Stefano Vicari | Children's Hospital 'Bambino Gesù' Rome (original) (raw)
Papers by Stefano Vicari
Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 1998
Developmental Neuropsychology - DEVELOP NEUROPSYCHOL, 1999
Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic condition characterized by mental retardation, typical f... more Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic condition characterized by mental retardation, typical facial dysmorphology, and several medical anomalies. A specific neuropsychological profile with both proficient abilities in language and face recognition and severe difficulties in other visuospatial tasks has been hypothesized in children with WS. This cognitive‐linguistic profile has emerged through comparisons of WS participants with other populations with a similar degree of mental retardation. In this article, performance by WS participants is compared with that of younger normally developing children on linguistic and visuospatial tasks. Results show that the participants included in our study obtained very different profiles in their neuropsychological performance. Overall our results seem to support the hypothesis that children with WS have a complex neuropsychological profile characterized by atypical developments in both the cognitive and the linguistic domain.
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Asperger Syndrome (AS) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are psychiatric conditions belonging to ... more Asperger Syndrome (AS) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are psychiatric conditions belonging to the Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), characterized by social dysfunction and focused interest, in the absence of mental retardation. Previous reports suggest that AS/HFA may be associated with important psychiatric comorbidities. Among the psychiatric internalizing disorders, depression and anxiety are probably the most common disorders. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of mood disorders and identifying peculiar clinical features in subjects suffering from AS and HFA. 30 male patients with AS/HFA, 30 male patients affected by Major Depression (MD) and 35 male Typically Developing (TD) comparison were assessed with the CDI and the CDRS-R. Participants' parents were invited to complete the CBCL and the P-YMRS. Moreover, the CGAS was rated by the clinicians. The evaluation of depressive symptoms showed that AS/HFA group reported higher depressive symptoms, as showed by CDI total, CBCL internalizing and CDRS-R total, compared to the TD group. No significant difference of depressive symptoms was found between the AS/HFA and the MD group, with the exception of CDRS-R total score. Moreover, linear regression analysis in the AS/HFA group between CGAS and depressive symptoms revealed that a higher level of depressive symptoms increased the risk of poorer global functioning. These results suggest that the depressive symptoms in AS/HFA patients may be associated with poorer global functioning, with a consequent impairment in their psychological profile and social adjustment, and should alert clinicians to the importance of assessing mood disorders in order to choose the appropriate treatment.
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2011
Psychological Medicine, 2014
Psychiatric Genetics, 2013
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 2010
Neuropsychology Review, 2006
Neuropsychology, 2008
This article compares lexical and grammatical abilities of a mental-age-matched sample of Italian... more This article compares lexical and grammatical abilities of a mental-age-matched sample of Italian preschoolers with Down syndrome (DS), specific language impairment (SLI), or typical development. Results showed that the children with DS or with SLI performed significantly worse than did the typically developing children. Although no significant differences emerged in lexical abilities and morphosyntactic comprehension abilities between the children with DS or with SLI, significant differences did emerge in morphosyntactic production capacities. Qualitative analysis of the morphosyntactic errors revealed strong similarities between the two groups. The results are discussed in terms of the role of verbal memory abilities and the linguistic features of Italian.
Neuropsychology, 2004
This article describes the relationship between reading, phonological awareness abilities (PA), a... more This article describes the relationship between reading, phonological awareness abilities (PA), and intelligence in a group of 16 individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) and in a group of 16 typically developing children, matched for mental age. The individuals with WS were impaired in passage comprehension, in some areas of PA investigated (syllable deletion and rhyme detection), and in nonword reading accuracy, a measure of grapheme-phoneme conversion. This latter finding is relevant, considering that in Italy regular print-to-sound correspondence is the most practiced teaching routine in the early phases of learning to read.
Neuropsychologia, 2011
Numerous studies have shown that imitating observed actions belongs to the same category of proce... more Numerous studies have shown that imitating observed actions belongs to the same category of processes involved in planning and executing actions. New competencies may be acquired by actually executing a task or by executing a task after having seen how to do it. The performance of thirty dyslexic children was compared with that of an age- and gender-matched group of thirty normally reading children on tasks of learning a visuo-motor sequence by observation or by trial and error. The children observed an actor detecting a visuo-motor sequence and then performed the task reproducing either the previously observed sequence or a new one (Learning by Observation), or detected a sequence by trial and error (Learning by Doing), or first performed the task by trial and error and then performed it after an observational training (Learning by Observation after Doing). Results demonstrate that the dyslexic children were severely impaired in learning a sequence by observation, were able to detect a sequence by trial and error, and became as efficient as normal readers in reproducing an observed sequence after a task of learning by doing. Thus, the impaired ability to learn by observation could be reversed by agentive experience that supplied dyslexic children with a powerful learning mechanism, which enabled them to efficiently transfer action information across modalities. The beneficial effect of practice on the ability to learn by observation could provide dyslexic children a useful chance to acquire new cognitive abilities through more tuned teaching approach.
Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 1998
Developmental Neuropsychology - DEVELOP NEUROPSYCHOL, 1999
Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic condition characterized by mental retardation, typical f... more Williams Syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic condition characterized by mental retardation, typical facial dysmorphology, and several medical anomalies. A specific neuropsychological profile with both proficient abilities in language and face recognition and severe difficulties in other visuospatial tasks has been hypothesized in children with WS. This cognitive‐linguistic profile has emerged through comparisons of WS participants with other populations with a similar degree of mental retardation. In this article, performance by WS participants is compared with that of younger normally developing children on linguistic and visuospatial tasks. Results show that the participants included in our study obtained very different profiles in their neuropsychological performance. Overall our results seem to support the hypothesis that children with WS have a complex neuropsychological profile characterized by atypical developments in both the cognitive and the linguistic domain.
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Asperger Syndrome (AS) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are psychiatric conditions belonging to ... more Asperger Syndrome (AS) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are psychiatric conditions belonging to the Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), characterized by social dysfunction and focused interest, in the absence of mental retardation. Previous reports suggest that AS/HFA may be associated with important psychiatric comorbidities. Among the psychiatric internalizing disorders, depression and anxiety are probably the most common disorders. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of mood disorders and identifying peculiar clinical features in subjects suffering from AS and HFA. 30 male patients with AS/HFA, 30 male patients affected by Major Depression (MD) and 35 male Typically Developing (TD) comparison were assessed with the CDI and the CDRS-R. Participants' parents were invited to complete the CBCL and the P-YMRS. Moreover, the CGAS was rated by the clinicians. The evaluation of depressive symptoms showed that AS/HFA group reported higher depressive symptoms, as showed by CDI total, CBCL internalizing and CDRS-R total, compared to the TD group. No significant difference of depressive symptoms was found between the AS/HFA and the MD group, with the exception of CDRS-R total score. Moreover, linear regression analysis in the AS/HFA group between CGAS and depressive symptoms revealed that a higher level of depressive symptoms increased the risk of poorer global functioning. These results suggest that the depressive symptoms in AS/HFA patients may be associated with poorer global functioning, with a consequent impairment in their psychological profile and social adjustment, and should alert clinicians to the importance of assessing mood disorders in order to choose the appropriate treatment.
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2013
Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2011
Psychological Medicine, 2014
Psychiatric Genetics, 2013
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 2010
Neuropsychology Review, 2006
Neuropsychology, 2008
This article compares lexical and grammatical abilities of a mental-age-matched sample of Italian... more This article compares lexical and grammatical abilities of a mental-age-matched sample of Italian preschoolers with Down syndrome (DS), specific language impairment (SLI), or typical development. Results showed that the children with DS or with SLI performed significantly worse than did the typically developing children. Although no significant differences emerged in lexical abilities and morphosyntactic comprehension abilities between the children with DS or with SLI, significant differences did emerge in morphosyntactic production capacities. Qualitative analysis of the morphosyntactic errors revealed strong similarities between the two groups. The results are discussed in terms of the role of verbal memory abilities and the linguistic features of Italian.
Neuropsychology, 2004
This article describes the relationship between reading, phonological awareness abilities (PA), a... more This article describes the relationship between reading, phonological awareness abilities (PA), and intelligence in a group of 16 individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) and in a group of 16 typically developing children, matched for mental age. The individuals with WS were impaired in passage comprehension, in some areas of PA investigated (syllable deletion and rhyme detection), and in nonword reading accuracy, a measure of grapheme-phoneme conversion. This latter finding is relevant, considering that in Italy regular print-to-sound correspondence is the most practiced teaching routine in the early phases of learning to read.
Neuropsychologia, 2011
Numerous studies have shown that imitating observed actions belongs to the same category of proce... more Numerous studies have shown that imitating observed actions belongs to the same category of processes involved in planning and executing actions. New competencies may be acquired by actually executing a task or by executing a task after having seen how to do it. The performance of thirty dyslexic children was compared with that of an age- and gender-matched group of thirty normally reading children on tasks of learning a visuo-motor sequence by observation or by trial and error. The children observed an actor detecting a visuo-motor sequence and then performed the task reproducing either the previously observed sequence or a new one (Learning by Observation), or detected a sequence by trial and error (Learning by Doing), or first performed the task by trial and error and then performed it after an observational training (Learning by Observation after Doing). Results demonstrate that the dyslexic children were severely impaired in learning a sequence by observation, were able to detect a sequence by trial and error, and became as efficient as normal readers in reproducing an observed sequence after a task of learning by doing. Thus, the impaired ability to learn by observation could be reversed by agentive experience that supplied dyslexic children with a powerful learning mechanism, which enabled them to efficiently transfer action information across modalities. The beneficial effect of practice on the ability to learn by observation could provide dyslexic children a useful chance to acquire new cognitive abilities through more tuned teaching approach.