Development and validation of a scale to assess positive youth development values

This paper describes the development of a self-report scale for adolescents to assess positive youth development values. It presents a substantial number of psychometric results performed on a sample of 2,400 adolescents (1,068 boys and 1,332 girls) from 12 to 17 years ( M = 14.73, SD = 1.25), who were studying secondary education in Western Andalusia. The results provide evidence of the psychometric quality of items, cross-validity of a structure of eight first-order factors and three second-order factors, obtained through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and adequate reliability. This study concludes that the scale presents adequate evidence of validity and reliability that allows assessment, especially in school contexts, of a broad set of values of particular relevance to positive youth development.     

Revisiting the suitability of antisaccade performance as an endophenotype in schizophrenia

Poor performance on the antisaccade task has been proposed as a candidate endophenotype in schizophrenia. Caveats to this proposal, however, include inconsistent findings in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia, and substantial heterogeneity in individuals with the disorder. In this study, we examined antisaccade performance in patients and relatives, and sought to establish whether antisaccade measures could differentiate between two patients clusters identified in the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia with either pervasive cognitive deficits (CD) or cognitively spared (CS). Ninety-three patients (CD = 47, CS = 46), 99 relatives and 62 healthy controls carried out a standard antisaccade task. Results showed: (i) significantly greater error rate, and prolonged latencies to correct responses and self-correction saccades in patients compared with controls; (ii) high error rates in relatives of poorly performing patients; (iii) longer latencies of self-correction saccades in relatives compared to controls; and (iv) higher error rate and longer latencies of self-correction saccades in the CD subgroup compared with CS. Unaffected relatives as a group were unimpaired in error rate as compared to healthy controls. These findings suggest that the antisaccade error rate and latency of self-correction saccades are useful measures in specific applications of genetic research in schizophrenia, without fully meeting endophenotype co-familiality requirements.     

Evidence-Based Assessment in Children and Adolescents with Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder

The assessment of varied psychiatric disorders, including obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), is shifting towards the use of evidence-based assessments (EBAs). This shift has fostered the development, validation and adaptation of several measures to rate obsessive–compulsive symptoms and other related problematic areas such as functional impairment or family attitudes among others. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic review of psychometric studies on pediatric OCD-specific measures to classify these according to assessment evidence-based criteria. Selection criteria that determined which studies were included in the review were: (1) analyzing an OCD measure and (2) including participants’ age being 18 years or younger. The literature search procedure was conducted in Medline, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, ERIC, Cochrane Library, and Scholar Google databases and enabled us to locate 42 studies which analyzed psychometric properties of 14 OCD measures studied in children and adolescents. Instruments were grouped into the following assessment areas: symptom presence and severity, functional impairment, family functioning and cognitive dimensions of OCD. Psychometric data regarding internal structure, internal consistency, reliability, validity and diagnostic precision were also reported. Further, measures were classified as well-established, approaching well-established and promising assessments in terms of reliability and validity. We concluded that the assessment of OCD in pediatric populations is a growing field that in a short-medium term could provide a wide variety of EBAs for the evaluation obsessive–compulsive symptoms and other OCD-related dimensions. The paper concludes by highlighting directions for future research.     

Effects of training condition on the contribution of specific items to relational processing in baboons (Papio papio)

Relational processing involves learning about the relationship between or among stimuli, transcending the individual stimuli, so that abstract knowledge generalizable to novel situations is acquired. Relational processing has been studied in animals as well as in humans, but little attention has been paid to the contribution of specific items to relational thinking or to the factors that may affect that contribution. This study assessed the intertwined effects of item and relational processing in nonhuman primates. Using a procedure that entailed both expanding and contracting sets of pictorial items, we trained 13 baboons on a two-alternative forced-choice task, in which they had to distinguish horizontal from vertical relational patterns. In Experiment 1, monkeys engaged in item-based processing with a small training set size, and they progressively engaged in relation-based processing as training set size was increased. However, in Experiment 2, overtraining with a small stimulus set promoted the processing of item-based information. These findings underscore similarities in how humans and nonhuman primates process higher-order stimulus relations.     

Space and Language in Conceptualizing Identity

In this paper, we discuss the conceptualization of space as a dimension relevant to personal identity and the central role that is attributed to language with respect to its constitution. It is argued that the identification with a certain geographical space and the use of (a) certain language(s) or linguistic variety can be regarded as crucial for the self-definition of individuals and also groups. We pursue a threefold goal: (1) to highlight the contribution of geographical research to our understanding of the self as a phenomenon situated in space; (2) to discern merits, but also problems related to the recent strong emphasis of the role of language with respect to identity constitution, especially in constructivist and poststructuralist approaches; and (3) on the basis of these findings, to draw conclusions concerning the given and constructed elements of identity, with a particular focus on space and language. In addition to a survey of relevant theoretical positions, empirical examples are presented with the aim to illustrate how geographically marked identity is constituted.

     

Early emotional memories and well-being in adolescence: The roles of shame and self-critical attitudes

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Some studies have demonstrated the link between the recall of early affiliative experiences and psychopathological symptoms in adolescence. However, literature...     

Measuring Productivity in Primary Care Behavioral Health: A Delphi Study

High productivity by behavioral health consultants (BHC) is a defining aspect of the primary care behavioral health (PCBH) model to maximize access to care and is often measured by patient volume. Studies of productivity in health care settings suggest a single productivity target may not be optimal. We used a Delphi method to obtain expert consensus on an operational definition of high productivity by BHCs in the PCBH model. Clinicians, managers, and researchers in PCBH were recruited to participate in a multi-round survey using a modified Delphi technique and develop consensus on PCBH productivity metrics. Ten participants completed all three survey rounds and rated 28 metrics. After three rounds, two direct metrics (average number of billable BHC visits each day; number of patients seen per day) received at least 80% consensus as “Essential”, two received at least 50%, and five received less than 50%. One influencer (level of integration at the practice) received at least 80% consensus as “Very Much” influential, 19 received at least 50%, and eight items received less than 50%. Several themes arose from participant comments. PCBH productivity can be interpreted as being high volume. Numerous practice factors influence how productive a BHC may be. Future studies should determine the feasibility of our metrics in clinical practice, establish productivity expectations based on patient needs and clinic resources, and identify patient-, clinician-, or practice-level moderators of productivity.

     

Interparental Conflict Appraisals and Adolescents’ Maladaptation in Siblings: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The aim of this study was to evaluate dyadic effects among siblings by testing an actor–partner interdependence model of associations between...     

The mark of adaptive memory in healthy and cognitively impaired older adults and elderly

The survival processing paradigm has recently drawn attention to the functional aspects of memory functioning. The survival effect, characterized by better memory performance when information is processed in a survival context, as compared with a variety of controls, is now well established in healthy populations. The main goal of this study was to test this paradigm in a group of cognitively impaired older adults and elderly; their data were compared to the data obtained in a group of healthy older adults and elderly. Seventeen cognitively impaired and 17 healthy participants performed a typical survival task using a blocked within‐subject design procedure and free recall as the memory test. The healthy older adults and elderly performed better on this memory task as well as on other tests included in a neuropsychological evaluation protocol. Importantly, both groups benefited from survival processing. These results provide further support for the power of survival processing, extending this phenomenon to cognitively impaired aging participants. The data also suggest that the survival effect is not simply a form of deep processing. Potential applied considerations are presented.