Person:
Rubio Valdehita, Susana

First Name

Susana

Last Name

Rubio Valdehita

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/80161

Affiliation

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Faculty / Institute

Psicología

Department

Psicología Social, Trabajo y Diferencial

Area

Personalidad, Evaluación y Tratamiento Psicológico

Identifiers

Full item page

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 24

Spanish Consortium for Ageing Normative Data (SCAND): semantic verbal fluency tests
(Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, 2022) López Sánchez, Ramón; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; Fernández Blázquez, Miguel Ángel; Lojo-Seoane, Cristina; Ávila Villanueva, Marina; Montenegro Peña, María Mercedes; Mallo, Sabela C.; Delgado Losada, María Luisa
Objective: Semantic verbal fluency constitutes a good candidate for identifying cognitive impairment. This paper offers normative data of different semantic verbal fluency tests for middle-aged and older adults natives from Spain considering sociodemographic factors, and different measures for each specific category (number of words produced, errors, and words evoked every 15 s). Method: Two thousand and eighty-eight cognitively unimpaired subjects aged between 50 and 89 years old, community dwelling, participated in the study. The statistical procedure includes the conversion of percentile ranges into scalar scores. Secondly, the effects of age, education and gender were verified. Linear regressions are used to calculate the scalar adjusted scores. Results: Scalar scores and percentiles corresponding to all semantic verbal fluency tests across different measures are shown. Additional tables, which show the points that must be added or subtracted from direct scores, are provided for Education regarding the total number of “animals” and “clothes” evoked by participants, as well as for Age and Education in case of the total number of “clothes”. Gender affects the number of “clothes” produced by participants in the first two 15-second segments. Conclusions: The current norms should provide clinically useful data for evaluating Spanish-speaking natives from Spain aged from 50 to 89 years.
Evaluación de la comprensión gramatical en el envejecimiento normal y patológico: un resumen de los resultados obtenidos con las baterías ECCO y ECCO_Senior
(International Journal of Psychological Research, 2012) López Sánchez, Ramón; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; Martín Aragoneses, M. Teresa; Del Río Grande, David Pedro; Mejuto, Gema
The ECCO Test (Cognitive Assessment of Sentence Comprehension in english) has shown its usefulness as an assessment tool of grammatical comprehension in older people along several studies published from its creation. The ECCO_Senior, a shorter and updated version derived from the original one and adapted to the elderly population, has good psychometric properties, and offers some promising results in the study of the language profiles of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) when consider variables such as working memory capacity and educational level. The paper summarizes the results obtained with both tests, and also we present some future directions related to this line of research
Estudio de generalizabilidad de dos instrumentos de evaluación subjetiva de la carga mental
(2010) Rubio Valdehita, Susana; Martín García, Jesús; López Sánchez, Ramón; Díaz Ramiro, Eva María; Luceño Moreno, María Lourdes; Jaén Díaz, María Antonia
Variabilidad en la comprensión gramatical de mayores sanos: diferencias en función de la reserva cognitiva
(Revista de Logopedia, Foniatría y Audiología, 2014) López Sánchez, Ramón; Rubio Valdehita, Susana
En el presente estudio se analizan las relaciones entre la variabilidad interindividual (diversidad) en vocabulario, comprensión de oraciones y denominación y la reserva cognitiva (RC) estimada en adultos mayores. Participaron 83 personas de edades comprendidas entre los 60 y los 75 años. Se empleó el Cuestionario de Reserva Cognitiva para estimar la RC. Para obtener las medidas de denominación y de comprensión léxica y gramatical se emplearon una versión reducida de 15 ítems del Boston Naming Test (BNT) y las pruebas de vocabulario y comprensión de oraciones de la batería ECCO Senior. Los resultados obtenidos indican: a) que a medida que aumenta la RC disminuye la diversidad en el BNT, en la comprensión de verbos y en la comprensión de oraciones de 2 proposiciones; b) la RC explica entre el 21 y el 18% de la diversidad en las oraciones con mayor densidad proposicional y en los verbos; c) en la comprensión de verbos y de oraciones de 2 proposiciones ajustadas al orden sintáctico canónico del español disminuye la diversidad de manera significativa al considerar valores de RC estimada mayores a 16 puntos; d) en las oraciones más difíciles y complejas disminuye moderadamente la diversidad a partir de una puntuación estimada de RC mayor a 10 puntos, y e) en la versión reducida del BNT, las diferencias significativas aparecen al comparar los grupos extremos en RC.
Effects of task load and cognitive abilities on performance and subjective mental workload in a tracking task
(Anales de Psicología, 2012) Rubio Valdehita, Susana; Díaz Ramiro, Eva María; López Sánchez, Ramón; Martín García, Jesús
The aim of this study was to determine the effects that the level of general intelligence and the aptitude profile of individuals have on performance and subjective assessments of the mental workload involved in carrying out a tracking task. Although all authors acknowledge that mental workload depends both on the characteristics of the task and the ability of individuals to perform it, little research into the real influence of these individual difference factors has been carried out. The subjects’ performance and mental workload when carrying out a tracking task with different levels of difficulty were measured. Both simple effects and those relating to the interaction of the two task complexity factors were shown to have significant effects on performance and subjective mental load. Spatial aptitude was shown to have the greatest mediating effect, particularly on mental workload. Surprisingly, the subjects with the greatest ability reported higher mental workload assessments than those less able, irrespective of the instrument used to measure the workload. Finally, the subjects with greater ability achieved higher levels of performance than those less able, particularly in the more difficult tracking task.
Animals in multidimensional space: Interpreting coordinates throughout lexical-semantic features in mild cognitive impairment and control subjects
(Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 2021) López Sánchez, Ramón; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; Llorente Morales, Cristina; Sánchez-Beato, Andrea; Delgado-Lima, Alice Helena; Delgado Losada, María Luisa
Introduction: Semantic verbal fluency is a useful neuropsychological tool since it involves language and executive abilities that can be impaired in patients with neurodegenerative diseases in comparison to healthy controls. The present study explores retrieve and executive control processes using traditional quantitative and qualitative raw scores and examines the utility of multidimensional scaling combined with linear regression to provide new insights about the underlying semantic network in mild cognitive impairment and in healthy older adults. Method: A total of 165 Spanish older adults, 81 patients and 84 controls, were assessed in different cognitive domains and evoked animal names in one minute. Group differences on fluency raw scores were first explored. Regressions using tests to predict groups’ fluency scores were also performed. The 12 animals that had been produced more frequently were selected to perform a multidimensional scaling analysis for each group. Four features related to animal names were extracted from normative studies and then were used as predictors in linear regression to provide an interpretation of the resulting dimensions’ coordinates. Results: Patients performed worse on memory and naming and produced a shorter list of animals than controls. In controls, naming and visual memory explained a small part of variance related to the total of animals produced and to the number of switches. Both groups exhibited similar semantic maps. Conclusions: Results suggest that patients’ map is influenced by words with a dense associative neighborhood that were acquired at an early age, whereas in controls none of the predictors explained dimensions.
How cognitive reserve influences older adults’ cognitive state, executive functions and language comprehension: A structural equation model
(Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 2019) Delgado Losada, María Luisa; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; López Sánchez, Ramón; Rodríguez Rojo, Inmaculada Concepción; Prados Atienza, José María; García-Cid, Sophie; Montenegro Peña, María Mercedes
Cognitive reserve has been defined as the individuals’ ability to tolerate age-related and neurodegenerative changes in the brain without developing clinical symptoms or signs of disease. Formal education, occupational attainment, and knowledge of other languages have been assessed as the most relevant factors determining cognitive reserve. The main objective of this study was to develop a structural equation model that reflects the direct influence of cognitive reserve on old adults’ general cognitive status and executive functioning, and indirectly on sentence comprehension performance through executive functions mediation. One hundred and fifty eight Spanish-speaking older adults, cognitively intact, were assessed to obtain cognitive reserve data, general cognitive status, executive functioning (inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility), and sentence comprehension measures. High indicators of adjustment of the proposed model were obtained. The most related factors to cognitive reserve were education and occupational attainment. As we hypothesize, cognitive reserve had a higher direct significant relation to cognitive status and, in a lesser extent, to executive functioning. Participants’ general cognitive status and executive function were high and directly related. Furthermore, cognitive reserve has an indirect positive relation to sentence comprehension via executive functions’ mediation.
Normative scores for attentional tests used by the Spanish consortium for ageing normative data (SCAND) study: Trail Making Test, Digit Symbol and Letter Cancellation
(The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 2023) Lojo-Seoane, Cristina; Facal, David; Delgado Losada, María Luisa; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; López Sánchez, Ramón; Frades-Payo, Belén; Pereiro, Arturo X.
Objective: This paper reports normative data for different attentional tests obtained from a sample of middle-aged and older native Spanish adults and considering effects of age, educational level and sex. Method: 2,597 cognitively intact participants, aged from 50 to 98 years old, participated voluntarily in the SCAND consortium studies. The statistical procedure included conversion of percentile ranges into scaled scores. The effects of age, education and sex were taken into account. Linear regressions were used to calculate adjusted scaled scores. Results: Scaled scores and percentiles corresponding to the TMT, Digit Symbol and Letter Cancellation Task are shown. Additional tables show the values to be added to or subtracted from the scaled scores, for age and education in the case of the TMT and Letter Cancellation Task measures, and for education in the case of the Digit Symbol subtest. Conclusions: The current norms provide clinically useful data for evaluating Spanish people aged 50 to 98 years old and contribute to improving detection of initial symptoms of cognitive impairment.
Phonological fluency norms for Spanish middle-aged and older adults provided by the SCAND initiative (P, M, & R)
(Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2023) Delgado Losada, María Luisa; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; López Sánchez, Ramón; Campos-Magdaleno, María; Avila-Villanueva, Marina; Frades-Payo, Belén; Lojo-Seoane, Cristina
Objective: Verbal fluency tests are quick and easy to administer neuropsychological measures and are regularly used in neuropsychological assessment. Additionally, phonological fluency is a widely used paradigm that is sensitive to cognitive impairment. This paper offers normative data of phonological verbal fluency (letters P, M, R) for Spanish middle- and older-aged adults, considering sociodemographic factors, and different measures such as the total number of words, errors (perseveration and intrusions), and 15 sec-segmented scores. Method: A total of 1165 cognitively unimpaired participants aged between 50 and 89 years old, participated in the study. Data for P were obtained for all participants. Letters M and R were also administered to a subsample of participants (852) aged 60 to 89 years. In addition, errors and words produced every 15 seconds were collected in the subsample. To verify the effect of sociodemographic variables, linear regression was used. Adjustments were calculated for variables that explained at least 5% of the variance (R2 ≥ .05). Results: Means and standard deviations by age, scaled scores, and percentiles for all tests across different measures are shown. No determination coefficients equal to or greater than .05 were found for sex or age. The need to establish adjustments for the educational level was only found in some of the measures. Conclusions: The current norms provide clinically useful data to evaluate Spanish-speaking natives from Spain aged from 50 to 89 years. Specific patterns of cognitive impairment can be analyzed using these normative data and may be important in neuropsychological assessment.
Influence of cognitive reserve on neuropsychological performance in subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment older adults
(Current Psychology, 2023) López Sánchez, Ramón; Rubio Valdehita, Susana; Delgado Losada, María Luisa; López Sanz, David
The analysis of the relationships between cognitive reserve and different cognitive domains has become a matter of interest since it can help us detect deviations from the typical ageing process. The main objective of our study was to analyse a structural equation model representing cognitive reserve’s relationships with three cognitive domains (episodic memory, working memory, and sentence comprehension) in older adults with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment patients, in a cross-sectional study. A total of 266 Spanish-speaking older adults, from 65 to 80 years old, voluntarily participated in the study. The assessment protocol includes questionnaires as well as screening and domain-specific tests, providing relevant information for the classification of participants in the two groups previously mentioned (n1 = 150 and n2 = 116). The proposed model presented metric and configural invariance as well as stability across groups, since the indices reflecting goodness-of-fit reach acceptable values. Our hypotheses are partially confirmed since cognitive reserve strongly influences working memory and it does moderately in sentence comprehension in both groups, but it hardly influences episodic memory in the subjective cognitive decline group, while both are inversely associated in the patients’ group. Working memory could be considered as a mechanism through which cognitive reserve exerts its protector role on other cognitive domains: on sentence comprehension in both groups, and on episodic memory in the subjective cognitive decline group. However, in mild cognitive impairments patients, cognitive reserve does no longer influence episodic memory via working memory in a significant manner.