Developmental norms for the Gardner Steadiness Test and the Purdue Pegboard: a study with children of a metropolitan school in Brazil

Norms for the Gardner Steadiness Test and the Purdue Pegboard were developed for the neuropsychological assessment of children in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. A computer-generated unbiased sample of 346 children with a mean age of 9.4 years (SD = 2.76), who were attending a large normal public school in this urban area, was the subject of this study. Two boys were removed from the study, one for refusing to participate and the other due to severe strabismus. Therefore, the final sample contained 344 children (173 boys and 171 girls). Sex and age of the child and hand preferred for writing, but not ethnic membership or social class, had significant effects on performance in the Gardner Steadiness Test and the Purdue Pegboard. Girls outperformed boys. Older children performed better than younger children. However, the predictive relationship between age of the child and neuropsychological performance included linear and curvilinear components. Comparison of the present results to data gathered in the United States revealed that the performance of this group of Brazilian children is equivalent to that of US children after Bonferroni's correction of the alpha level of significance. It is concluded that sex and age of the child and hand preferred for writing should be taken into account when using the normative data for the two instruments evaluated in the present study. Furthermore, the relevance of neurobehavioral antidotes for the obliteration of some of the probable neuropsychological effects of cultural deprivation in Brazilian public school children is hypothesized.

Behavioral and neuropsychological correlates of hyperactivity and inattention in Brazilian school children

Attempts at subtyping attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) along the hyperactivity dimension are considered controversial. This study addresses this issue by dividing a non-clinical sample of Brazilian children (mean age, 9.4 years; SD, 2.9), who were attending a mainstream school in the Greater Rio de Janeiro area, into four behavioral domain groups (normal [NO, N=324], hyperactive/impulsive [HI, N=17], inattentive [IA, N=48], and combined [C, N=13]) on the basis of teacher ratings on an ADHD scale. The groups did not differ in intellectual level as determined by the Human Figure Drawing test. Comparisons were made between groups along the factorial dimensions extracted from the Composite Teacher Rating Scale, academic performance and neuropsychological measures were then performed. Our data showed that IA and C children are less independent and more prone to socialization problems than NO children, and that HI and C children are less anxious and fearful than IA children. Furthermore, the groups differed in academic and neuropsychological performance. The results could be considered consistent with the hypothesis that ADD with hyperactivity (ADD/+) and ADD without hyperactivity (ADD/-) represent singular nosological entities.