Cognition, academic achievement, and adaptive behavior in school-aged girls with fragile X syndrome.
Tracy L Jordan, Kristi L Bartholomay, Cindy Hsin-Yu Lee and 2 others
PMID 37939495WHAT IT FOUND
Parent-reported adaptive behavior did not differ between school-aged girls with fragile X syndrome and verbal IQ-matched peers.
They had weaker attention, working memory, nonverbal reasoning, spatial skills, and math.
Key findings
01Parent-reported adaptive behavior did not differ between the FXS group and the comparison group.
02Girls with FXS had lower scores on attention and inhibition and on working memory than comparison girls.
03Girls with FXS had lower scores on math but not reading, and lower scores on pattern construction, matrices, verbal similarities, and sequential and quantitative reasoning.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot show how skills change over time or whether cognition causes academic or adaptive problems. The comparison group was mainly local, and the two groups differed in household income and racial or ethnic background, which may affect access to supports and test performance. Adaptive behavior was parent-reported, not directly measured, and parents may have compared daughters with FXS to more affected brothers or relied on home supports when rating skills. FMRP levels were not measured, so the study cannot relate findings to protein level within the FXS group. The exploratory correlations are hypothesis-generating; they do not prove that improving a cognitive skill will improve school or daily-life outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that visual schedules, attention strategies, or social communication instruction improve outcomes. The study did not test an intervention, and parent-reported adaptive behavior did not differ from verbal IQ-matched peers.