Are Children Performing Better on the Digit Span Backward Task Than the Digit Span Forward Task? An Exploratory Analysis.
Purpose: This research note was motivated by community speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who have expressed concerns about how to interpret the unexpected observation of higher performance on the Digit Span Backward task than the Digit Span Forward task on the Test of Integrated Language and Liter...
| Publicado en: | American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology Vol. 32; no. 5; pp. 2311 - 2322 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
Sep2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=171907608&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 171907608 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 10580360 5E7 jtl: American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology issn: 10580360 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2023 vid: 32 iid: 5 pid: 42 pub: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association place: Rockville, Maryland artinfo: ui: 171907608 171907608 171907608 10.1044/2023_AJSLP-22-00394 171907608 ppf: 2311 ppct: 11 formats: tig: atl: Are Children Performing Better on the Digit Span Backward Task Than the Digit Span Forward Task? An Exploratory Analysis. aug: au: Pham, Theresa Archibald, Lisa M. D. affil: School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada sug: subj: Memory, Short Term Evaluation Task Performance and Analysis Methods Psychometrics Methods Human Child Adolescence United States Descriptive Statistics Data Analysis Software Exploratory Research Cognition Memory Memory and Learning Tests Speech-Language Pathologist Attitudes Child: 6-12 years Adolescent: 13-18 years ab: Purpose: This research note was motivated by community speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who have expressed concerns about how to interpret the unexpected observation of higher performance on the Digit Span Backward task than the Digit Span Forward task on the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS). We therefore conducted an exploratory analysis to examine the pattern of digit span performance in children to help clinicians interpret their findings. Method: We investigated performance on the Digit Span Forward and Digit Span Backward subtests using the TILLS normative sample (N = 1,262). Raw scores, standard scores, and percentile ranks were systematically compared. In addition, we were able to estimate span length (longest number of items that can be accurately recalled) for 69 participants and evaluated the relation between performance and span length. Results: Our exploratory analyses revealed that "better" performance on the backward than forward task was rare. Instead, the pattern that SLPs are reporting can be explained by three factors: (a) a statistical phenomenon exacerbating small differences, (b) comparing standard scores or percentile ranks instead of raw scores or span length, and (c) better backward scores can still mean longer forward span length. Conclusions: It is likely that community SLPs tended to report cases of better backward than forward recall because it is the more remarkable and interesting finding, leading to the perception that the pattern is common, when it is not. Overall, we caution clinicians against overinterpreting their own client's performance on the digit span tests. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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