The Arizona Cognitive Test Battery for Down Syndrome: Test-Retest Reliability and Practice Effects.
Jamie O Edgin, Payal Anand, Tracie Rosser and 13 others
PMID 28452581WHAT IT FOUND
Several cognitive tests used with people who have Down syndrome gave stable scores over three months.
Some memory and planning tests were less consistent. This is about test stability, not treatment effects.
Key findings
01Five of six cerebellar-category variables showed very good stability over about three months, and the sixth showed good stability.
02The virtual arena memory task and the executive control tasks did not have adequate stability.
03At the stricter threshold used for significance, only the CANTAB PAL first trials memory score changed between sessions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 54 of the larger 250-person project were retested, so this is a modest sample. The age range was wide, from 7 to 20 years, and the authors say preschool and adult outcome measures still need more validation. Two participants completed only partial assessments, and 13% of caregiver reports were missing. The same forms were used at both sessions, so practice effects could not be reduced by alternate forms. Several tasks had floor effects, especially the dots inhibitory phase and CANTAB Spatial Span. The battery was designed for clinical trials in older children and young adults, not for therapy progress.
Declared interests
The supplied article text does not include a conflicts-of-interest statement. The publication types list NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read stable scores as proof that a treatment works. This study only checked whether tests gave similar results when repeated. It also does not support using the unstable memory and executive tasks to judge change in a patient.