Objective-To investigate whether micrographia in patients with Parkinson's disease is lessened either by giving visual targets or by continually reminding them that they should write with a normal amplitude. Methods-Eleven patients with Parkinson's disease (mean age 65.4 years) were compared with 14 control subjects (mean age 67.1 years). The subjects wrote with a stylus on a graphics tablet. There were three conditions: free writing, writing with dots to indicate the required size, and writing with continuous verbal reminders ("big"). Each condition was performed twice. Results-The patients wrote with a more normal amplitude when given either the visual cues or the auditory reminders. This improvement persisted when, shortly afterwards, the patients wrote freely without external cues. The increase in amplitude was achieved mainly by an increase in movement time rather than in peak velocity. Conclusion-Whereas the visual cues directly specified the required amplitude the auditory reminders did not. One effect of external cues is that they draw attention to the goal, and thus encourage the patients to write less automatically.

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This work presents normative data for Brazilian children on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Verbal Fluency Test (VFT), and Stroop test (ST). The effects of age were evaluated. The patterns of results were compared with the literature, and validity was assessed using cluster analysis. The participants included 390 healthy subjects, 7–14 years old. Mixed-model analyses of variance were performed, with age as the between-subjects factor and test phase, trial, and stimulus type as the within-subjects factors. A cluster analysis explored the classification of the cognitive variables. Older children performed better than younger children, with differences in learning scores on the VFT and RALVT between children who were 7–8 and 11–12 years old and differences in Stroop times between children who were 9–10 and 11–12 years old. Letter fluency was easier than semantic fluency, with no interaction between type of fluency and age. Stroop times and errors increased as interference increased and decreased as age increased. Age differences in total learning, proactive interference, and forgetting were observed for the RAVLT. The cluster analysis revealed 2 groups: ST variables (attention) and RAVLT and VFT variables (memory). Some differences in terms of absolute scores were found compared with other Brazilian studies, but the results showed internal consistency and a pattern of results similar to the published data. The dissociation between the memory and attention cognitive domains and the pattern of subgroups in the cluster analysis were consistent with the cognitive neuropsychology literature, providing further evidence of the validity of the paradigms.