Validation of a measure of injury-risk behaviors in the first 2 years of life: Infant/Toddler-Injury Behavior Questionnaire (IT-IBQ)

Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for young children and many result from them doing injury-risk behaviors in the home. There are a number of questionnaire measures of injury-risk behaviors for children 2 years and older, but none that apply during infancy. The current study addressed this gap. Parents completed the new Infant/Toddler-Injury Behavior Questionnaire when infants were pre-mobile (sitting independently) and mobile (walking independently), with diary measures of injuries and risk behaviors taken continuously throughout this period. Validated questionnaire measures of chaos and routines in the home were also completed. The IT-IBQ showed positive associations with injuries, risk behaviors, and degree of chaos in the home, and was negatively associated with family routines. The results provide evidence for criterion validity and suggest that the new measure holds promise as one that can aid in identifying infants who are likely to engage in injury-risk behaviors.     

Enuresis, firesetting, and cruelty to animals: does the ego triad show predictive validity?

The hypothesis tested in this study was that the presence of enuresis and cruelty to animals in juvenile firesetters would be significantly related to recidivistic firesetting. This hypothesis was related to Yarnell's belief in an ego triad among juvenile firesetters, which linked the occurrence of enuresis, cruelty to animals and others, and firesetting. No relationship was found between groups for firesetting recidivism and enuresis. However, juveniles who were identified as being cruel to animals were more likely than those who were not cruel to animals to engage in recidivistic firesetting behaviors.     

Improvements in problem behavior in a child with autism spectrum diagnosis through synthesized analysis and treatment: A replication in an EIBI home program

A recent study described a synthesized treatment where a functional analysis was based on an open‐ended interview and combined with functional communication and delay‐tolerance training. The treatment resulted in a reduction in problem behaviors and an increase in appropriate requests. Most of the analysis and intervention were done in a clinic setting, and required weekly visits by the family. This present study is a systematic replication, where we conducted the same synthesized treatments, with a young child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) enrolled in a home‐based Early Intensive Behavior Intervention program, EIBI. Outcomes were similar with a marked reduction in problem behaviors and an increase in appropriate requests. These findings suggest that it is possible to conduct this intervention in a home setting, with weekly consultations with parents. Our study show the utility of the synthesized treatment in an EIBI program in a home setting and how this can contribute to client time and costs.     

Functional Analytic Psychotherapy for Nursing Home Residents: A Single-Subject Investigation of Session-by-Session Changes

Nursing home settings contain unique environmental factors that may promote the acquisition and maintenance of problematic interpersonal behaviors. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) is a contextually-based behavior therapy that can be used to modify problematic interpersonal behaviors via carefully provided and contingent in-session responses of the therapist to client behaviors. Thus, FAP would appear to be a particularly well-suited intervention approach for nursing home residents. To date, the effects of FAP have not been reported for nursing home residents. The current single case study assessed the effects of FAP on three nursing home residents using a single-subject AB design. The AB design consisted of a 2-weeks baseline phase followed by a 4-week FAP treatment phase. The nursing home residents completed pre-treatment and post-treatment measures of interpersonal relating. Client interpersonal behaviors were also recorded during each session and coded into two categories: Maladaptive in-session behaviors and adaptive in-session behaviors. Using the reliable change index and Swanson’s dsw to evaluate questionnaire outcomes, results indicated that all three participants reported a significant change in interpersonal functioning. Analysis of in-session behavior indicated that there were significant decreases in maladaptive behaviors and an increase in adaptive behaviors for two clients. Finally, observed in-session behavior changes were congruent with self-reported changes in interpersonal behavior. These results indicate that FAP was an effective intervention for these nursing home residents.     

BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT OF DEVIANT SEX-ROLE BEHAVIORS IN A MALE CHILD1

This study demonstrated reinforcement control over pronounced feminine behaviors in a male child who had been psychologically evaluated as manifesting “childhood cross-gender identity”. The clinical history of the subject paralleled the retrospective reports of adult transsexuals, including (a) cross-gender clothing preferences, (b) actual or imaginal use of cosmetic articles, (c) feminine behavior mannerisms, (d) aversion to masculine activities, coupled with preference for girl playmates and feminine activities, (e) preference for female role, (f) feminine voice inflection and predominantly feminine content in speech, and (g) verbal statements about the desire or preference to be a girl. The subject was treated sequentially in the clinic and home environments by his mother, trained to be his therapist. The mother was taught to reinforce masculine behaviors and to extinguish feminine behaviors, by using social reinforcement in the clinic and a token reinforcement procedure in the home. During this treatment, his feminine behaviors sharply decreased and masculine behavior increased. The treatment effects were found to be largely response-specific and stimulus-specific; consequently, it was necessary to strengthen more than one masculine behavior and weaken several feminine behaviors, in both clinic and home settings. A multiple-baseline intrasubject design was used to ensure both replication and identification of relevant treatment variables. Follow-up data three years after the treatment began suggests that the boy's sex-typed behaviors have become normalized. This study suggests a preliminary step toward correcting pathological sex-role development in boys, which may provide a basis for the primary prevention of adult transsexualism or similar adult sex-role deviation.     

Getting ready: Results of a randomized trial of a relationship‐focused intervention on the parent–infant relationship in rural early head start

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a relational intervention (the Getting Ready intervention) on parenting behaviors supporting the parent–infant relationship for families enrolled in Early Head Start home‐based programming. Two‐hundred thirty‐four parents and their children participated in the randomized study, with 42% of parents reporting education of less than a high‐school diploma. Brief, semistructured parent–child interaction tasks were videotaped every 4 months over a16‐month intervention period. Observational codes of parent–infant relationship behaviors included quality of three parental behaviors: warmth and sensitivity, support for learning, and encouragement of autonomy; two appropriateness indicators: support for learning and guidance/directives; and one amount indicator: constructive behaviors. Parents who participated in the Getting Ready intervention demonstrated higher quality interactions with their children that included enhanced quality of warmth and sensitivity, and support for their children's autonomy than did parents in the control group. They also were more likely to use appropriate directives with their children and more likely to demonstrate appropriate supports for their young children's learning. Results indicate an added value of the Getting Ready intervention for Early Head Start home‐based programming for families of infants and toddlers.     

Social interaction patterns of geriatric home and community residents

Thirty elderly nursing home residents and ten community residing older adults were observed in group settings. Their behavior was assessed for dependent personal maintenance, independent personal maintenance, and appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Responses by staff and peers to these behaviors were classified as positive, negative, or ignore. The frequency of occurrence of these behaviors as well as the relationship of resident to peer or staff behaviors were analyzed. Results indicate that community-residing elders' behaviors differ from nursing home residents' in quantity rather than quality of interactions. There was a lower frequency of behaviors in the nursing home residents. Though older adults respond differentially to various behaviors of other nursing home residents, staff responses were consistent regardless of residents' behavior. These results suggest that geriatric home residents' behavior can be characterized as withdrawn rather than dependent.     

The effects and side effects of punishing the autistic behaviors of a deviant child

Timeout procedures in the home and extinction and reinforcement of incompatible behaviors in the laboratory failed to eliminate the disruptive and dangerous climbing behavior of a deviant child. Punishment with electric shock was used to eliminate this behavior in the laboratory and then in the home. The effects were reversible and were restricted to specific stimulus conditions. A less severe form of punishment was used to eliminate the child's autistic rocking. Other behaviors of the subject were continuously measured in the laboratory to determine the side effects of punishment. No suppression of other behaviors correlated with punishment was noted. However, the rate of some behaviors increased when punishment was used to eliminate deviant behaviors, but these increases were, primarily, desirable.     

Efficacy of a Self-Administered Home-Based Parent Intervention on Parenting Behaviors for Preventing Adolescent Substance Use

A growing body of literature suggests that parenting practices characterized by careful monitoring, firm and consistent limit setting, and nurturing communication patterns with children are protective against adolescent substance use and other problem behaviors. Family-based prevention programs that promote these behaviors can be an effective way to prevent adolescent substance use. However, low participation rates remain problematic for many such programs, particularly programs that require parents to attend scheduled meetings outside the home. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of a newly developed substance use prevention program when self-administered at home by parents of middle school students. As part of a randomized trial, 338 parents of middle school students either received the parent prevention program or served as control group participants. Parents completed self-report surveys at home that assessed parenting behaviors at pre-test, post-test, and one-year follow-up time points. A series of mixed model ANCOVAs were conducted, examining the post-test and one-year follow-up means for the parent outcomes, controlling for pre-test levels on these outcomes. Analyses showed that at the post-test assessment, intervention parents reported significant increases relative to controls in appropriate role modeling, disciplinary practices, family communication, and parental monitoring skills. At the one-year follow-up assessment, intervention effects on family communication skills remained significant and effects on parental role modeling were marginally significant. This study shows that a theoretically rich prevention program can be effectively self-administered by parents at home and improve key parenting skills that have been shown to prevent adolescent substance use.     

When can employees have a family life? The effects of daily workload and affect on work-family conflict and social behaviors at home

This article presents a longitudinal examination of antecedents and outcomes of work-to-family conflict. A total of 106 employees participating in an experience-sampling study were asked to respond to daily surveys both at work and at home, and their spouses were interviewed daily via telephone for a period of 2 weeks. Intraindividual analyses revealed that employees' perceptions of workload predicted work-to-family conflict over time, even when controlling for the number of hours spent at work. Workload also influenced affect at work, which in turn influenced affect at home. Finally, perhaps the most interesting finding in this study was that employees' behaviors in the family domain (reported by spouses) were predicted by the employees' perceptions of work-to-family conflict and their positive affect at home.     

A new archival approach to the study of values and value--behavior relations: validation of the value lexicon

The present effort employs a new archival approach to study values and value- behavior relations, which is likely to be particularly useful in applied settings. A value lexicon was developed on the basis of the Schwartz (1992) value theory to extract lexical indicators of values from texts. The convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of this measure was established using American newspaper content from 1900 to 2000 vis-à-vis existing self-report measures of values and objective indicators of value-expressive behaviors. Results provide empirical support for the use of the value lexicon to study values and value- behavior relations. First, the value lexicon demonstrated convergence with self-report responses of values. Second, values in American newspapers were associated with objective indicators of their corresponding value-expressive behaviors compared with noncorresponding value- expressive behaviors. Third, patterns of values over this 101-year period exhibited meaningful fluctuations with major historical and political events. The discussion describes new possibilities for future research on values in many applied settings with the value lexicon. The discussion also suggests that the principles of the value lexicon could be adopted to measure other psychological constructs of interest to applied psychology.     

The ‘Fractionable Autism Triad’: A Review of Evidence from Behavioural,Genetic, Cognitive and Neural Research

Autism is diagnosed on the basis of a triad of impairments in social interaction, communication, and flexible imaginative functions (with restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests; RRBIs). There has been a strong presumption that these different features of the syndrome are strongly intertwined and proceed from a common cause at the genetic, cognitive and neural levels. In this review we examine evidence for an alternative approach, considering the triad as largely ‘fractionable’. We present evidence from our own twin studies, and review relevant literature on autism and autistic-like traits in other groups. We suggest that largely independent genes may operate on social skills/impairments, communication abilities, and RRBIs, requiring a change in molecular-genetic research approaches. At the cognitive level, we suggest that satisfactory accounts exist for each of the triad domains, but no single unitary account can explain both social and nonsocial features of autism. We discuss the implications of the fractionable-triad approach for both diagnosis and future research directions.     

Patterns of Sexuality Communication Between Preadolescents and Their Mothers and Fathers

The purpose of the current study was to examine communication about sexual topics between preadolescents and their mothers and fathers. Participants were 135 African-American mothers, fathers, and their 9- to 12-year-old offspring. Each member of the triad completed a 10-item measure of communication about risk factors for sexual activity, sexual communication, and sexual risk prevention. A majority of parents and their preadolescents reported communication had occurred about most topics. Mothers and fathers were equally likely to communicate with sons whereas mothers were more likely to communicate with daughters than were fathers. Based on the study results, preadolescence may be the optimal time for parents to provide sexual risk prevention messages to their children before sexual behaviors are initiated.     

Further observational data on the behavioral and social world of institutions for the aged

This study is an extension of previous observational work on the social ecology of dependence and independence in the institutionalized elderly. Observations of everyday, naturally occurring interactions between elderly residents of two different long-term institutions and their social partners were extended such that, aside from the identification of type of behavior, the dyadic form and continuity of each behavior was specified. The following were among the major results: (a) Previously found interaction patterns between elderly residents and their social partners, replicated in both a nursing home and a home for the chronically ill, supported the notion of discrepant social ecologies for dependent versus independent behaviors of residents: (b) specification of each behavioral act as to its dyadic form underscored the fact that the interactions were controlled largely by social partners and not by the elderly residents; (c) coding continuity or discontinuity of behavior suggested that independent behaviors were maintained by chaining; and (d) elderly residents in the home for the chronically ill evinced, as expected, more dependence-related behaviors.     

Setting generality: some specific and general effects of child behavior therapy

The present study attempted to assess experimentally, functional relationships between home and school settings. Two children, both considered deviant in their homes and in their schools, were observed in both settings. The observations revealed that the children's deviant behaviors at home were quite similar to their deviant behaviors at school. Contingency operations were then performed in the children's homes. Results showed that the children's behavior changed predictably in the homes and remained at baseline level in school.     

Parental values, reinforcement, and young children's prosocial behavior: a longitudinal study.

In this study, the authors assessed the relation of parental reinforcement and parental values to young children's prosocial behaviors. Parents' dyadic interactions with their 1- to 2-year-old children were videotaped in the home on two occasions approximately 6 months apart. The children also were videotaped playing with a peer at 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 years of age. Parental reinforcement of the children's prosocial behaviors was coded, as were the children's prosocial behaviors with the peer. The frequency of girls' spontaneous prosocial behaviors decreased in the early years; modest consistency was observed for boys (but not girls) across the two parental sessions. No relation existed between the frequency of children's prosocial behaviors with their parents and their behaviors with peers. Both maternal and paternal valuing of compliance were negatively related to the mothers' use of reinforcement for children's spontaneous prosocial behaviors. Parental reinforcement of compliant prosocial behaviors was negatively related to children's compliance with a peer's request for prosocial behavior and positively related to defensive behavior with the peer. Fathers' valuing of prosocial behavior was associated with children's compliance with the peer's requests for prosocial action. Parents who valued compliance had children who exhibited low levels of compliant prosocial behaviors with the peer, possibly because of the depressed level of peer interaction.     

Staff-administered functional analysis and treatment of aggression by an elder with dementia

In the current study, nursing home staff were taught to administer functional analyses to determine the variables maintaining aggression by an elder with dementia. The results indicated that aggression was evoked during bathroom routines and that escape maintained aggression. Staff then reduced aggression to near-zero levels with noncontingent escape. Implications for the assessment and treatment of problem behaviors in nursing home settings are discussed.     

Family incivility and counterproductive work behavior: A moderated mediation model of self-esteem and emotional regulation

Drawing from the work–home resources model, we examined the relations of family incivility, counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), state self-esteem, and emotional regulation. Results from three-wave lagged data (N = 284) indicated that family incivility was positively correlated with counterproductive work behaviors, and this relationship was mediated by state self-esteem. In addition, emotional regulation mitigated the relationship between family incivility and state self-esteem. The findings suggested that family incivility, as an emotional contextual demand in the home domain, is related to negative outcome (deviant behavior) in the work context (i.e., CWB) through the depletion of the personal resource—state self-esteem, while emotional regulation is a key resource that mitigates this relationship. This paper discusses the implications of these findings with respect to applications and developments of the work–home resources model.     

The effects of staff self-management on positive social interactions in a group home setting

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a participative management (self-management) procedure directed toward increasing the frequency of positive interactions between direct-care staff and group home residents. A component of the self-management procedure, goal setting, was also evaluated. This study took place in two group homes housing a total of 16 male and female adults with moderate to mild mental retardation. Ten direct-care staff served as subjects. It was found that self-management produced an increase in the frequency of positive interactions of staff and residents, but did not produce changes in other behaviors being measured (e.g., negative interactions, self-stimulation, etc.). Goal setting did not result in changes in positive interactions or other target behaviors. Reasons for the different results of self-management versus goal-setting are discussed and further research is suggested.