The development of a trial making test in young children: the TRAILS-P.
Preschool children have a more limited verbal repertoire, less proficient manual skills, and more variable attention spans relative to those of school age, with comparatively few neuropsychological tasks available for use in this age range. A prototypic neuropsychological test, the Trail Making Test, was adapted for use with young children, the TRAILS-P, using a developmentally salient storybook format with colorful stimuli in differing conditions with varying executive demands. The TRAILS-P was administered to 103 normally developing preschoolers between 2 and 6 years of age; 30 of these children were retested within one month to determine test reliability. Correlations among latencies to complete each condition and condition errors generally were moderate to high, suggesting coherence in test content. There also was evidence for good test-retest reliability. Latency to complete the TRAILS-P conditions differed as a function of the interaction of condition type and age group. Although the youngest children generally took more time to complete all TRAILS-P conditions, 3-year-old children were disproportionately slow to complete the condition that required shifting between stamping stimuli of two classes, with distraction by the additional presence of irrelevant stimuli. In contrast, the number of errors differed only in the 5-year-olds relative to younger children. These findings suggest that executive abilities can be assessed adequately in young children when tasks are designed to take advantage of the developmentally unique features of the preschool period.
Espy
Kimberly Andrews
KA
Department of Family & Community Medicine, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Carbondale, IL 62901-6503, USA. kespy@siumed.edu
Cwik
Mary F
MF
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014145:Trail Making Test
Arch Neurol. 1988 May;45(5):493-6
3258741
Psychol Assess. 2001 Jun;13(2):230-9
11433797
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1989 Feb;17(1):37-53
2926022
Clin Neuropsychol. 2001 Feb;15(1):46-58
11778578
Brain Cogn. 1992 Sep;20(1):104-24
1389116
Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 1993 Jun;74(6):587-95
8503748
J Clin Psychol. 1989 Jul;45(4):619-32
2768502
Percept Mot Skills. 1978 Apr;46(2):443-50
662543
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1988 Oct;16(5):553-69
3235747
Brain Inj. 1991 Oct-Dec;5(4):339-51
1786497
J Clin Neuropsychol. 1984 Feb;6(1):39-56
6699184
Biol Psychiatry. 1981 Nov;16(11):1085-100
7349622
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Feb 3;95(3):853-60
9448251
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1988 Oct;51(10):1259-63
2976080
Percept Mot Skills. 1997 Jun;84(3 Pt 2):1355-62
9229460
Dev Neuropsychol. 2004;26(1):403-22
15276902
Hum Brain Mapp. 2001 May;13(1):26-33
11284044
Neuropsychologia. 1997 Oct;35(10):1373-80
9347483
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1994 Oct;51(10):804-11
7944870
Percept Mot Skills. 1971 Oct;33(2):575-81
5124116
Dev Neuropsychol. 2001;20(3):573-91
12002094
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 1992 Jul;14(4):545-65
1400918
Percept Mot Skills. 1977 Apr;44(2):535-9
866059
Psychol Assess. 2006 Dec;18(4):373-381
17154758
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 1990 Aug;12(4):507-19
2211973
Brain Cogn. 1999 Nov;41(2):178-99
10590818
Child Neuropsychol. 2000 Jun;6(2):101-14
16210207
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1983 Oct;171(10):624-9
6413648
J Learn Disabil. 1985 Jan;18(1):8-14
3968488
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 1995 Dec;17(6):900-8
8847395
Neuropsychologia. 1995 May;33(5):623-42
7637857
J Neurosci. 1999 Oct 15;19(20):9029-38
10516320
Monogr Soc Res Child Dev. 1997;62(4):i-v, 1-208
9421921