Identification of neuropsychological profiles in preschoolers: characterization of a transdiagnostic approach to clinical neuropsychological evaluation

OBJECTIVE: Early childhood is a known period of rapid cognitive development and vulnerability for altered developmental trajectories leading to clinical diagnoses. This study explored a transdiagnostic approach to neuropsychological evaluations in early childhood to determine concordance between theoretically based quantitatively derived cognitive and standard diagnostic classification based on clinical judgment in a clinical sample of preschool-aged children in hopes of confirming the ability to identify diagnostic cognitive profiles in early childhood. METHOD: defined score parameters. Chi-square analyses were used to compare quantitively defined profiles with clinical diagnostic impressions. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the impact of sociodemographic and medical factors. RESULTS: quantitative definition. No significant impact of sociodemographic or medical variables was observed. CONCLUSIONS: It is possible to evaluate and identify different cognitive profiles associated with clinical diagnoses in preschool-aged children. One-third of the sample demonstrated evaluation results consistent with strictly defined quantitative standardized score cognitive profiles. Rigid quantitatively defined profiles underestimate individual variability indicating that a transdiagnostic approach that combines quantitative analysis and clinical expertise is still necessary to support early recognition of clinical diagnoses and intervention needs. Future work is needed to better define flexible transdiagnostic cognitive models, as well as to examine shared mechanisms for intervention to promote neurodevelopment in young children.