Reduced Alternating Gaze During Social Interaction in Infancy is Associated with Elevated Symptoms of Autism in Toddlerhood

In typical development, infants often alternate their gaze between their interaction partners and interesting stimuli, increasing the probability of joint attention toward surrounding objects and creating opportunities for communication and learning. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been found to engage less in behaviors that can initiate joint attention compared to typically developing children, but the role of such atypicalities in the development of ASD during infancy is not fully understood. Here, using eye tracking technology in a live setting, we show that 10-month-olds at high familial risk for ASD engage less in alternating gaze during interaction with an adult compared to low risk infants. These differences could not be explained by low general social preference or slow visual disengagement, as the groups performed similarly in these respects. We also found that less alternating gaze at 10 months was associated with more social ASD symptoms and less showing and pointing at 18 months. These relations were similar in both the high risk and the low risk groups, and remained when controlling for general social preference and disengagement latencies. This study shows that atypicalities in alternating gaze in infants at high risk for ASD emerge already during the first 10 months of life - a finding with theoretical as well as potential practical implications.     

Explaining Differences in Subjective Well‐Being Across 33 Nations Using Multilevel Models: Universal Personality,Cultural Relativity,and National Income

This multinational study simultaneously tested three prominent hypotheses—universal disposition, cultural relativity, and livability—that explained differences in subjective well‐being across nations. We performed multilevel structural equation modeling to examine the hypothesized relationships at both individual and cultural levels in 33 nations. Participants were 6,753 university students (2,215 men; 4,403 women; 135 did not specify), and the average age of the entire sample was 20.97 years (SD = 2.39). Both individual‐ and cultural‐level analyses supported the universal disposition and cultural relativity hypotheses by revealing significant associations of subjective well‐being with Extraversion, Neuroticism, and independent self‐construal. In addition, interdependent self‐construal was positively related to life satisfaction at the individual level only, whereas aggregated negative affect was positively linked with aggregate levels of Extraversion and interdependent self‐construal at the cultural level only. Consistent with the livability hypothesis, gross national income (GNI) was related to aggregate levels of negative affect and life satisfaction. There was also a quadratic relationship between GNI and aggregated positive affect. Our findings reveal that universal disposition, cultural self‐construal, and national income can elucidate differences in subjective well‐being, but the multilevel analyses advance the literature by yielding new findings that cannot be identified in studies using individual‐level analyses alone.     

The Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children: Cross-Cultural Assessment with a New Self-Report Measure

This study describes a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses that were conducted with the 44-item Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children- 4th version (SAQ-CIV) to identify a reduced set of items that might be used to construct a new abbreviated instrument for measuring social anxiety in children and adolescents. The fourth version of the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-CIV) was administered to 12,801 non-clinical participants (ages 9 to 15 years) from 12 Latin American countries and Spain. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a 6-factor structure of social anxiety in children, replicating a similar structure to that of adults (Caballo et al. in Behavioral Psychology/Psicología Conductual, 18(1), 5–34, 2010; Caballo et al. in Behavior Therapy, 43(2), 313–328, 2012): 1) Interactions with the opposite sex, 2) Criticism and embarrassment, 3) Speaking in public/Talking to teachers, 4) Assertive expression of annoyance and disgust, 5) Performing in public, and 6) Interactions with strangers. Each of the factors contains 4 items, yielding an abbreviated 24-item instrument, the Social Anxiety Questionnaire for Children (SAQ-C). The present results suggest this is a reliable, valid, and culturally sensitive instrument to assess social anxiety in youth.     

中国心理学六十年的回顾与展望——纪念中国心理学会成立六十周年

<正> 中国心理学会成立已经六十周年了。六十年来,我国的心理学走过了不太长而颇为曲折坎坷的道路,有许多经验值得总结,有好些教训应该记取。让我们趁此学会成立六十周年的日子,回顾既往,展望未来,把我国心理学推向一个新的阶段。     

Effects of early child‐care on cognition,language, and task‐related behaviours at 18 months: An English study

This study investigated the effects of different characteristics of early child‐care in England on the development of cognition, language, and task‐related attention and behaviour (orientation/engagement and emotion regulation during the Bayley assessment) at 18 months. Data were drawn from a prospective longitudinal study of 1,201 infants. As found in previous studies, socio‐demographic characteristics and maternal caregiving (especially ‘opportunities for stimulation’) were significant predictors of all child outcomes. There were also effects of quantity of individual and group care, and quality of non‐maternal care. Controlling for demographics and maternal caregiving, more hours of group care (nurseries) were related to higher cognitive scores, while more hours of individual care (e.g., grandparents, nannies etc.) were related to lower orientation/engagement scores. Non‐maternal caregiving was observed in a subsample of 345 children, and after controlling for all covariates as well as quantity and stability of care, quality of care was found to be predictive of higher cognitive ability and better orientation/engagement. Although the effect sizes were small in magnitude, in line with other similar studies, such modest effects from a large English sample are important when viewed in light of the widespread use of non‐maternal care during infancy and early childhood.     

Post-Adoption Services for High-Risk Families and Their Children: Preliminary Results of a State-Wide Intervention

Despite well-documented post-adoption needs of adoptive families, most states provide no or very limited post-adoption services. This study describes Right Turn® (RT), a state-wide program for strengthening adoptive families and preventing adoption dissolution. Results suggest: (a) RT is serving its targeted audience of adoptive families with challenging problems indicated by older adopted children with a history of multiple placements, extended time in social services systems, and a host of mental health challenges; and (b) adoption training, family support when navigating access to post-adoption services, and collaboration with adoption-competent therapists appeared to have helped improve program outcomes.     

Spiritual Health and Outcomes in Muslim ICU Patients: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

The aim of the present study is to describe how religiosity and spirituality affect the psychiatric morbidity of Muslim intensive care unit (ICU) patients. We conducted a prospective nationwide cross-sectional study of ICU patients discharged from 45 medical centers spanning 31 proivinces in Iran. Adults (age ≥ 18 years) admitted to the ICU and treated with invasive mechanical ventilation were eligible. Nine validated survey tools were administered to detect direct and indirect associations between spiritual health (SH) and depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic disorder. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Impact of Event Scale—Revised (IES-R), Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome 14 question (PTSS-14) quality-of-life (QoL), and quality of patient to physician or nurse communication (PP-QoC and PN-QoC) scales were modeled through two mediators by structural equation modeling (SEM). Sex, ICU type, LOS, and APACHE II score were added in the independent variable list. 338 eligible patients were discharged from the ICUs during the study period. 56 were excluded (clinical status), and 282 were administered the survey. 278 returned it, with 272 complete and 6 partial responses. SH displayed no direct or indirect association to QoL. SH was indirectly associated with decreased depression and anxiety (B = ? 0.081, p < 0.05) via PP-QoC mediator. Both direct and indirect positive associations were observed between SH and IES-R (B = 0.293, p < 0.05; via PP-QoC) and PTSS-14 scores (B = 0.267, p < 0.001; via PP-QoC). Medical ICU location was associated with decreased PTSS-14 scores via the same mediator. In this survey of Muslim ICU patients treated with invasive mechanical ventilation, SH correlated with decreased depression and anxiety, but paradoxically increased post-traumatic stress. The most influential mediator was patient–physician quality-of-communication.     

Visual search and autism symptoms: What young children search for and co‐occurring ADHD matter

Superior visual search is one of the most common findings in the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) literature. Here, we ascertain how generalizable these findings are across task and participant characteristics, in light of recent replication failures. We tested 106 3‐year‐old children at familial risk for ASD, a sample that presents high ASD and ADHD symptoms, and 25 control participants, in three multi‐target search conditions: easy exemplar search (look for cats amongst artefacts), difficult exemplar search (look for dogs amongst chairs/tables perceptually similar to dogs), and categorical search (look for animals amongst artefacts). Performance was related to dimensional measures of ASD and ADHD, in agreement with current research domain criteria (RDoC). We found that ASD symptom severity did not associate with enhanced performance in search, but did associate with poorer categorical search in particular, consistent with literature describing impairments in categorical knowledge in ASD. Furthermore, ASD and ADHD symptoms were both associated with more disorganized search paths across all conditions. Thus, ASD traits do not always convey an advantage in visual search; on the contrary, ASD traits may be associated with difficulties in search depending upon the nature of the stimuli (e.g., exemplar vs. categorical search) and the presence of co‐occurring symptoms.