Behavioral and Cognitive Aspects of Dementia

Common symptoms include disinhibition, loss of empathy, planning errors, impaired judgment, and compulsive behaviors.

PPA initially affects language skills with specific variants like semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia while reading and writing may remain intact longer.

Involuntary muscle function issues, falls in early stages, and symmetry of motor signs may indicate a frontotemporal dementia movement disorder.

<p>Identifying hippocampal atrophy is crucial as it relates to memory deficits, while normal changes may not indicate dementia.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Symptoms like social withdrawal and loss of empathy can resemble depressive behaviors, leading to misdiagnosis.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Talking about traumatic events can reduce the activation of the amygdala, leading to a decrease in fear responses.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Viewing identifiable frightening images can lead to less activation of the amygdala, resulting in reduced fear.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Judging fears doesn't alleviate the emotional experience, as perceptions of fear can vary significantly from person to person.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Reading becomes automatic due to practice, which makes it challenging to disengage even when desired, as we often read the ink color instead of the word itself.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The four skills are: recognizing that writing is meaningful, understanding the direction of writing, recognizing letters of the alphabet, and knowing that printed letters correspond to specific sounds.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>When asked to say the ink color instead of reading the word, individuals experience difficulty, showcasing cognitive interference.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>In English, writing moves from left to right.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Printed letters correspond to certain sounds, which is a key concept in phonics instruction for reading.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Remembering involves recollecting the original learning incident and its context, while knowing refers to a feeling of familiarity.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Older adults are generally better at recognizing an item than recalling its context.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The two subtypes of MCI are amnestic MCI, which primarily affects memory, and nonamnestic MCI, which impacts thinking skills and decision-making.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Mild Cognitive Impairment is found in approximately 10-20% of individuals over 65.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Memory training interventions, such as verbal reasoning and speed training, can lead to improvements, but these gains may not transfer to other tasks.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Early clinical symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease may include memory loss and difficulties with problem-solving or planning.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Alzheimer's Disease is associated with specific neurodegenerative changes, while vascular dementia is typically the result of impaired blood flow to the brain.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Ruling out other medical conditions and medications is significant to ensure that the cognitive changes are specifically due to MCI and not other factors.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Critical periods are specific windows of time when skills must be acquired, while sensitive periods are optimal times for development but skills can still be learned later.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Assimilation involves integrating new experiences into existing schemas, such as recognizing a zebra as a horse, while accommodation requires altering schemas based on new information, like learning a zebra is different from a horse.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Piaget's stages are Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The zone of proximal development is the range of tasks that a learner can perform with guidance but not yet independently, highlighting the importance of social interaction in learning.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Theory of mind is the ability to understand that others have their own beliefs, desires, and perspectives that may differ from one's own.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Decision-making adapts through heuristics and biases by providing simplified approaches to problem-solving that conserve cognitive resources and time.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Sunk costs can lead individuals to continue investing in a project or relationship due to prior investments, despite the potential for larger losses.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>During adolescence, cognitive changes include improved reasoning, problem-solving, and planning abilities, while brain changes involve the maturation of the prefrontal cortex and increased connectivity.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Metalinguistic insight refers to the awareness and understanding of the structure of language, which bilinguals possess at a heightened level, enabling them to perform better on language tasks.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The same brain areas are utilized for early second language learners, but different areas are activated when a language is learned later in life.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The 'critical period' refers to a specific time frame in early childhood during which the brain is particularly receptive to language input, and without it, normal language development may not occur.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Cases like Genie showcase how deprivation of language affects development, while homesigners demonstrate the ability to create language systems despite a lack of conventional language exposure.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A critical period signifies a limited time frame during which language development must occur, while a sensitive period indicates a longer timeframe where learning is optimal but can still happen later with more difficulty.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The four main theories are imitation, nativist theory, social pragmatics, and general cognitive processing.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Imitation theory suggests babies learn language by repeating what they hear, but it fails to account for the generative nature of language that allows children to produce novel sentences.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The 'less is more' theory posits that younger learners benefit from simpler linguistic exposure, allowing them to grasp language structures more effectively than older learners.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Emily's case suggests that some children as young as 21 to 36 months can retain specific memories, contradicting the notion that all memories are lost during early childhood.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement Paradigm involves a baseline step where a baby is exposed to a mobile, followed by a learning phase where the mobile is attached to a reinforcement, and a test phase where the mobile is not attached.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The three accounts for infantile amnesia include repression as proposed by Freud, the lack of a developed sense of self, and the immature encoding of memories in early childhood.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Cross-cultural differences may reveal that some cultures encourage reminiscence of early experiences, allowing for a richer context in autobiographical memory than cultures that discourage early memory sharing.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The reminiscence bump refers to the phenomenon where individuals have increased recollection of autobiographical memories from their late adolescence and early adulthood, typically between ages 10 and 30.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Willander and Larson's study found that specific cues, such as odors, can evoke strong memories from the reminiscence bump period, highlighting the connection between sensory experiences and memory retrieval.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Infantile amnesia is the tendency for individuals to lack autobiographical memories from before the age of five.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Deferred Imitation study showed that infants can retain memories and imitate actions after a delay, reflecting their learning and memory capabilities.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Reminders can significantly enhance memory retention in infants, as evidenced by memory returning to original levels after a reminder period.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Repression is suggested to be a mechanism that blocks recollection of positive and neutral early childhood experiences, resulting in infantile amnesia.</p> Signup and view all the answers