Boosting Children's Memory by Training Mothers in the Use of an Elaborative Conversational Style as an Event Unfolds

An experimental methodology was adapted to examine children's language skills and mothers' conversational styles during a specified event as they are linked to the children's event memory. Thirty-nine preschoolers (mean age = 46.82 months) were pretested and grouped as having high or low language skills. Children in each group were then randomly assigned to either maternal-style training or no training conditions. Trained mothers were instructed to use 4 specific conversational techniques to enhance children's understanding of unfolding events: Wh- questions, associations, follow-ins, and positive evaluations. When observed engaging with their children in a specially constructed camping activity, trained mothers did indeed use these elements of style more than untrained mothers. Moreover, assessments of the children's memory after 1-day- and 3-week-delay intervals indicated substantial effects of both maternal training and children's language skills on remembering.     

Depth of processing and recall of threat material in fearful and nonfearful individuals

Abstract

Although many studies have examined the nature of memory distortions in anxious individuals, few have considered biases in specific memory processes, such as encoding or retrieval. To investigate whether the presentation of threat material facilitates encoding biases, spider fearful (n=63), blood fearful (n=73), and nonfearful (n=75) participants encoded spider related, blood related, and neutral words as a function of three levels of processing (i.e., structural, semantic, and self referent). Participants subsequently completed either a free recall or a recognition task. All participants demonstrated a partial depth of processing effect, such that they recalled more words encoded in the self referent condition than in the other two conditions, but groups did not differ in their recall of stimuli as a function of word type. Relative to participants in the other groups, spider fearful participants had fewer spider related intrusions in the recall condition, and they made fewer errors in responding to structural and semantic encoding questions when spider related words were presented. These results contribute to an increasingly large body of literature suggesting that anxious individuals are not characterized by a memory bias toward threat, and they raise the possibility that individuals with spider fears process threat-relevant information differently than individuals with blood fears.     

A Framework for Summative Evaluation in Informal Science Education

ABSTRACT

Summative evaluation plays a critical role in documenting the impacts of informal science education (ISE), potentially contributing to the ISE knowledge base and informing ongoing improvements in practice and decision-making. In response to the growing demand for capacity-building in ISE evaluation, this article presents a framework for summative evaluation based on an extensive review of literature and research-based refinements. The framework synthesizes key elements of high-quality summative evaluation into three dimensions: (a) Intervention Rationale, (b) Methodological Rigor and Appropriateness, and (c) Evaluation Uses. Judgment of the value of the intervention (e.g., program, exhibition) should draw upon all three dimensions.     

Diabetes Self-Management Profile Short Form: A Preliminary Report

Effective family management of type 1 diabetes in childhood is critical to maintaining optimal glycemic control. The purpose of this study was to provide preliminary evidence for a reduced form of the Diabetes Self-Management Profile (DSMP) using Rasch modeling techniques. The study was a secondary analysis of DSMP data drawn from a previous study on patterns of self-management from 239 preadolescents with type 1 diabetes. Rasch modeling strategies were used to identify the most informative items and then a reduced score composite was correlated with hemoglobin A1c (A1c) and blood glucose monitoring (BGM) frequency. A short form of the DSMP was obtained using seven items that comprised all five subscales of the DSMP. The DSMP Short-Form (DSMP-SF) composite score correlated significantly with child’s HbA1c and BGM frequency. The DSMP-SF may be considered a valid and effective screening interview alternative to the longer, original, DSMP, particularly when attempting to identify high-risk patients.     

The Impact of Childhood Physical Abuse and Age of Sexual Initiation on Women's Maladaptive Posttraumatic Cognitions

Child abuse survivors often exhibit long-standing maladaptive beliefs. Sexual risk-taking could contribute to the maintenance of such beliefs by reinforcing cognitions that originally resulted from child abuse. In this study, 64 community women, most with elevated posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, completed measures of childhood abuse, sexual risk-taking, and posttraumatic cognitions. Age of first consensual sexual intercourse mediated the relationship between childhood physical abuse and maladaptive posttraumatic cognitions in adulthood. Thus, age of sexual intercourse initiation might play an important role in women's recovery from childhood physical abuse. Clinicians should consider the possible impact of women's sexual history when challenging their cognitions during trauma-based cognitive behavioral therapy. Further, decreasing risky sexual behavior might partially protect against the negative effects of trauma.     

BROKEN NARRATIVES: TRAUMA,METACONSTRUCTIVE GAPS,AND THE AUDIENCE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

A constructivist model of posttraumatic psychotherapy is presented with particular attention to the metaphors of "narrative" and "audience." Metaconstruction, implicit construing, and narrative continuity are explored to conceptualize how persons story their experiences, and how some experiences (e.g., traumas) disrupt the storying process. Then the elements of posttraumatic psychotherapy are discussed with case examples illustrating how the therapist, as audience member and conarrator, facilitates the reconstruction and renarration of the client's life story.     

Foster Care Youth Share Stories of Trauma Before,During, and After Placement: Youth Voices for Building Trauma-Informed Systems of Care

Many research studies address child trauma experiences that take place before foster care placement. However, few studies focus on the types and patterns of trauma experiences that reportedly take place during and after foster care placement; that is, after entry into adult living. This study examined the testimony of 43 foster care youth who spoke to a listening panel comprised of state legislators, child welfare professionals, and university educators. Qualitative analyses of transcribed text data revealed 3 main themes. First, the youth reported experiencing trauma before, during, and after placement. Second, the youth described trauma events and situations that were chronic (i.e., intense, composite, or cumulative). Third, youth offered suggestions for reducing traumatic experiences for foster care youth. They recommended earlier family interventions, access to people who listen and care, improved parenting skills for foster parents, continuity of relationships, and opportunities for leadership for foster youth. Foster youth voices offer important suggestions for building, strengthening, and evaluating trauma-informed systems of care.     

Strategies for spatial organization in adults and children

People have a tendency to organize space by extracting meaningful shapes from the configuration of elements. However, research on spatial correspondence in children suggests that when configural processing is difficult, individuation of elements may be critical. To begin to address the distinction between the use of configurations and individuation, and changes associated with age, we relied upon perceptual grouping and manipulated the colour of the displays—promoting either extraction of configural information (monochromatic) or individuation of elements (multicoloured). In a layout reproduction task (Experiments 1 and 2), children showed a robust advantage for multicoloured arrays, whereas adults showed an attenuated advantage for monochromatic displays. Visual discrimination in adults (Experiment 3) revealed that the influence of the display type occurs at the level of perception. Taken together, these results suggest that there are (at least) two routes to establishing spatial correspondence in arrays of elements, with differential dependence over development.     

Shame,posttraumatic stress disorder,and intimate partner violence perpetration

Drawing from theoretical and empirical literature linking shame to aggression and violence, the authors propose that shame may be an important variable to examine in studies of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration. The authors review the literature linking shame, PTSD, and IPV, propose ideas for future research, and suggest that shame and shame regulation may be a useful target of clinical interventions aimed at violence perpetrators.     

The relationship between forgiveness and history of suicide attempt

The sentiment of forgiveness in relationship to suicide attempts/completions has been mostly examined through studies of suicide notes and the experiences of survivors and therapists – not attempters. In a cross-sectional sample of 304 consecutive primary care patients, we examined sentiments about forgiveness using the Forgiveness Scale, comparing those individuals with versus without past suicide attempts. According to findings, individuals with past suicide attempts (N?=?55; 19.1%) evidenced significantly lower composite scores on the Forgiveness Scale. As for individual items, compared to participants without past suicide attempts, those with past suicide attempts were significantly less believing of forgiveness by others, were less likely to forgive themselves, and to a lesser degree, were less forgiving of others. There were no between-group differences with regard to confession of wrongdoing or existential forgiveness by God. Findings may offer some salient avenues of therapeutic inquiry and endeavour in the psychological healing of individuals with past suicide attempts.