Cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) has been shown to have significant benefits in enhancing cognitive functioning and improving the quality of life of people with mild to moderate dementia. The present study examines the efficacy of the... more
Cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) has been shown to have significant benefits in enhancing cognitive functioning and improving the quality of life of people with mild to moderate dementia. The present study examines the efficacy of the Italian version of the therapy (CST-IT). Older adults with mild to moderate dementia (n = 39) were randomly assigned to two programs: one group participated in the CST-IT, consisting of 14 sessions (twice a week for 7 weeks) and the active control group took part in alternative general activities. The outcome measures were cognitive functioning (measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination-MMSE-, the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment scale-cognitive subscale, the backward digit span test, and a narrative language test); quality of life (Quality of life--Alzheimer's Disease scale); mood (Cornell scale for depression in dementia and the social and emotional loneliness scale); functional activities in daily living (Disability Assessment for Dementia); and behavior (neuropsychiatric inventory). After the intervention, only the CST-IT group maintained its MMSE score, while the control group displayed deterioration. The CST-IT group also performed better in some of the cognitive measures (Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive subscale and narrative language), mood measures (Cornell scale, social and emotional loneliness scale with a decrease in reported loneliness), and the Quality of life--Alzheimer's Disease scale. No other treatment effect was observed. The findings confirm the efficacy, at least in the short term, of the CST in sustaining cognitive functions and perceived quality of life in older adults with dementia in the Italian care setting as well.
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A large body of evidence indicates that working memory correlates with performance on fluid intelligence tasks such as Raven's tests. However, light still needs to be shed on which particular aspects of... more
A large body of evidence indicates that working memory correlates with performance on fluid intelligence tasks such as Raven's tests. However, light still needs to be shed on which particular aspects of working memory might be most critically related to fluid intelligence, and whether working memory updating—which appears crucial to intellectual functioning—has a prominent role. To address these issues more
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he aim of the present study was to examine factors that could influence whether recall performance in a Verbal Working Memory task (Listening Span Test) would benefit from the schematic knowledge of the long-term semantic memory. More... more
he aim of the present study was to examine factors that could influence whether recall performance in a Verbal Working Memory task (Listening Span Test) would benefit from the schematic knowledge of the long-term semantic memory. More specifically, we investigated whether children would benefit from sentence simply reporting typical properties of objects or when the sentences were stereotypical knowledge structures of everyday routine events of general goals. A total of 120 children, aged 6.5 to 13.3, and 30 additional adults participated in the study. Sentences presenting concrete items in their typical organized contexts (Scripted) were compared with sentences simply describing them (Descriptive), and were balanced in True and False statements. The results show that words recall is better in Scripted than in Descriptive sen- tences at every age level and in True vs. False statements. Scripted sentences also give rise to more intrusions. The specific contribution of this study lies...
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ABSTRACT
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The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to... more
The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to address this issue. In three experiments, participants were asked to classify pictures of animals as male or female. Half stimuli had names of feminine gender and half of masculine gender. In Experiment 1, Italian speaking adults and preschoolers classified animals according to the nominal gender. This effect was not found with English speaking participants (Experiment 2) but confirmed with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old Italian-speaking children (Experiment 3). These results showed an implicit knowledge of grammatical gender in preschoolers, suggesting that semantic processing may be modulated by linguistic information.
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Language Acquisition, Semantics, Psycholinguistics, and 24 moreEnglish, Syntax, Linguistics, Speech Communication, Language, Adolescent, Italy, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Humans, Child, Italian, Scotland, Psycholinguistic, Grammar, Role, Concept Formation, Female, Classification, Male, Young Adult, Psychological Tests, Adult, Age Factors, and Child preschool
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A large body of evidence indicates that working memory correlates with performance on fluid intelligence tasks such as Raven's tests. However, light still needs to be shed on which particular aspects of working... more
A large body of evidence indicates that working memory correlates with performance on fluid intelligence tasks such as Raven's tests. However, light still needs to be shed on which particular aspects of working memory might be most critically related to fluid intelligence, and whether working memory updating—which appears crucial to intellectual functioning—has a prominent role. To address these issues more
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Riassunto. La ricerca presentata studia lo sviluppo della competenza definitoria e il ruolo che la consapevolezza metalinguistica può svolgere nella produzione di defini-zioni formalmente corrette in bambini di diverse età. Allo studio... more
Riassunto. La ricerca presentata studia lo sviluppo della competenza definitoria e il ruolo che la consapevolezza metalinguistica può svolgere nella produzione di defini-zioni formalmente corrette in bambini di diverse età. Allo studio hanno partecipato 83 bambini divisi in quattro livelli di età (ultimo anno della scuola materna, seconda ele-mentare, quarta elementare, prima media) ai quali sono state presentate due prove: un compito di definizione e una prova di metalinguaggio. I risultati hanno evidenziato un chiaro ...
Linguistic definition is a kind of judgement that either establishes a new piece of knowledge as in the case of a new scientific discovery (institutive definitions; eg,“radio waves”) or makes already existing and shared information... more
Linguistic definition is a kind of judgement that either establishes a new piece of knowledge as in the case of a new scientific discovery (institutive definitions; eg,“radio waves”) or makes already existing and shared information explicit (lexicographic definitions; eg: the definition of “apple” or “beauty”). Watson (1985) defined the nature of definitions considering four central points. First of all, definitions have a conventional linguistic form, which states semantic equivalence between the definiendum (the word to be defined) and the ...