a group of dysphasic children in a special school in Finland were examined in this study to answer the following questions: Can we categorize their cognitive processing as planning, arousal-attention, simultaneous and successive processing (PASS)? The second question was concerned with detecting subgroups within the dysphasic sample in terms of PASS processes.
The subjects were 60 dysphasic children in a special school. Their ages ranged from 7 to 19 years. All subjects were administered tests of planning, arousal-attention as well as simultaneous and successive processing. They were also administered the Wechsler test of intelligence for children and adults according to their ages, two sub-scales of Wechsler memory scale, as well as three ad hoc tests, cancellation task, KS persons and Rey Osterrieth copy task. The results of the factor analysis generally confirmed the emergence of the four PASS factors.
As a results of cluster analysis, two subtypes of dysphasics emerged categorized as clearly high and low in the successive factor as well as relatively high and low on the simultaneous factor scores. The low-simultaneous/low-successive group was significantly lower in WISC verbal IQ the Wechsler memory scale for logical memory, and the ad hoc test of KS persons. The results were discussed, in terms of the importance of understanding the language problems typically associated with the two subtypes as well as the remedial program which will take into account their cognitive differences in spite of the fact that both groups had significant language impairment.
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This study was funded by Päijäthämeen Kuulovmmaisten Lasten Tuki r.y. that made data gathering and analysis possible.
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Das, J.P., Äystö, S.M. Cognitive performance of dysphasic students. Eur J Psychol Educ 9, 27–39 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172883
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172883