Convergent validity of the developmental coordination disorder checklist using soft neurological signs.

AIMS: To investigate the convergent validity of a new questionnaire, the Developmental Coordination Disorder Checklist (DCDC), we examined the relationship between the DCDC score and Soft Neurological Signs (SNS) which highly correlated with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC), which is widely applied to assess fine and gross motor skills. METHODS: The patients were 70 elementary school children without intellectual disabilities who were referred to our clinic, examined for SNS, and whose parents completed the DCDC. The DCDC consists of 16 items that focus on three factors: fine motor, gross motor, and catch and throw. We used a previously described method to assess SNS, which included five tasks: (1) standing on one leg with closed eyes, (2) finger opposition test, (3) diadochokinesis, (4) associated movements during diadochokinesis, and (5) motor persistence (laterally fixed gaze). RESULTS: DCDC scores and SNS were strongly and positively correlated, with higher DCDC scores (indicating greater coordination problems) associated with a higher number of positive SNS. CONCLUSIONS: DCDC scores have been proven to be strongly correlated with SNS, and these data suggest that DCDC has good convergent validity.

Development of a reading difficulty questionnaire for adolescents in Japanese.

BACKGROUND: Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder which occurs in childhood but continues to influence academic and occupational function in adulthood. Recently, a Japanese dyslexia questionnaire and diagnostic procedure was established for primary school children. However, there is currently no procedure for the diagnosis or screening of dyslexia in individuals at or above junior high school age; accordingly, we aimed to develop a questionnaire to screen for reading difficulties in those individuals. METHODS: A questionnaire with various candidate items was developed from two English questionnaires, one Japanese questionnaire, and newly devised items focusing on the Japanese writing system and the most appropriate 28 items were selected. In total, 462 adults and 127 junior high to high school students were enrolled. Of those, 191 participants also took part in reading tests. After the exploratory factor analysis, reliability and validity were evaluated using the above control participants and 12 adolescents with dyslexia. RESULTS: The questionnaire included three factors, i.e., silent reading sub-scale (four items), writing sub-scale (four items), and aloud reading sub-scale (three items). Five were newly devised items focusing on the Japanese writing system. Cronbach's alphas of the three factors were 0.706, 0.638, and 0.568, respectively, and the interclass correlation coefficients (2,1) were 0.743, 0.609, and 0.695, respectively. The silent reading and aloud reading sub-scales were positively correlated with word, non-word, and passage reading time. DISCUSSION: The newly developed questionnaire correlated well with actual reading performance and may be used to screen reading difficulty in Japanese individuals at or above junior high school age.

Development of a movement questionnaire adapted for Japanese culture for elementary school children.

AIMS: Current tools to evaluate Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) symptoms are not adapted to Japanese cultural and educational contexts. We aimed to develop a new tool, the Developmental Coordination Disorder Checklist (DCDC), that can be applied specifically to elementary school-aged children in Japan, by generating a list of culturally relevant items. METHODS: We designed an 18-item questionnaire that was distributed to parents and teachers of elementary school-aged children. The degree of negative influence on a child's life from their motor ability was estimated using a visual analogue scale (VAS). RESULTS: We analyzed the responses from parents/guardians (n = 1174) and teachers (n = 688) of elementary school children (age range: 75-147 months, 1st-6th grades). An exploratory analysis showed that the DCD items could be divided into three factors: fine motor, gross motor, and catch and throw. Internal consistency reliabilities of each factor and of total DCDC were sufficiently high (all coefficients of Cronbach's alpha: > 0.75). Inter-rater reliability between parent/guardian and teacher was moderate in each sub-score and total DCDC score. Parents/guardians evaluated the degree of difficulty in the fine motor factor more severely than teachers. Total DCDC score was correlated significantly with VAS value (r = 0.545), with each factor in DCDC proving useful in predicting negative impact on daily life. CONCLUSIONS: DCDC is an efficient and culturally relevant assessment tool for DCD symptoms within Japan, particularly for measuring any practical deficits in daily life activities.

[Analysis of factors related to social functioning in school students with high-functioning pervasive developmental disorder].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the factors related to social functioning in school students with high-functioning pervasive developmental disorder (HFPDD), we investigated speech delay in infancy, family history of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), intelligence quotient (IQ), strength of PDD characteristics, age, age at diagnosis of PDD, and social adaptive functioning in students with HFPDD. METHODS: Fifty-eight students with a diagnosis of HFPDD (IQ ≥ 85) were evaluated retrospectively. PDD characteristics were measured by the Pervasive Developmental Disorders Autism Society Japan Rating Scale (PARS), IQ was measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III), and social adaptive functioning was measured by the Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS). RESULTS: There was a negative correlation between age at diagnosis of PDD and the CGAS score. None of the other factors examined had any significant correlation with social functioning in students with HFPDD. Age at diagnosis of PDD whose social functioning was good was significantly low. CONCLUSIONS: School students with HFPDD who are diagnosed with PDD earlier exhibit better social adaptive functioning.

Interpretation of the variation of the Walden product of ionic liquids with different alkyl chain lengths in terms of relaxation spectra.

The shear relaxation spectra and the alternating-current (AC) conductivity of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate were measured in the MHz region, with the chain lengths varied from butyl to octyl. The relaxation times of both the conductivity and shear viscosity increased with increasing chain length approximately in proportion to the variation of the reciprocal molar conductivity. On the other hand, the increase in the shear viscosity was smaller than that of the relaxation time, which indicates that the high-frequency shear modulus decreases with the chain length. The decrease in the the Walden product with the chain length is thus ascribed to that of the high-frequency shear modulus.

Magnetoencephalographic analysis of paroxysmal fast activity in patients with epileptic spasms.

PURPOSE: This study sought to demonstrate the origin and propagation of paroxysmal fast activity (PFA) in patients with epileptic spasms (ESs), using time-frequency analyses of magnetoencephalogram (MEG) PFA recordings. METHODS: A 204-channel helmet-shaped MEG, with a 600Hz sampling rate, was used to examine PFA in 3 children with ESs. We analyzed MEG recordings of PFA by short-time Fourier transform and the aberrant area or high-power spectrum was superimposed onto reconstructed three-dimensional magnetic resonance images as moving images. One ictal discharge was collected. One child and one adult with PFA due to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome were also examined for comparison. RESULTS: All four PFAs in Patient 1 and five PFAs in Patient 3 were generated from one hemisphere. In Patient 2, four of seven PFAs were generated from one hemisphere and the remaining three were generated from both hemispheres. In Patient 3, one ictal MEG showed ictal discharges that were generated from the same area as the PFA, although the electroencephalogram showed no discharge. In Patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, all 10 PFAs were generated from bilateral hemispheres simultaneously. CONCLUSION: Short-time Fourier transform analyses of MEG PFA can show the origin and form of propagation of PFA. These results suggest that ESs are representative of focal seizures and the mechanism of PFA is different between ESs and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

Direct correlation between the facial nerve nucleus and hemifacial seizures associated with a gangliocytoma of the floor of the fourth ventricle: a case report.

A dysplastic neuronal lesion of the floor of the fourth ventricle (DNFFV) causes hemifacial seizures (HFS) from early infancy. However, it is still controversial whether HFS is generated by the facial nerve nucleus or cerebellar cortex. In this study, we confirm a direct correlation between the rhythmic activities in the DNFFV and HFS using intraoperative electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) monitoring. Our results support the theory that a DNFFV provokes ipsilateral HFS via the facial nerve nucleus.

The applications of time-frequency analyses to ictal magnetoencephalography in neocortical epilepsy.

PURPOSE: Ictal magenetoencephalographic (MEG) discharges convey significant information about ictal onset and propagation, but there is no established method for analyzing ictal MEG. This study sought to clarify the usefulness of time-frequency analyses using short-time Fourier transform (STFT) for ictal onset and propagation of ictal MEG activity in patients with neocortical epilepsy. METHODS: Four ictal MEG discharges in two patients with perirolandic epilepsy and one with frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) were evaluated by time-frequency analyses using STFT. Prominent oscillation bands were collected manually and the magnitudes of those specific bands were superimposed on individual 3D-magnetic resonance images. RESULTS: STFT showed specific rhythmic activities from alpha to beta bands at the magnetological onset in all four ictal MEG records. Those activities were located at the vicinity of interictal spike sources, as estimated by the single dipole method (SDM), and two of the four ictal rhythmic activities promptly propagated to ipsilateral or bilateral cerebral cortices. The patients with FLE and perirolandic epilepsy underwent frontal lobectomy and resection of primary motor area, respectively including the origin of high-magnitude areas of a specific band indicated by STFT, and have been seizure free after the surgery. CONCLUSIONS: STFT for ictal MEG discharges readily demonstrated the ictal onset and propagation. These data were important for decisions on surgical procedure and extent of resection. Ictal MEG analyses using STFT could provide a powerful tool for noninvasive evaluation of ictal onset zone.

Generalized spike-wave discharges involve a default mode network in patients with juvenile absence epilepsy: a MEG study.

This study uses magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine whether cortical regions that constitute a default mode network are involved during generalized spike-wave discharges (GSWs) in patients with juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE). We studied five JAE patients for whom MEG was recorded using a 204-channel, whole-head gradiometer system. Dynamic statistical parametric mapping (dSPM) was done to estimate the cortical source distribution of GSW. The dSPM results showed strong medial prefrontal activation in all patients, with activation in the posterior cingulate and precuneus in three of five patients simultaneously or slightly after medial prefrontal activation. Furthermore, dSPM showed that the initial activation of a GSW appears in the focal cortical regions. Cortical regions that constitute a default mode network are strongly involved in the GSW process in some patients with JAE. Results also show that focal cortical activation appears at the onset of a GSW.

MEG time-frequency analyses for pre- and post-surgical evaluation of patients with epileptic rhythmic fast activity.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effectiveness of surgery for epilepsy, we analyzed rhythmic fast activity by magnetoencephalography (MEG) before and after surgery using time-frequency analysis. To assess reliability, the results obtained by pre-surgical MEG and intraoperative electrocorticography were compared. METHODS: Four children with symptomatic localization-related epilepsy caused by circumscribed cortical lesion were examined in the present study using 204-channel helmet-shaped MEG with a sampling rate of 600Hz. One patient had dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNT) and three patients had focal cortical dysplasia (FCD). Aberrant areas were superimposed, to reconstruct 3D MRI images, and illustrated as moving images. RESULTS: In three patients, short-time Fourier transform (STFT) analyses of MEG showed rhythmic activities just above the lesion with FCD and in the vicinity of DNT. In one patient with FCD in the medial temporal lobe, rhythmic activity appeared in the ipsilateral frontal lobe and temporal lateral aspect. These findings correlate well with the results obtained by intraoperative electrocorticography. After the surgery, three patients were relieved of their seizures, and the area of rhythmic MEG activity disappeared or become smaller. One patient had residual rhythmic MEG activity, and she suffered from seizure relapse. CONCLUSION: Time-frequency analyses using STFT successfully depicted MEG rhythmic fast activity, and would provide valuable information for pre- and post-surgical evaluations to define surgical strategies for patients with epilepsy.