Performance of elderly with Alzheimer in exclusion test and identity teaching and testing

• Grant number: 14/25292-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2015
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Andréia Schmidt
• Grantee: Marina Ribeiro Camara
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Alzheimer's dementia (AD) is a degenerative disease with no cure that affects cognitive functions of the affected. The recommended treatments are pharmacological and neuropsychological techniques, but studies of behavior analysis have contributed to interventions on performance in conditional relations, performances closely linked to cognition. This work proposes a study with AD patients who do not demonstrate positive performance on tests of identity (conditional relations of equality). Our objectives are to (a) verify that AD patients who do not show accurate performance of reflexivity probes (identity), are able to respond by exclusion probes specifically designed for this purpose; and (b) verify that these elderly are able to learn the identity relations between visual stimuli from a teaching procedure of relations of identity, by exclusion. To this end, four elderly who have a negative identity test performance, or can not relate to two equal visual stimuli as such, will go through a identity relation teaching procedure between stimuli, the task of matching style. Initially, it will be tested if the elderly have exclusion performance, in tasks of auditory - visual conditional discriminations (presents a dictated word - sample - and three visual stimuli - pictures - as comparisons). The exclusion performance (Phase 1) will be verified if, before a word dictated unknown, the elderly choose a figure also unknown. If this performance is checked, an identity relations training (Phase 2) will be performed. A sample stimulus visual (figure) and three comparison stimuli (also figures) will be presented in a sheet, and one of the comparison stimuli is identical to the sample. It will be conducted in six blocks of 10 and 15 trials (the first three and the last three, respectively). The first five blocks will be teaching and the last will be a test. Finally, the identity test used to select the participants will be resubmitted. For the analysis of the data (a) pre- and post-test of identity will be held two-way ANOVA, (b) in Phase 1 Test-t will be done with a hit percentage of success of the participants on the baseline and exclusion and (c) Phase 2 will be computed block repetition necessary to achieve the teaching criterion.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

CAMARA, MARINA RIBEIRO; DUCATTI, MARIANA; SCHMIDT, ANDREIA. Identity matching to sample and exclusion performance in elderly with and without neurocognitive disorders. BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTIONS, v. 32, n. 4, p. 326-340, NOV 2017. (14/25292-7)