Atención, memoria y funciones ejecutivas en niños con antecedentes de maltrato

Abstract

The current study aims to describe the attention, memory, and executive functions of children between five and 12 years old from the city of Medellín. The participants had a history of child abuse -with or without symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder-. This study is a descriptive research with an analytic transversal design for two groups. Researchers conducted the International Neuropsychiatric Interview for Children and Adolescents (M.I.N.I-KIDS), along with the Children’s Neuropsychological Assessment (ENI- for its abbreviation in Spanish) and a battery of Spanish-language tests of Executive Functions and Frontal Lobe (BANFE- for its abbreviation in Spanish). Results were the following: PTSD N=10, age = 7.8 (SD=2.1) and No PTSD N=16, age = 7.7 (SD=2.1). Statistically significant differences in the evaluative process were not found between both groups. These findings agree with other studies on the subject and highlight the importance of implementing research including more cases and variables.

Keywords

• attention
• executive function
• child abuse
• memory
• post-traumatic stress disorder