Four Indicators to Identify Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD)

Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD) refers to a condition in which individuals report getting lost in very familiar surroundings, since childhood, with no other cognitive complaints, and no brain injuries or neurological disorders. While the cognitive and neurological mechanisms underlying DTD are being investigated, to date, there is no tool available to the public and health practitioners for identifying this lifelong condition. Here, we used a decade of data (N = 3794) collected in healthy and DTD individuals to produce a short and reliable measure of self-reported sense of direction that could point to the presence of DTD. We adopted a measure of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) and identified four items of the well-known Santa Barbara Sense of Direction (SBSOD) Scale that retain its original strong internal consistency. These four items remain sensitive to the well-known effects of sex on spatial orientation and, importantly, to the presence of DTD, while maintaining the same pattern of association with a cognitive battery of computerized tasks measuring different spatial abilities. This four-item measure could be of practical use to obtain a rapid assessment of an individual’s self-reported sense of direction and help to identify the presence of DTD in the general population.