Margaret Semrud-Clikeman

• University of Minnesota

Characterizing the functioning of individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders is crucial to their diagnosis. Research has found that children with different neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and nonverbal learning disability (NLD), may have comorbid sympto...

This chapter briefly discusses the nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) diagnostic criteria that are in development, provides an overview of the emerging neuroimaging and neuropsychological research underlying NLD, and discusses suggested assessment and intervention strategies. It is also important to discuss that there may be two types of NLD: me...

Today, diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) still primarily relies on a series of subjective evaluations that highly rely on a doctor’s experiences and intuitions from diagnostic interviews and observed behavior measures. An accurate and objective diagnosis of ADHD is still a challenge and leaves much to be desired. Many chi...

Objective: Common methods for clinical diagnosis include clinical interview, behavioral questionnaires, and neuropsychological assessment. These methods rely on clinical interpretation and have variable reliability, sensitivity, and specificity. The goal of this study was to evaluate the utility of machine learning in the prediction and classificat...

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder predominantly inattentive (ADHD-PI) and combined (ADHD-C) presentations are likely distinct disorders that differ neuroanatomically, neurochemically, and neuropsychologically. However, to date, little is known about specific white matter (WM) regions differentiating ADHD presentations. This study examined di...

Social perception is an important underlying foundation for emotional development and overall adaptation. The majority of studies with children with High Functioning Autism (HFA) or nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) evaluating social functioning have used measures of parent and/or teacher ratings. The present study utilized parent and teacher r...

The ability for neuroimaging to now explore brain structure and functioning variations has opened new avenues of research in gender differences (Cairns, Malone, Johnston, & Cammock, Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 653–654, 1985; Gur et al., Science, 267(5197), 528–531, 1995; Kulynych, Vladar, Jones, & Weinberger, Cerebral Cortex, 4(2), 1...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare groups of children with two subtypes of ADHD and controls on selected regions using volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures. Children with ADHD were expected to have smaller volumes of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and caudate. Parent behavioral rating measures of hyperactivity...

The most commonly used model of nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD) is the Rourke model. This model includes bilateral deficits in psychomotor skills as a primary neuropsychological deficit. Extant studies have identified attentional issues as one of the components seen in many children with NVLD. Forty-five children divided into three groups co...

Clinical neuroscience involves the assessment of emotional and cognitive processing, and its relation to the brain. Results are interpreted as a gauge of neurological integrity. Understanding differences in neuroscience functioning due to cultural and linguistic factors is necessary for accurate interpretation of neuropsychological data. This chapt...

The current study investigated morphological differences in the corpus callosum in children ages 8 to 18 years old with nonverbal learning disability (NLD; n = 19), high-functioning autism (HFA; n = 23), predominantly inattentive ADHD (ADHD:PI; n = 23), and combined type ADHD (ADHD:C; n = 25), as well as those demonstrating typical development (n =...

It has been suggested that children with nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) or Asperger's Syndrome (AS) may show difficulties with executive functioning. There were 3 groups in this study who completed a neuropsychological battery of visual-spatial, executive functioning, and reasoning tasks; AS (n = 37), NLD (n = 31), and controls (n = 40). Res...

Background: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate selected regions of interest in children and adolescents with nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD), Asperger syndrome (AS), and age-matched healthy controls using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). It was hypothesized that children with AS would show larger volumes of the amygdala and h...

The cause of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been linked to abnormalities in prefrontal-striatal-cerebellar networks, but the brain-behavioral correlates are relatively equivocal. Children with ADHD and healthy controls underwent MRI and neuropsychological testing. Brain cortical thickness was analyzed for the bilateral rostral...

Neuropsychologists, school psychologists, school counselors, and educational therapists are particularly well suited to perform disability and education-related evaluations. One of the key roles of these clinicians is to provide recommendations to the K-12 and college educational system for their clients. Generally these recommendations serve as th...

ABSTRACT Few neuroimaging studies have explored gender differences on mental rotation tasks. Most studies have utilized samples with both genders, samples mainly consisting of men, or samples with six or fewer females. Graduate students in science fields or liberal arts programs (20 males, 20 females) completed a mental rotation task during functio...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are differences in the volume of specific brain regions using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between children and adolescents with ADHD and controls and whether such differences are related to the participants’ history of stimulant treatment. Method: A total of 16 healthy control...

The extant research on nonverbal learning disability (NLD) was analyzed in this review. Studies were defined for use in the review as those that appeared in a peer-reviewed journal and included participants characterized as having NLD. Each study also needed to provide a statistical analysis of dependent variables. An a priori system was used to ev...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether subtype differences and the role of inattention in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder-combined type (ADHD-C) and ADHD-predominately inattentive type (ADHD-PI) and controls on measures of achievement, problem solving, and visual-spatial abilities are present. A secondary purpose...

The key features of Asperger Syndrome (AS) and high functioning autism (HFA) include marked and sustained impairment in social interactions. A multi-session, small group program was developed to increase social perception based on the assumption perceptual or interpretive problems underlying these social difficulties. Additionally, the group format...

Objective: The seminal paper on cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome by Schmahmann and Sherman (1998), and subsequent studies, has expanded our understanding of the role of the cerebellum beyond motor functioning to psychological and cognitive functioning. However, many of these studies have examined patients between 1 week and 5 years post-inju...

The relationship of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to learning disorders was reviewed and included reading disability, mathematics learning disability, and nonverbal learning disability. Genetic, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological functioning were examined for each disorder, along with a discussion of any existing literature when...

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate whole-brain and hemispheric activation in normal adult volunteers to videos depicting positive and negative social encounters. There are few studies that have utilized dynamic social stimuli to evaluate brain activation. Twenty young adults viewed videotaped vignettes during an functional magnetic reso...

Studies of healthy individuals and those with cerebellar damage have implicated the cerebellum in a variety of cognitive and behavioral processes. Decreased cerebellar volume has been found in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and differentially related to behavioral outcomes. The present study investigated whether small...

Methylphenidate (MPH) often ameliorates attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) behavioral dysfunction according to indirect informant reports and rating scales. The standard of care behavioral MPH titration approach seldom includes direct neuropsychological or academic assessment data to determine treatment efficacy. Documenting "cool" exe...

The main purpose of this study was to report the existence of previously unidentified brain cysts or lesions in children with nonverbal learning disabilities, Asperger syndrome, or controls. The authors compared the incidence of cysts or lesions on magnetic resonance images (MRIs) in 28 children with nonverbal learning disability, 26 children with...

The current study examined the relation between attention, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and reading fluency among typically developing children. A total of 104 third- and fourth-grade children (8–11 years of age) completed RAN measures consisting of four stimuli (letter, digit, color, and object) and an oral reading fluency measure from the Gray...

To assess children with retinopathy-positive cerebral malaria (CM) for neurocognitive sequelae. Participants were selected from an ongoing exposure-control study. Eighty-three Malawian children averaging 4.4 years of age and diagnosed with retinopathy-positive CM were compared to 95 controls. Each child was classified as delayed or not using age-ba...

Research in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) generally utilizes clinical samples or children with comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. Findings indicated that children with ADHD experience academic underachievement and poor performance on measures of response inhibition (RI). Less is known, about the neuropsychological profile of typicall...

A sense of humor has been linked to social competence, popularity, and adaptability. The purpose of this review was to investigate the extant research in humor in childhood. Emerging work on the neuroanatomy of humor was discussed with findings of right hemispheric involvement for the comprehension and appreciation of humor for the affective networ...

This study evaluated the social perception and social functioning of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Combined (ADHD-C), ADHD-predominately inattentive (ADHD-PI), and controls. Two-hundred and seventy children with ADHD-C, ADHD-PI, or controls were evaluated using direct and indirect measures of social functioning. The ADHD-C...

Confusion is present as to possible diagnostic differences between Asperger syndrome (AS) and Nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) and the relation of these disorders to attentional difficulties. Three-hundred and forty-five children participated in this study in 5 groups; NLD, AS, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Combined type, AD...

The evaluation of bilingual children is a complicated endeavor because there are various views of how bilingualism affects brain organization and functioning. Added to that is the challenge of determining language development of Hispanic children living in a monolingual Spanish-speaking home in a Spanish-speaking country, but mostly exposed to Engl...

Developed in concert with the Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA), this White Paper regarding specific learning disabilities identification and intervention represents the expert consensus of 58 accomplished scholars in education, psy-chology, medicine, and the law. Survey responses and empirical evidence suggest that five conclusion...

Understanding social interactions is crucial for development of social competence. The present study was one of the first to utilize direct and indirect measures of social perception to explore possible differences among children with nonverbal learning disability (NLD), Asperger's Syndrome (AS), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Combined (A...

To determine the effect of chronic stimulant treatment on corpus callosum (CC) size in children with ADHD using volumetric and area measurements. Previously published research indicated possible medication effects on specific areas of the CC. Measurements of the CC from anatomical MRIs were obtained from children aged 9-16 in three diagnostic group...

To examine written expression and the executive function skills (working memory, verbal fluency, and planning and organization) involved in written expression in college-aged students with ADHD. Two groups of undergraduate students, aged 19 to 28 years, (ADHD, n = 31; control, n = 27) are evaluated on selected measures of executive function and a m...

The purpose of this review is to provide a summary of the empirical research on rehabilitation in pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI). Studies of the effectiveness of interventions with children with TBI are hampered by difficulty with combining subjects with various levels of TBI, problems with random assignment to treatment groups, and varying...

Executive function and working memory deficits are not only present in ADHD, but also in reading disorder (RD). Here, high-density ERPs were recorded during the Stop Signal Task in 53 children and adolescents: An ADHD-combined type group, a group with RD, and a healthy control group. The ADHD-C group displayed unique abnormalities of the frontal N2...

The purpose of the study was to evaluate neuropsychological and behavioral rating measures of executive functions (EF) in children with two subtypes of ADHD, Asperger syndrome (AS), and controls. Relative to the control group, the clinical groups experienced more difficulty in EF. The AS group showed the most difficulty in emotional control, behavi...

Few neuroimaging studies have reported gender differences in response to human emotions, and those that have examined such differences have utilized face photographs. This study presented not only human face photographs of positive and negative emotions, but also video vignettes of positive and negative social human interactions in an attempt to pr...

Because of its dense connections to the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia, the cerebellum is thought to play an important role in cognition. Numerous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have found abnormalities in the cerebellum in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While some studies in animal and human models su...

This chapter explores childhood mood and anxiety disorders within a transactional model. Genetic, prenatal, and postnatal history will be discussed in light of how these factors interact with neuropsychological, executive, cognitive, perceptual, and memory functioning. Moreover, the impact these factors have on the child's functioning (i.e., family...

Information about the child's neuropsychological, cognitive, academic, and psychosocial status forms the basis for designing integrated intervention and treatment plans for children and adolescents with brain-related disorders. Efforts to develop models of neuropsychological intervention have been expanding in recent years. In an effort to provide...

The way structures in the developing brain are related to changes in psychological and cognitive development is of interest to child neuropsychologists. There are several ways that this relationship can be explored, including: (1) correlating structural changes in the developing brain with behavioral changes, (2) investigating behavioral changes an...

For many clinicians, behavior and personality have been traditionally evaluated by assessing behavior patterns and interpolating these behaviors as reflecting underlying personality variables (Martin, 1988). Behavior has been defined as the what a child does with personality defined as the why the child does what he or she does. Behaviors can be qu...

Though relatively rare compared to neurodevelopmental disorders, acquired neurological disorders and diseases represent some of the more common disorders seen by child clinical neuropsychologists. This chapter uses a transactional neuropsychological approach to review traumatic brain injury in children; exposure to teratogenic agents, including alc...

When a practitioner begins an assessment there are three major parts to the evaluation. These sections include the intake interview, the assessment, and the feedback. Each of these areas will be described in greater detail as well as the mechanics of neuropsychological report writing.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we will briefly review three generally accepted approaches to neuropsychological assessment. Second, we will present our transactional assessment approach. This discussion will include evaluation methods for selected functional areas of the central nervous system. The conceptual framework underlying ea...

Neuronal development proceeds in an orderly fashion during development of the embryo and fetus. There are certain stages of development that are consistent across individuals during gestation. Following birth, changes in the brain are related to genetics, biology, and environmental stimulation. This chapter will provide an overview of development p...

Externalizing disorders have been defined as those disorders in which overt behavior is present (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). Externalized disorders are characterized by numerous dysfunctional behaviors, which pose difficulties in management in the social and psychological aspects of the child’s life. The externalized disorders to...

Chapter 8 discusses various approaches to neuropsychological testing including the Reitan batteries and Boston Process techniques. The goal of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the various domains generally associated with a neuropsychological evaluation. These domains include traditional components of a psychological evaluation such a...

Various metabolic, biogenetic/chromosomal, seizure and neuromotor disorders (e.g., cerebral palsy) are the focus of this chapter. These neurological disorders frequently result in accompanying neuropsychological, social/emotional, and behavioral difficulties that place stress on the child, family, and school. As with other neurological and neurodev...

Neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood, including language-related and learning disabilities, constitute a large percentage of the childhood disorders seen by child clinical neuropsychologists. Language impairments and learning disabilities resulting from phonological core deficits are featured, as are mathematics difficulties resulting from non...

Child neuropsychology is the study of brain function and behavior in children and adolescents. Brain functioning has a direct impact on the behavioral, cognitive, and psychosocial adjustment of children and adolescents. Thus, disorders must be addressed within an integrated model of child clinical neuropsychology. Further, the development of the ce...

There are technological advances in all areas of medicine, and the techniques to diagnose neuropsychological problems are no exception. These advances have moved neuropsychology from a practice emphasizing assessment to determine focal and diffuse lesions to one of developing interventions to compensate for brain damage or neurodevelopmental differ...

This chapter provides guidelines to help psychologists determine when to refer a child or adolescent for neuropsychological assessment, neurological examination, or other neurodiagnostic testing (e.g., CT scan or MRI). Children and adolescents often need neurological, neuroradiological, and/ or neuropsychological assessments. Although not every chi...

Some pediatric disorders with biogenetic or neuropsychological causes may require medical treatments (Wilens, 2001). Most of these disorders, however, require multimodal treatments, where medication is used in combination with other psychosocial and behavioral interventions or therapies. A select list of common medications will be reviewed, includi...

Research in Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has greatly increased within the past decade. DSM IV TR (APA, 2000) has grouped autism, Rett’s disorder, Asperger’s Disorder (AS), and childhood disintegrative disorder under the umbrella term, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). PDD-NOS (not otherwise specified) is a term and diagnosis with no spec...

Childhood cancers, though relatively rare, are found in children at all ages. The two most common forms of childhood cancer are childhood leukemia and brain tumors. Although the etiologies for these disorders differ, treatment frequently involves chemotherapy and cranial irradiation. The chemotherapy regimen has not been found to have the same effe...

It is becoming increasingly understood in the fields of medicine and neuropsy chology that health and illness are sex and gender specific in causation, response, and systems. The historical focus on sex- and gender-“neutral” research and care has contributed to current disparities among outcomes for women. Currently, contemporary models of professi...

The normal development of humor in children has been well documented with a predictable course that is tied to social, cognitive, and linguistic development in children. This study explored humor comprehension in children with nonverbal learning disabilities (NVLD). Children with NVLD were compared with children with reading disabilities and a comp...

Behavioral and neuropsychological functioning in unmedicated children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who have a history of medication treatment (Rx) versus those who are treatment naïve (TN) has, to our knowledge, not been previously studied. Ninety-four children in four groups (ADHD/Rx, ADHD/TN, learning disabilities [LD], an...

A measure of social perception (CASP) was used to assess differences in social perception among typically developing children, children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD), and children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Significant between-group differences were found in recognition of emotions in video, with children diagnos...

Objective: The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether there are differences among groups of children based on their social perception skills in visual perception and fluid reasoning to assist in more effective intervention planning. Method: A total of 80 children were grouped on the basis of their performance on a social perception measure (...

Deficits in response inhibition may be at the core of the cognitive syndrome in ADHD. Here, inhibitory control mechanisms were studied in 36 ADHD-combined type and 30 healthy children by exploring the event-related brain activity during the Stop Signal task. The influence of age, gender, and previous treatment history was evaluated. The ADHD group...

Caron and Rutter (1) and Pennington (2) recently published excellent conceptual and methodological reviews and analyses of comorbidity in child psychopathology, and a special issue of Developmental Neuropsychology (3) reviewed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-learning disabilities (LD) comorbidity in particular. None of these reviews...

To examine the electrophysiological effects of methylphenidate (MPH) on inhibitory control in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Twelve children with ADHD performed the Stop Signal Task (SST) while event related potentials (ERP) were obtained. Each child completed two testing sessions, once on placebo and again on an ind...

Most deletions of the long arm of chromosome 18 involve some part of the most distal 30 Mb. We have identified five individuals with cytogenetically diagnosed interstitial deletions that are all proximal to this commonly deleted region. The extent of their deletions was characterized using molecular and molecular cytogenetic techniques. Each partic...

This study examines the corpus callosum in 68 readers nested in 24 families. Callosa were measured and controlled for whole brain volume, intelligence, and gender. The relation of corpus callosum size to the within-family variance of oral reading was investigated with various measurements: volume, midsagittal area, and anterior-to-posterior one-fif...

This book is written for psychologists and graduate students from various applied disciplines in psychology. Other medical, mental health, and educational professionals who work with children and adolescents with learning, behavioral, and psychosocial adjustment problems may also find this book of use because implications for assessment and treatme...

Child neuropsychology is the study of brain function and behavior in children and adolescents. Because brain functioning has a direct impact on the behavioral, cognitive, and psychosocial adjustment of children and adolescents, disorders must be addressed within an integrated model of child clinical neuropsychology. Further, the development of the...

Technological advances have come about in all areas of medicine, and the techniques utilized for diagnosis of neuropsychological problems are no exception. These advances have moved neuropsychology from a practice emphasizing assessment to determine focal and diffuse lesions to one of developing interventions to compensate for brain damage or neuro...

Various metabolic, biogenetic/chromosomal, seizure, and neuromotor disorders (e.g., cerebral palsy) are the focus of this chapter. These neurological disorders frequently result in accompanying neuropsychological, social/emotional, and behavioral difficulties that place stress on the child, family, and school. As with other neurological and neurode...

The manner in which structures in the developing brain are related to changes in psychological and cognitive development is of interest to child neuropsychologists. There are several ways that this relationship can be explored, including: (1) correlating structural changes in the developing brain with behavioral changes, (2) investigating behaviora...

Neuropsychiatric disorders in children are believed to “occur because the normal processes of brain maturation do not occur in a sufficiently organized manner” (Cook & Leventhal, 1992, p. 640). These disorders arise as a result of pathoanatomic differences present either pre- or postnatally. Axons myelinate, synaptic connections are formed, and the...

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we will briefly review three generally accepted approaches to neuropsychological assessment. Second, we will present our transactional assessment approach. This discussion will include methods of evaluation for selected functional areas of the central nervous system. The conceptual framework underlying...

Child Neuropsychology guides therapists and neurologists toward common goals: early, accurate diagnosis and finely focused interventions across disciplines. By analyzing the affects of brain development on children and adolescents’ behavioral, cognitive, learning, and psychosocial abilities and deficits, this groundbreaking volume brings vital pers...

Objective: Volumetric differences in the putamen of boys with ADHD combined subtype with psychopathic traits and controls are investigated. Method: The putamen in 24 archival magnetic resonance imaging scans of 12 boys in residential treatment with symptoms of ADHD and psychopathic traits and 12 community control boys are analyzed using Display sof...

To determine if there are differences in the volume of the caudate and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) between children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and controls, and if such differences are related to the subjects' history of stimulant treatment. We performed a case-control study in an academic medical center. Twenty-one he...

The double-deficit hypothesis of dyslexia posits that reading deficits are more severe in individuals with weaknesses in phonological awareness and rapid naming than in individuals with deficits in only one of these reading composite skills. In this study, the hypothesis was tested in an adult sample as a model of reading achievement. Participants...

Difficulty with response inhibition is a cardinal symptom of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), combined type. Prefrontal and cingulate brain regions are known to be involved in inhibitory control. Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) might establish if these regions differ in their activity in ADHD children rela...

This review surveys the empirical literature for assessments of learning problems in children from a neuropsychological perspective. An evaluation of children with learning problems must consider measures of working memory, attention, executive function, and comprehension (listening and written), particularly for children who do not respond to inte...

One of the most common chromosomal deletions is a loss of genetic material from the long arm of chromosome 18. Most individuals with this condition exhibit mental retardation (68%), yet previous attempts to link cognitive status to deletion size have not shown an association, possibly because cases with additional genetic abnormalities were include...

This article comments on Thomas Fagan's historical account (see record 2005-12578-002) of the 1954 Thayer Conference. The Thayer Conference was an important milestone for school psychology and sought to deal with issues such as credentialing, role and function, and training issues for our field. The article provides an excellent framework for unde...

Most individuals with constitutional deletions of chromosome 18q have developmental delays, dysmyelination of the brain, and growth failure due to growth hormone deficiency. We monitored the effects of growth hormone treatment by evaluating 23 individuals for changes in growth, nonverbal intelligence quotient (nIQ), and quantitative brain MRI chang...

This review presents the most recent research concerning neuroimaging in developmental disabilities. Changes in structure and activation have been found in children with ADHD and learning disabilities, following intervention. For the children with learning disabilities changes in activation have been found following intensive behavioral and academi...

We report pilot data on neuropsychological deficits in aggressive juvenile offenders with and without bipolar disorder compared with each other and healthy controls. We assessed 52 adolescents and their parent or guardians: 36 incarcerated juvenile offenders and 16 community controls using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for...

The incidence of reading disabilities in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been found at a higher proportion than would be expected by chance. This study explored the relationship between reading problems-comprehension and phonological awareness, and externalizing behaviors-hyperactivity (ADHD), and oppositional defi...

The social competence intervention program (SCIP) is a multi-sensory intervention that includes a metacognitive component. The underlying assumption of the intervention is that some children suffer from perceptual and interpretive deficits as well as poor social skills. In this pilot program, we adapted exercises used in theatre classes to remediat...

Seventy-one children in three groups (reading disabilities, ADHD without reading disabilities, and normal controls) were compared on their ability to rapidly name colors, letters, numbers, and objects (RAN Tasks) and alternating letters/numbers and letters/numbers/colors (RAS tasks). Children with reading disabilities were found to be slower on let...