Short-term involuntary examination of older adults in Florida

The elder population continues to grow rapidly in many countries. Florida's elder population is growing faster than most states', with over one-quarter of the Florida population projected to be aged 65 and over by 2025. Involuntary examination (i.e. emergency commitment) under a state's civil commitment law is one means by which older adults experience assessment for acute mental health care. In Florida, the civil commitment law permits the involuntary examination of an individual for up to 72 hours to determine whether the person meets standards for involuntary treatment. From calendar year 2001 through 2005, there were 531,091 involuntary examinations in Florida for 301,886 people of all ages. Thirteen percent were 60 years and older at the time of their examination. The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of older adults subject to involuntary examination and the nature of their examinations. While these data permit a number of inferences, there is an expansive area of research and policy analysis that remains untapped and would permit better understanding of how older adults experience such examinations. These research and policy issues will also be discussed.     

Prenatal intervention and support for low-income fathers

The focus of this study was to determine the effectiveness of prenatal intervention with low socioeconomic, first-time fathers whose partners were experiencing a high- or low-risk pregnancy. Of the 67 men, who were recruited by their partners, half were randomly assigned to participate in an intervention program designed to acquaint fathers-to-be with information, insights, and clinically appropriate techniques in responsive care for infants. Intervention group fathers received two intensive 1¹/₂-hour sessions emphasizing the nature and capabilities of the prebornhewborn and sensitive responsiveness to preborn/newborn cues and to partner cues. Postnatally, fathers were videotaped with their infants during two feeding interactions. At Time 1, intervention fathers were rated from videotapes as significantly more sensitive during feeding interactions with their newborn infants. At Time 2, 1 month later, differences between father groups approached significance.     

The processing of interlexical homographs in translation recognition and lexical decision: Support for non-selective access to bilingual memory

In three experiments we looked at the processing of interlexical homographs by Dutch-English bilinguals. In Experiment 1 we employed the translation recognition task, a task that forces the participants to activate both language systems simultaneously. In this task the processing of interlexical homographs was inhibited substantially compared to the processing of matched control words, especially when the homograph reading to be selected was the less frequent of the homograph's two readings. In Experiments 2 and 3 we used the lexical decision task: In one condition we asked the participants to categorize letter strings as words or nonwords in Dutch; in a second condition we asked them to do so in English. The makeup of the stimulus set in Experiment 2 permitted the participants to ignore the instructions and to instantiate the task in a language-neutral form-that is, to categorize the letter strings as words in either Dutch or English. Under these circumstances a small, frequency-dependent inhibitory effect for homographs was obtained, but only in condition Dutch. In Experiment 3 the participants were forced in a language-specific processing mode by the inclusion of "nonwords" that were in fact words in the non-target language. Large frequency-dependent inhibitory effects for homographs were now obtained in both language conditions. The combined results are interpreted as support for the view that bilingual lexical access is non-selective.     

Improvement in Detection of Differential Item Functioning Using a Mixture Item Response Theory Model

Usually, methods for detection of differential item functioning (DIF) compare the functioning of items across manifest groups. However, the manifest groups with respect to which the items function differentially may not necessarily coincide with the true source of the bias. It is expected that DIF detection under a model that includes a latent DIF variable is more sensitive to this source of bias. In a simulation study, it is shown that a mixture item response theory model, which includes a latent grouping variable, performs better in identifying DIF items than DIF detection methods using manifest variables only. The difference between manifest and latent DIF detection increases as the correlation between the manifest variable and the true source of the DIF becomes smaller. Different sample sizes, relative group sizes, and significance levels are studied. Finally, an empirical example demonstrates the detection of heterogeneity in a minority sample using a latent grouping variable. Manifest and latent DIF detection methods are applied to a Vocabulary test of the General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB).     

Inhibition and working memory in young preschool children with symptoms of ADHD and/or oppositional-defiant disorder

Background: Early symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) are associated with deficits in cognitive self-regulatory processes or executive functions (EF)s. However, the hypothesis that neurocognitive deficits underlying the two disorders are already evident during early preschool years still has limited empirical support. The present study investigated associations between symptoms of ADHD and/or ODD and two core EFs, inhibition and working memory, in a large nonclinical sample of 3-year old children. Method: Participants were 1045 children (554 boys, age 37–47 months), recruited from the population based Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Relations between behavioral symptoms and measures of inhibition and working memory were studied both categorically and dimensionally. Results: Children with co-occurring symptoms of ADHD and ODD performed at a significantly lower level than typically developing children in 4 out of 5 EF measures. Symptoms of ADHD, both alone and in combination with ODD, were associated with reduced performance on tests of inhibition in the group comparisons. Dimensional analyses showed that performance within both EF domains contributed to variance primarily in ADHD symptom load. The associations between test results and behavioral symptoms remained significant after gender and verbal skills had been controlled. Conclusion: Young preschoolers show the same pattern of relations between EF and behavioral symptoms of ADHD and/or ODD as previously described in older children diagnosed with ADHD and/or ODD. Effect sizes were generally small, indicating that measures of EF have limited clinical utility at this stage in development.     

Elternschaft, Krebs und Kindersorgen

Background

The diagnosis of parental cancer may destabilize the whole family, parents and children as well. The Hamburg children of somatically ill parents (COSIP) intervention supports parental skills and adaptation of children to the situation. There is currently no evidence for criteria to determine which family members should be involved in the COSIP intervention, predominantly the parents (parent setting), the children (child setting) or both (family setting).

Aim of the study

Data from a multicentre study were analyzed with respect to the predominant intervention settings, the correlation between setting and aims of intervention as well as variables that predict the involvement of children in the intervention.

Material and methods

A total of 203 documented cases were analyzed. Different variables that had been documented by the therapists were included in a regression analysis model in order to identify predictive variables.

Results

In 142 cases the intervention was carried out in a specific intervention setting. In 57?% of the cases children were involved (32?% family setting and 25?% child setting). A systematic relationship between the reported intervention aims and the intervention setting was not detected. The most powerful predictor was the existence of emotional problems of children as reported by the child itself.

Conclusions

Decision-making on intervention settings should therefore take the assessment of emotional symptoms of children by the means of age-appropriate self-reporting tools into consideration. Further investigations are needed to reveal variables concerning needs, motivation and capabilities of the family members as well as institutional conditions.     

Atypical trajectories of number development: a neuroconstructivist perspective

Despite the fact that number deficits are as prevalent as literacy deficits, research on basic numerical skills lags seriously behind the successful studies identifying low-level deficits in dyslexia. We review current debates on number, discussing how the competing theories pertain to mathematical disabilities in normal children and numeracy deficits in genetic disorders. We stress the need to consider these issues within the framework of a developing system rather than from the neuropsychological perspective of focal damage. The earlier the exploration of atypical trajectories in very basic numerical skills, the better we will be able to chart their developmental impact on subsequent, higher-level arithmetic abilities.