Browsing by Author "Klinger, Laura Grofer"

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    Contextual Cueing Effects Across the Lifespan
    (Routledge, 2013) Merrill, Edward C.; Conners, Frances A.; Roskos, Beverly; Klinger, Mark R.; Klinger, Laura Grofer; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
    The authors evaluated age-related variations in contextual cueing, which reflects the extent to which visuospatial regularities can facilitate search for a target. Previous research produced inconsistent results regarding contextual cueing effects in young children and in older adults, and no study has investigated the phenomenon across the life span. Three groups (6, 20, and 70years old) were compared. Participants located a designated target stimulus embedded in a context of distractor stimuli. During exposure, the location of the target could be predicted from the location of the distracters in each display. During test, these predictable displays were intermixed with new displays that did not predict the target location. Response times to locating predictable relative to unpredictable targets were compared. All groups exhibited facilitation effects greater than 0 (95% CIs [.02, .11], d = .4; [.01, .12], d = .4; and [.01, .10], d = .4, for the children, young adults, and older adults, respectively) indicating that contextual cueing is robust across a wide age range. The relative magnitude of contextual cueing effects was essentially identical across the age range tested, F(2, 103) = 1.71, (2) = .02. The authors argue that a mechanism that uses environmental covariation is available to all age ranges, but the expression of the contextual cueing may depend on the way it is measured.
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    Patterns of autism spectrum symptomatology in individuals with Down syndrome without comorbid autism spectrum disorder
    (BMC, 2015) Channell, Marie Moore; Phillips, B. Allyson; Loveall, Susan J.; Conners, Frances A.; Bussanich, Paige M.; Klinger, Laura Grofer; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of California Davis; University of Kansas; University of Wisconsin Madison; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
    Background: Prevalence estimates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Down syndrome (DS) are highly varied. This variation is partly due to the difficulty of screening for and diagnosing comorbid ASD in individuals with a syndrome that carries its own set of social communicative and behavioral difficulties that are not well documented. The aim of this study was to identify the typical range of social communicative impairments observed in children, adolescents, and young adults with DS who do not have comorbid ASD. Methods: We examined patterns of scores from the five subscales of the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) in 46 individuals with DS (ages 10-21 years) without comorbid ASD relative to the published normative sample. We also explored the correlations between SRS symptomatology and age, nonverbal cognition, and receptive language. Results: SRS scores were elevated (i.e., more ASD symptoms endorsed), with mean scores falling into the clinically significant range. Analysis by subscale revealed a specific pattern, with Autistic Mannerisms and Social Cognition scores significantly more elevated than Social Communication scores, which were significantly more elevated than Social Awareness and Social Motivation scores. Correlations between SRS scores and the other measures varied by subscale. Conclusions: General elevated ASD symptomatology on the SRS indicates the need for developing population-based norms specific to DS. The pattern of scores across subscales should inform clinicians of the typical range of behaviors observed in DS so that individuals with atypical patterns of behavior can be more easily identified and considered for a full ASD evaluation.