Validation of Test Methods for Assessing Neurodevelopment in Children1
Preliminary Results
The project was conducted in two phases, starting in 1998. First, a pilot study2 was conducted to develop the test battery and field-test it both in Rochester and in Seychelles. The current study then followed. A detailed report of the pilot study has been published (Davidson, et al., 2000), but for the sake of continuity, we will summarize the outcomes here. The test battery evaluated in the Seychelles, and shown in Table 1, includes measures of cognitive, motor and sensory functions adversely affected in animals and humans exposed to high levels of neurotoxicants.
All tests in Table 1 were developed and field-tested on 15 normal children in Rochester. They were then successfully transferred to the Seychelles and field-tested there to ascertain their portability and appeal to children from a non-US, non-English-speaking culture. Rochester team members administered the tests in the Ministry of Health’s Child Development Center at Victoria Hospital on Mahé Island. Each child was tested individually. A Creole-speaking Seychellois team member was present in each testing room at all times. In October 1998, 61 normal children from the Seychelles Child Development Study (SCDS) pilot cohort were administered one half of the test battery. The subjects’ age range was 10.5 to 11 with a mean age of 10.6 years. The remaining tasks were field tested in March 1999 in the Seychelles on 58 of the 61 children tested in October.
| Table 1 Pilot Study Test Battery |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain | Neuropsychological and Behavioral |
Physiological | Experimental |
| Cognitive (C) | Tower of London Wisconsin Card Sorting K-BIT Matrices (Care-giver) |
P-300 during CPT | Visual-Motor Learning Delayed Matching Repeated Acquisition |
| Auditory and Visual Information Processing (AV) | |||
| Visual |
Visual system response |
Pattern Reversal Evoked Potentials |
Scotopic Form Discrimination; Spatial Contrast Sensitivity |
|
|
Pure Tone Audiogram Screening Test for Auditory Perceptual Disorders Test of Auditory Perceptual Skills Pitch Pattern Sequence Test Competing Environmental Sounds Test Dichotic Digit Test |
Auditory Brainstem Response Potentials Otoacoustic Emissions |
|
| Fine Motor (FM) | Fine motor control | Coordination, Tremor and Positioning RT, MT |
|
| Somatosensory (SS) | Complex Form Matching | Spatial Contrast Skin Sensitivity | |
| Perceptual-Motor (PM) | Alertness | Monitoring and Coordination multi-tasking | |
The preliminary data demonstrated that it was feasible to implement in
the field, even in an environment such as the Seychelles, a highly complex
battery of tabletop and computer-based physiological and behavioral measures.
Very few problems were encountered in transporting and maintaining the sensitive
equipment, or in assuring its proper operation in Seychelles. Those minor
problems that did occur with the instrumentation were easily solved on site. The
field test results also contributed to decisions about inclusion of tasks and
tests in the final battery used in the present study.
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