Critique of tests/tools used in a study of schizophrania in Adolescents - Essay Example

Auditory hallucinations, reflected speech, lack of emotional intelligence and disorganized thinking are some of the other features of schizophrenia in adults. Schizophrenia is known to appear or manifest in late adolescence or early adulthood, but this is not to mean that it cannot appear at any point in an individual’s life. Clear causes of schizophrenia are not known, but it is thought to be associated by chemicals in the brain called neurotransmitters especially dopamine and serotonin. There are no clear diagnostic tools for detecting schizophrenia, which relies on a physician’s diligence and competency to attention to detail in a patient’s medical history.

Schizophrenia in adolescents influences their social, home and school lives where they have trouble interacting with people around them and/or act appropriately. Adolescents find themselves unable to remember things they are supposed to, and they sometimes feel misunderstood. Thus, it is necessary to understand the on goings of schizophrenia in order to them cope and manage the condition. This paper seeks to provide a critique of tests/tools used in a study of schizophrenia, in adolescents meant to investigate the main subcomponents of verbal memory and verbal fluency in adolescents with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

The article titled Verbal memory and verbal fluency in adolescents with schizophrenia spectrum disorders by Landro and Ueland. . or low verbal fluency does not necessarily correlate with intelligence, but it is used in neurological assessments to collect information about patients. Memory fluency refers to the rate at which an individual retrieves information that is based on processing fluency. The study used various tools or tests to measure for the above mentioned aspects in both the test and control groups.

The control group enabled the researchers to evaluate and determine the effects of schizophrenia on cognition and recall in the two groups. The study used two intelligence scales namely the Similarities (WISC-R/WAIS-R) and the Picture Completion (WISC-R/WAIS-R). This two scales are based on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) that is meant to test intelligence in adults and older adolescents. The test is based on the notion that intelligence is composed of different mental abilities rather than a single factor of intelligence that is generalized (Landro & Ueland, 2008).

A Youth Self Report (YSR) was used as a screening tool for the control group selection of participants that evaluated their emotional and behavioural problems that could have jeopardized the study’s objectives. The research study could have been confounded by the use of drugs by some test or patient participants because drugs could have had a diminishing or heightening effect on the test aspects and conditions. The research study’s construction methodology serves its purpose because the concurrent execution of the tests to both the control group and test group reduced variations over time that could have created room for confounds to become significant (Fagerlund, Pagsberg, & Hemmingsen, 2006).

Reliability and validity of the results from the research was an aspect that the researchers embarked on