Neuropsychiatric, Pedagogic and Psychological Sciences

- Neurolinguistics: Introduction and historical hints
- Definition and aims of neurolinguistics
- Areas of interest and actionAmbiti di indagine e azione of (experimental and clinical) neurolinguistic
- Language psychobiology (language network and anatomo-functional correlates)
- Neurolinguistic methods (clinical and instrumental examination, stimulation techniques)
- Theoretical model analysis
- Error classification
- Introduction to acquired language disorders

· Clinical interview with psychiatric patient; Psichic Evaluation.
· Psychiatric Services in Italy
· Psychopathological elements
· Schizophrenia Scpectrum and other Psychotic disorders
· Depressive and Bipolar disorders
· Anxiety disorders and DOC
· Somatic symptoms and related disorders
· Eating disorders
· Personality disorders

· Types of agnosia
· Input and output process
· General structure of the cognitive system, with particular reference to visual perception, language and semantics.
· Neuroanatomical references. Primary areas, associative areas and their hierarchy. Links between various cortical areas. Organization and role of interhemispheric connections. Vascularization of the different brain areas of cognitive interest. Main classes of diseases underlying cognitive disorders.
· General principles on visual perception. Preliminary processes and structural description system. Marr model. Various types of visual agnosia (apperceptive, associative, simultaneousgnosia). The main test batteries for the diagnosis of visual agnosia (BORB, VOSP).
· Perception of faces, with normal activity models. Bruce and Young model. Prosopoagnosia, prosopoanomia and compromise of personal identity nodes. Structural basis of prosopagnosia and role of the fusiform gyrus. Main tests for the diagnosis of prosopagnosia and identification disorders of known people.
· Reading disorders. Anatomical basis. Alessia pura (Déjerine's disconnection model). Reading disorders by type of material (surface dyslexia, phonological dyslexia, letter-by-letter dyslexia). Exam methods.
· The disorders of the semantic system and their neurological causes. Category specific disorders. Hypotheses and models. Types of semantic disturbance aphasic errors.
· The lexicon: structure and disturbances. Types of aphasic errors from lexical dysfunction.
· Phonological coding. Models and disturbances. Types of aphasic errors from phonological dysfunction.
· The phonological buffer. Functions and consequences of related disturbances.

Module: Developmental neuropsychology
· Normal psychomotor development
· Cognitive and developmental assessment tests Intellectual disability
· Specific learning disorders

Epilepsies of the developmental age
· Paroxysmal non-epileptic manifestations
· Psychopathology of adolescence
· Infantile cerebral palsy
· Autism spectrum disorders
· Nervous anorexia

· Statistic elements (data collection, graphical representation; central tendency measures and position indices; dispersion measures; standardization; verification of hypotheses on dichotomous variables; verification of hypotheses on frequency distributions; verification of hypotheses on correlation coefficient, research on the individual case; consultation of the statistical tables).
· The concepts of reliability and validity of a test related to the neuropsychological field.
· Calibration and standardization of a test. The concept of statistical significance.
· The calculation of the Z results, percentiles and equivalents.
· The concepts of cut-off and normal / pathological judgment (skill levels) with respect to the reference values.
· Classification of neuropsychological tests: paper and pencil tests (paper and pencil test), short scales and questionnaires (screening tests), basic test batteries (pre-packaged and flexible), batteries targeted at individual cognitive domains, neuropsychological markers, computerized tests. Presentation of various evaluation tools.
· Distinction between quantitative psychometric evaluation (score recording) and qualitative cognitive evaluation (analysis of 'how' and why 'of a result).
· Test instrument choice in consideration of the objective and of the psychometric characteristics of the various tests, with particular attention to the tests dedicated to the evaluation of aphasic pictures.
· Use of test data for diagnostic purposes, disease progression, verification of the efficacy of a treatment, with medico-legal treatment or research.
· Baias of test results: related to the examiner, the examinee and the setting itself.
· Examples of administration of some tests. The student will be given some test protocols and the respective correction tables; he will have to obtain the raw marks, adjust the values on the basis of the contribution of the age, sex and schooling of the subject in question, as well as provide a normal / pathological judgment using the threshold-discriminant value.