Caracterização do perfil cognitivo e avaliação da memória de trabalho na síndrome de Down

• Ano de defesa: 2009
• Autor(a) principal: Duarte, Cintia Perez
• Orientador(a): Macedo, Elizeu Coutinho de
• Banca de defesa: Schwartzman, José Salomão , Bueno, Orlando Francisco Amodeo
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Distúrbios do Desenvolvimento
• Departamento: Psicologia
• País: BR
• Palavras-chave em Português: síndrome de Down; avaliação; perfil cognitivo; memória de trabalho
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Down syndrome; evaluation, cognitive profile, working memory
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA::PSICOLOGIA COGNITIVA
• Link de acesso: http://dspace.mackenzie.br/handle/10899/22647

Working memory is assumed to be a limited capacity responsible for maintaining and manipulating information for a short period of time, that are underpins the capacity for complex thought and learning. People with Down Syndrome have a deficit in their working memory and in general, they can t maintain information for a short period of time and this can result in learning difficulties, language development and complexes thoughts. The aim of Study 1 was to characterize cognitive profile of people with Down Syndrome, they were aged between 6 and 45 years old (M=16,64, SD=9,955), using WISC-III, WAIS-III, TVIP, Token-Comp and FAS-Animals and Fruits tests. The results appointed a cognitive performance under the average, however with significantly differences between verbal IQ and execution IQ which showed a better performance. There was a trend observed in their development and enlargement of their receptive vocabulary related to their ages, nevertheless the same doesn t happen with verbal fluency. The words follow by semantic processing were more recovered than those through the phonological processing. Most of them can organize concepts and semantics categories, however they don t have control of phonologic and structural aspects of the words. They also have difficulties to maintain and manipulate verbal information. The Study 2 compare performance of people with Down Syndrome, they were aged between 6 and 16 years old (M=10,36, SD=3,451) and the control group defined according to WISC-III test scores, using tests that evaluated receptive vocabulary, verbal and visual-spatial short term memory. This comparison was made through the TVIP, Digit Span direct and reverse order, Corsi direct and reverse order and some working memory tests created for this study. The results appointed no significant difference between the majority of the tests averages, excluding Digit Span direct order, considering that the group without syndrome had a higher performance compared to Syndrome group. Considering the direct and reverse orders in Digi Span and Corsi, intra-groups performances was compared which demonstrated significantly differences of the both groups. In general, results of both studies confirm the literature, that describe the heterogeneity of the Down Syndrome cognitive profile and appoint to evidences of strong non verbal abilities, often less impaired than linguistics abilities.