Effects of Acceptance and Commitment Training Plus Behavior Parent Training on Parental Implementation of Autism Treatment

The Psychological Record - The objective of this study was to examine the effects of acceptance and commitment training (ACT) plus behavior parent training (BPT), when delivered via telehealth, on...     

Immediate postsession feeding reduces operant responding in rats

Three experiments investigated the effects of immediate and delayed postsession feeding on progressive-ratio and variable-interval schedule performance in rats. During Experiments 1 and 2, immediate postsession feeding decreased the breakpoint, or largest completed ratio, under progressive-ratio schedules. Experiment 3 was conducted to extend the results of the first two experiments to responding maintained by variable-interval schedules with different session lengths (15 and 60 min). Response rates decreased in all 4 subjects when postsession feeding immediately followed a 15-min session and in 3 of 4 subjects when postsession feeding immediately followed a 60-min session. The implications of this research are twofold: (1) The functional context in which within-session reinforcers are embedded extends outside the experimental chamber, and (2) supplemental postsession feedings should be sufficiently delayed from the end of a session to avoid weakening operant behavior in the experimental sessions.     

Investigating the Factor Structure of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale in Community and Clinical Samples of the Australian Population

The Kessler 10 Psychological Distress Scale (K10) is a brief dimensional scale designed to measure and monitor trends of psychological distress. Recently the scale has been utilised by general practitioners and clinicians to screen for common mental disorders and measure treatment outcomes. Despite the K10 demonstrating a sound one dimensional structure in the general population, the scale??s structure has yet to be comprehensively tested in clinical samples. The current study aimed to use confirmatory factor analysis to test three theoretical structure models of the K10 and one model for the K6 (a six item variant) in a sample from a tertiary referral clinic for mood and anxiety disorders and compare those results with a population sample from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. The results demonstrated that a two factor model with correlated latent factors representing depression and anxiety fit the clinical sample the best whilst a one factor model with correlated errors between several items fit the population sample the best. The results are discussed further in relation to scoring and interpreting the Kessler scales.     

The Development of Spatial Skills Through Interventions Involving Block Building Activities

This study investigated the use of block-building interventions to develop spatial-reasoning skills in kindergartners. Two intervention conditions and a control condition were included to determine, first, whether the block building activities themselves benefited children's spatial skills, and secondly, whether a story context further improved learning. Spatial measures included: spatial visualization, mental rotation, and block building. Results showed: for block building, interventions within a story context improved performance compared to the other two conditions. For spatial visualization, both types of block-building interventions improved performance compared to the control condition. Findings suggest: (1) storytelling provides an effective context for teaching spatial content, (2) teaching block building develops wider spatial skills, and (3) 3-dimensional mental rotation tasks show a male advantage in kindergartners.     

Preventing The Oil “Resource Curse” In Ghana: Lessons From Nigeria

Ghana joined the list of oil-producing countries with the export of its first oil from the Jubilee oilfield in January 2011. President John Atta Mills's statement drawing attention to the potential paradigm shift as well as risks that the discovery of oil and gas imposes not only speaks to the complexity of extractive-industry-engendered development, but it also makes it imperative that the country learns from other countries’ successes and failures. In this article, we use the “resource curse” thesis to examine the emerging dynamics and complexities in Ghana's oil industry, with the attempt to draw both correlations with and lessons from the Nigerian case. The article highlights five key lessons in Nigeria's management of its oil–gas resources related to the legal-regulatory framework, development of the oil-producing areas, Corporate Social Responsibility, management of oil revenues, and oil–civil society nexus that Ghana should give serious thoughts to in order to leverage its new found oil wealth and avert the “resource curse.”     

Teacher Racism,Academic Self‐Concept,and Multiculturation: Investigating Adaptive and Maladaptive Relations With Academic Disengagement and Self‐Sabotage for Indigenous and Non‐Indigenous Australian Students

The issue of patterns of educational disengagement for Indigenous Australian students has long been of considerable concern within Indigenous education research. Although there is an expanding research base identifying factors that may increase (or decrease) the risk of disengagement for Indigenous students, little acknowledgement has been given to international research highlighting how stigma and discrimination may be associated with student disengagement and the resiliency factors that may nullify these associations. Utilising a sample of 1,376 (305 Indigenous; 1,071 non‐Indigenous) students from five New South Wales high schools in Australia, this study sought to examine the influence of academic self‐concept and two culturally sensitive constructs—specifically, perceived multiculturation (perceived cultural respect) and racial discrimination—on two disengagement‐orientated outcomes: affective disengagement and self‐sabotaging behaviour (behavioural disengagement) for both Indigenous and non‐Indigenous students. The findings showed relatively consistent direct and positive effects of academic self‐concept and direct negative effect of teacher racism for both groups of students. An interaction effect (discrimination × multiculturation) for the Indigenous students only was also identified, which suggested that the negative effects of racial discrimination on self‐sabotaging behaviour are exacerbated when the Indigenous students perceived higher levels of cultural respect from others. Overall, while these findings suggest that promoting higher levels of inter‐cultural respect may be beneficial for Indigenous and non‐Indigenous alike (e.g., culturally inclusive programmes), such positive perceptions may put Indigenous students at greater risk if the impact of racism is not also addressed. The implications of these findings suggest that cultural safety must be framed both in promoting the positive (cultural respect) and in eliminating the negative (racism).     

Safety of using the adult OMNI Resistance Exercise Scale to determine 1-RM in older men and women

Older adults may be susceptible to injury during high-intensity resistance exercise. It has been suggested that it may be more protective to predict one-repetition maximum (1-RM) than to measure it because of the high intensity associated with 1-RM testing, but it may be necessary to measure 1-RM for functional, diagnostic, or clinical purposes. The method of using the OMNI Resistance Exercise Scale (OMNI-RES) was examined as a guide for hexagenarian adults in estimating 1-RM. 22 healthy men (M age = 64.3 yr., SD = 3.2) and 27 women (M age = 63.8 yr., SD = 2.8) volunteered. After two weeks of orientation, participants used a predetermined rating of perceived exertion to select resistance in the assessment of 1-RM and again after 12 weeks of training. At the 1-RM trials, participants were asked to report soreness or injury during or after the exercise sessions. There were no reported incidences of injury during the current investigation. The current results provide a practical method to estimate 1-RM in older adults. As such, the OMNI-RES can be used safely in a potentially at-risk population.     

No evidence for subliminal affective priming with emotional facial expression primes

The present study investigated whether facial expressions of emotion presented outside consciousness awareness will elicit evaluative responses as assessed in affective priming. Participants were asked to evaluate pleasant and unpleasant target words that were preceded by masked or unmasked schematic (Experiment 1) or photographic faces (Experiments 1 and 2) with happy or angry expressions. They were either required to perform the target evaluation only or to perform the target evaluation and to name the emotion expressed by the face prime. Prime-target interval was 300 ms in Experiment 1 and 80 ms in Experiment 2. Naming performance confirmed the effectiveness of the masking procedure. Affective priming was evident after unmasked primes in tasks that required naming of the facial expressions for schematic and photographic faces and after unmasked primes in tasks that did not require naming for photographic faces. No affective priming was found after masked primes. The present study failed to provide evidence for affective priming with masked face primes, however, it indicates that voluntary attention to the primes enhances affective priming.     

Belief-based and analytic processing in transitive inference depends on premise integration difficulty

Three experiments investigated belief-based versus analytic processing in transitive inference. Belief-based and analytic processing were inferred from conclusion acceptance rates for problems with conclusions that were either valid or invalid and believable or unbelievable. Premise integration difficulty was manipulated by varying premise integration time (Experiment 1), premise presentation order (Experiment 2), and the markedness of the relational terms in the premises (Experiment 3). In all the conditions, reasoning accuracy and rated confidence were lower on conflict problems, where belief-based and analytic processes yielded different responses. Participants relied more on analytic processing and less on belief-based processing in conditions in which premise integration was easier. Fluid intelligence and premise integration ability predicted analytical reasoning on conflict problems after reasoning on the no-conflict problems was controlled for. The findings were related to three dual-process models of belief bias. They provide the first evidence of belief bias in transitive inference.