Evaluación de la Memoria de Trabajo Viso-Espacial en niños de 6 y 8 años / Visuo-Spatial Working Memory Assessment in 6- and 8-Years Old Children.

INJOQUE RICLE, I., & BURIN, D.I

Buenos Aires

Congreso; International Neuropsychological Society, 2008 Mid Year meeting, VIII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de; 2008

Sociedad Neuropsicologica de Argentina, International Neuropsychological Society

Objective: To assess convergent-discriminant validity of the Visuo-Spatial tests of the Automated orking Memory Assessment Battery (AWMA, Alloway, Gathercole & Pickering, 2004; Translation and adaptation: Injoque-Ricle & Burin, 2007). To explore age differences in performance on the AWMA subtests. Participants and Methods: A sample of 68 6-, 8-, and 11-years old children participated in the study. Two age sub-samples (6- and 8-years old) met criteria to be compared. The six visuo-spatial subtests of the AWMA (Dot Matrix, Mr. X, Odd One Out, Block Recall, Mazes, and Spatial Span), and two WISC-III subtests (Block Design and Vocabulary) were administered. Results: An exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted on the AWMA subtests and estimated IQ. Two factors were found: one that includes the AWMA subtests and the other one the IQ measure. All visuo-spatial working memory subtests, except Mr. X and Spatial Span, showed significant age differences. Conclusions: Results point to an acceptable convergent-discriminant validity of the AWMA subtests. Age differences further validate these subtests, showing visuo-spatial working memory development. Further age differences are expected with larger samples.