Prolonged Social Withdrawal During Adolescence: Transdiagnostic Syndrome or a New Psychiatric Entity?

The Japanese term Hikikomori is used to describe a clinical condition in which young people present a prolonged social withdrawal and isolation. Hikikomori syndrome represents an emergent worldwide phenomenon but is still poorly reported and often misdiagnosed. This study investigates and describes an Italian hikikomori adolescent group.

The Cognitive Profile of Gifted Children Compared to Those of Their Parents: A Descriptive Study Using the Wechsler Scales.

The manifestation of performance at the top of a given talent distribution constitutes giftedness. While identifying talented youths based on IQ has been the focus of previous research, examining their cognitive profile is a new endeavor. The present study assessed the IQ and cognitive abilities of a sample of gifted Italian children and compared them to their parents using the Wechsler scales.

The Floor Effect on the ABAS-II in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The present study aimed at enhancing the assessment of adaptive behavior in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder trough the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System-Second Edition. To overcome the limits underpinning floor effect, which are commonly observed with the traditional methods, the statistical Hessl method and its revision by Orsini, Pezzuti and Hulbert was adopted. The results showed a more variation using the former method compared to the latter: a greater impairment in Social versus Leisure skills emerged.

The Validity of the Holtzman Inkblot Technique: New Indices.

The present study examines the validity of 11 new Holtzman Inkblot Technique indices. These were chosen from Exner's Comprehensive System (RCS) indices using two criteria: first, they had to be valid according to meta-analysis, and second, they must be computed using the HIT standard scoring system. Both techniques were administrated with a retest interval from 1 to 7days to a sample of 139 subjects (63 males and 76 females) from the general population.

Intellectual functioning and executive functions in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and specific learning disorder (SLD).

Several studies have shown neuropsychological deficits across multiple domains in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and specific learning disorder (SLD), but differences and similarities between these disorders have been little considered. We were interested in analyzing the intellectual and executive profiles in a sample of children and adolescents, divided according to the diagnosis into the ADHD group and the SLD group, and in identifying the differences and similarities between these disorders. The sample included two clinical groups: the first included 36 children and adolescents with a diagnosis of ADHD (5-15 years; mean = 9.

Intelligence and working memory: evidence from administering the WAIS-IV to Italian adults and elderly.

The present study took advantage of data collected on more than 2100 Italian adult and elderly individuals during the standardization of the WAIS-IV to examine the relationship between working memory (WM) components and intelligence, and how age affects this relationship. Administering the WAIS-IV enabled us to obtain five different measures for assessing different aspects of WM, and a measure of General Ability (GA) strongly loading on the g-factor. The main results were as follows: (1) age-related impairments in WM are substantial, and they are partly similar and partly different for the various WM measures; (2) the relationship between the WM measures and the General Ability Index (GAI) varies, becoming stronger when the active control required by the WM task is higher; (3) comparing the WM-GAI relationships between different age groups reveals some similar patterns, as well as some specific effects that depend on the WM task considered.

Psychological implications of abortion: a longitudinal study on two cohorts of women who recur to elective and therapeutic abortion.

Objective: The aim of this work was to identify risk predictors of a negative psychological outcome among personal, situational and systemic characteristics of women who choose to interrupt a pregnancy by elective (e.g., not feeling ready for giving birth) or therapeutic means (e.

Face memory and face recognition in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: A systematic review.

This review focuses on facial recognition abilities in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A systematic review, using PRISMA guidelines, was conducted to identify original articles published prior to May 2017 pertaining to memory, face recognition, affect recognition, facial expression recognition and recall of faces in children and adolescents with ADHD. The qualitative synthesis based on different studies shows a particular focus of the research on facial affect recognition without paying similar attention to the structural encoding of facial recognition.

Intellectual efficiency in children and adolescents with spina bifida myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus.

We studied the intellectual profiles of 13 Italian children diagnosed with spina bifida myelomeningocele and shunted hydrocephalus (MMC HC) against a control group of children. The results showed that MMC HC group had lower performance in all subtests, four indices, and the FSIQ of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, forth-edition. The MMC HC group showed flat cognitive profiles between subtests within each index and between four core indices.

When divided attention fails to enhance memory encoding: The attentional boost effect is eliminated in young-old adults.

In the Attentional Boost Effect (ABE), images or words presented with to-be-responded target squares are later recognized more accurately than images or words presented with to-be-ignored distractor squares. Surprisingly, previous studies investigating the ABE have always examined young participants: thus, the question of whether this memory facilitation can be also observed in older adults has never been tested. The present study sought to fill this gap by examining whether healthy aging modulated the size of the ABE in 4 experiments in which the nature of the background stimuli (images vs.

Normative Data for the Hayling and Brixton Tests in an Italian Population.

Objective: The Hayling and Brixton tests constitute a short test battery that quickly assesses verbal and spatial inhibition and flexibility. This battery has shown high construct validity and strong reliability in clinical and experimental settings. The aim of this study was to develop an Italian version of the Hayling and Brixton tests and obtain normative values.

Cognitive Profile of Intellectually Gifted Adults: Analyzing the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) has been used extensively to study intellectual abilities of special groups. Here, we report the results of an intellectually gifted group on the WAIS-IV. Gifted individuals are people who obtained scores equal to or greater than 2 standard deviations above the mean on an intelligence test.

The Impact Of Dispositional Variables Of Elders, Relatives, And Paid Caregivers On Elders' Empowerment And Life Satisfaction.

Unlabelled: Background/Study Context: The impact of dispositional characteristic of elders' closest network members on elders' life satisfaction and empowerment has remained largely unexplored. This innovative study aimed to assess the impact of dispositional variables of elders, relatives, and paid caregivers on life satisfaction and empowerment of elders.

Methods: One hundred forty-three triads (one elder, one paid caregiver, and one relative) completed six scales measuring modifiable personality characteristics (loneliness, optimism, regulation of positive and negative emotions), life satisfaction, and sense of empowerment.

Dispositional characteristics, relational well-being and perceived life satisfaction and empowerment of elders.

Objectives: The broad purpose of this research is to identify the key modifiable variables most related to elders' life satisfaction and empowerment in order to improve the efficacy of interventions projects. Our study aims to integrate the theoretical perspectives of personality and community psychology focusing both on dispositional characteristics and relational well-being of elders, investigating triads, composed by an elder, a paid caregiver and the most involved relative. This study explores the impact of (1) some socio-demographic characteristics of elders, (2) some modifiable dispositional variables of elders and (3) elders' relational well-being on elders' empowerment and life satisfaction.

Sexting, psychological distress and dating violence among adolescents and young adults.

Background: Sexting is the exchange of sexually explicit or provocative content (text messages, photos, and videos) via smartphone, Internet, or social networks. Recent evidence enlightened its relationships with several risk and aggressive behaviors. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the amount of sexting, psychological distress, and dating violence in adolescents and young adults.

Forward and backward digit span difficulties in children with specific learning disorder.

This study examined performance in the forward and backward digit span task of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) in a large group of children with specific learning disorder (SLD) as compared with a group of typically developing children matched for age and sex. Our results further support the hypothesis that the intellectual difficulties of children with SLD involve working memory in the forward digit span task to a greater extent than in the backward digit span task. The correlation of the two spans with a General Ability Index (GAI) was similar in SLD, and smaller in magnitude than in typically developing children.

Differences in the intellectual profile of children with intellectual vs. learning disability.

The WISC-IV was used to compare the intellectual profile of two groups of children, one with specific learning disorders (SLDs), the other with intellectual disabilities (ID), with a view to identifying which of the four main factor indexes and two additional indexes can distinguish between the groups. We collected information on WISC-IV scores for 267 children (Mage=10.61 [SD=2.

Validity of a figure rating scale assessing body size perception in school-age children.

This study aimed to provide data concerning the validity of a short sequence of face valid pictorial stimuli assessing the perception of body size in school-age children. A sequence of gender and age-appropriate silhouettes was administered to 314 boys and girls aged 6-14 years. The self-evaluations provided by the children correlated significantly with their actual BMI corrected for age.

The Value of Removing Daily Obstacles via Everyday Problem-Solving Theory: Developing an Applied Novel Procedure to Increase Self-Efficacy for Exercise.

The objective of the study was to develop a novel procedure to increase self-efficacy for exercise. Gains in one's ability to resolve day-to-day obstacles for entering an exercise routine were expected to cause an increase in self-efficacy for exercise. Fifty-five sedentary participants (did not exercise regularly for at least 4 months prior to the study) who expressed an intention to exercise in the near future were selected for the study.

Construction and validation of an ecological version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test applied to an elderly population.

The goal of this project was to construct and validate an ecological version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) aimed at the elderly. This was accomplished by replacing the geometric stimuli of the traditional version with stimuli belonging to the semantic category of transport vehicles, and by elimination of the color yellow. The results showed the ecological WCST version was preferred over the traditional version and older people felt less tired during test performance.

Perceived self-efficacy and everyday problem solving among young and older adults.

This research tested the hypothesis that age differences in both self-efficacy perceptions and problem-solving performance would vary as a function of the ecological relevance of problems to young and older adults. The authors developed novel everyday problem-solving stimuli that were ecologically representative of problems commonly confronted by young adults (young-adult problems), older adults (older adult problems), or both (common problems). Performance on an abstract problem solving task lacking in ecological representativeness (the Tower of Hanoi problem) also was examined.