Impairments of Attention Following Childhood Traumatic Brain Injury

Attentional deficits are commonly reported following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in adults, although the occurrence of such problems is less well documented in young children. This study aimed to investigate residual attentional abilities associated with TBI during childhood, by examining a number of aspects of attention including sustained, focussed, and divided attention, attentional shift, and response inhibition. Eighteen children with a history of TBI, aged between 8 and 14 years and 18 non-injured matched controls participated in the study. Results show that attentional skills may be differentially impaired after TBI, with children who have sustained moderate-to-severe TBI exhibiting significant deficits on the following attentional domains: sustain, focus, and response inhibition. These findings support the view that attentional impairments following pediatric TBI, while not global, may be more generalized than those reported for adult samples, perhaps reflecting the relative immaturity of attentional skills at the time of injury.     

Common Grief,Complex Grieving

In this article, the author reflects on the changes during the last 25 years in our understanding of grief and on the emerging new issues in the field of loss and grief studies. He identifies several significant issues, including the implications of violent death for public and private grief, the increased attention upon the family as a mourner, and new ritual patterns emerging out of changes in funeral practices in recent years. The essay concludes by briefly considering a number of issues shaping grief and our care for those who mourn.     

Development of Role-Play Scenarios for Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research

We describe the development, testing, and formative evaluation of nine role-play scenarios for teaching central topics in the responsible conduct of research to graduate students in science and engineering. In response to formative evaluation surveys, students reported that the role-plays were more engaging and promoted deeper understanding than a lecture or case study covering the same topic. In the future, summative evaluations will test whether students display this deeper understanding and retain the lessons of the role-play experience.     

The effect of sampling error on convergence,improper solutions,and goodness-of-fit indices for maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis

A Monte Carlo study assessed the effect of sampling error and model characteristics on the occurrence of nonconvergent solutions, improper solutions and the distribution of goodness-of-fit indices in maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis. Nonconvergent and improper solutions occurred more frequently for smaller sample sizes and for models with fewer indicators of each factor. Effects of practical significance due to sample size, the number of indicators per factor and the number of factors were found for GFI, AGFI, and RMR, whereas no practical effects were found for the probability values associated with the chi-square likelihood ratio test.James Anderson is now at the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions of Kenneth Land and the reviewers, and the assistance of A. Narayanan with the analysis. Support for this research was provided by the Graduate School of Business and the University Research Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.