Teaching social perception skills to adolescents with autism and intellectual disabilities using video‐based group instruction

Few interventions focus on teaching social skills to adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disabilities (ID) that are consistently used during interactions with peers ( Carter et al., 2014). The present study evaluated the effects of video‐based group instruction (VGI) on the acquisition of social perception skills of five adolescents with ASD or ID in a public school setting. Social perception involves observing affective behaviors of others, discriminating relevant environmental stimuli, and differentially reinforcing the affective behavior of another person. Typically developing peers supported VGI implementation as social partners for participants. A multiple probe design across behaviors demonstrated the effectiveness of VGI for teaching social perception skills. Four of five participants acquired and maintained the targeted social perception skills, and we observed some transfer to a nontreatment setting. Results of this study suggest VGI may support the acquisition of social perception among adolescents with ASD or ID.     

A threshold approach to understanding the origins of attachment disorganization

Disorganized attachment in infancy is known to predict a wide range of maladaptive outcomes, but its origins are poorly understood. Parental lack of resolution concerning loss or trauma has been proposed to result in atypical parenting behaviors, which in turn have a disorganizing effect on the parent-child relationship. The authors review the evidence for this transmission pathway, considering other factors (e.g., social environment, child characteristics) that might enrich understanding of the antecedents of disorganization. A threshold approach is proposed to explain (a) why different parental behaviors are linked to disorganization depending on prevailing social conditions and (b) why certain children appear more vulnerable to forming a disorganized attachment relationship.     

Asian cultural values gap, cognitive flexibility, coping strategies, and parent-child conflicts among Korean Americans

The study examined Korean American college students' perceived Asian cultural values gap between themselves and their parents, cognitive flexibility, and coping strategies. The relationships between these factors were studied with the intensities and types of parent-child conflicts. The results indicated that the participants adhered less strongly to Asian values than their parents. When faced with conflicts, the participants reported using problem solving coping strategy to the greatest extent, followed by social support coping strategy, and then avoidance coping strategy. Simultaneous regression analyses revealed a positive relationship between the participant-perceived parent-child values gap and the intensity of conflicts, particularly in the area of dating and marriage. There were inverse relationships between cognitive flexibility and the intensity of conflicts, specifically in the area of dating and marriage. A positive relationship was observed between the use of social support coping strategy and intensity of conflicts. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed a significant interaction effect in which participant-perceived parent-child values gap and cognitive flexibility were related to increased frequency of dating and marriage conflicts.     

The More the Merrier? Sibling Composition and Early Manifestations of Theory of Mind in Toddlers

Sibling relationships are argued to offer a rich social context for the development of young children’s theory of mind (ToM). There is evidence that the presence of siblings, particularly older siblings, may promote preschoolers’ ToM, but it has not been investigated among toddlers. This study evaluated differences in early manifestations of ToM between toddlers in different sibling compositions: 1) without a sibling, 2) with younger siblings only, and 3) with older siblings only. The sample included 227 toddlers who completed 2 tasks assessing their understanding of discrepant desires and visual perspectives. Results indicated that only children and those who had older siblings did not differ from each other on either task. However, on both tasks, toddlers with younger siblings performed significantly more poorly compared with those with older siblings. Moreover, children with younger siblings demonstrated poorer visual-perspective understanding compared with only children. It may be critical to take siblings’ birth order into account when investigating their respective effects on each other’s ToM, especially in toddlerhood.     

Do ad metaphors enhance or dilute the consumers' brand preferences? Exploring the moderating role of goal orientation

This research aims to explore the impacts of ad metaphors and goal orientation on the relationship between brand commitment and attitudes toward the competitor brands. Results show that prevention‐focused consumers with high brand commitment do not exhibit differentially favorable attitudes toward the competitor brands, regardless of ad metaphors. In contrast, prevention‐focused consumers with low brand commitment exhibit more favorable attitudes toward competitor brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than those advocated by low metaphorical ads. Moreover, promotion‐focused consumers exhibit more favorable attitudes toward competitor brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than those advocated by low metaphorical ads, regardless of brand commitment.     

Electrophysiological correlates of emotional face processing after mild traumatic brain injury in preschool children

Evidence suggests that social skills are affected by childhood mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), but the neural and affective substrates of these difficulties are still underexplored. In particular, nothing is known about consequences on the perception of emotional facial expressions, despite its critical role in social interactions and the importance of the preschool period in the development of this ability. This study thus aimed to investigate the electrophysiological correlates of emotional facial expressions processing after early mTBI. To this end, 18 preschool children (mean age 53 ± 8 months) who sustained mTBI and 15 matched healthy controls (mean age 55 ± 11 months) were presented with pictures of faces expressing anger, happiness, or no emotion (neutral) while event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded. The main results revealed that P1 amplitude was higher for happy faces than for angry faces, and that N170 latency was shorter for emotional faces than for neutral faces in the control group only. These findings suggest that preschool children who sustain mTBI do not present the early emotional effects that are observed in healthy preschool children at visuospatial and visual expertise stages. This study provides new evidence regarding the consequences of childhood mTBI on socioemotional processing, by showing alterations of emotional facial expressions processing, an ability known to underlie social competence and appropriate social interactions.     

Perceptual and positional saliencies influence children’s sequence learning differently with age and instructions at test

There is growing evidence that, faced with a complex environment, participants subdivide the incoming information into small perceptual units, called chunks. Although statistical properties have been identified as playing a key role in chunking, we wanted to determine whether perceptual (repetitions) and positional (initial units) features might provide immediate guidance for the parsing of information into chunks. Children aged 5 and 8 years were exposed to sequences of 3, 4, or 5 colours. Sequence learning was assessed either through an explicit generation test (Experiment 1) or through a recognition test (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that perceptual and positional saliencies benefited learning and that sensitivity to repetitions was age dependent and permitted the formation of longer chunks (trigrams) in the oldest children. Experiment 2 suggested that children became sensitive to perceptual and positional saliencies regardless of age and that the both types of saliencies supported the formation of longer chunks in the oldest children. The discussion focuses on the multiple factors intervening in sequence learning and their differential effects as a function of the instructions used at test to assess sequence learning.     

‘Are you a woman—or a flower?’: The capacity to experience beauty1

Being surprised by beauty, being drawn to and moved by it and surrendering to its sensory nature are all part of beauty's emotionally transformative power. And yet, psychoanalysis has had little to say about such an enriching dimension of psychological life. The author highlights how experiencing beauty is a capacity that is not isolated but is part of the lifelong experience of being changed by and changing the experience of the world we live in. She suggests that the capacity to experience beauty takes different forms at distinct points in development and in psychoanalytic treatments. The author describes two clinical occasions from a case where an analytic pair struggled to develop a greater capacity to experience beauty over time. She discusses how a theory of the aesthetic conflict was useful in helping to understand her patient's inner object world but was not sufficient when it came to understanding the experience of beauty. She shows how for both patient and analyst, experiencing beauty's full effect required responding to the call toward emotional life, surrendering to the surprise and the unknown, and letting go of the mind's struggle to find meaning and opening up to transforming and being transformed through sensory experience.     

Parental Narratives About Genetic Testing for Hearing Loss: A One Year Follow Up Study

Few studies examine whether and how parental attitudes towards genetic testing change over time. In this study we interviewed parents of 14 children with newly identified hearing loss at two time points: after referral to genetics and 1 year later. Qualitative analyses of parental narratives indicate that parental attitudes did not change significantly over this time. Parents who perceived genetic testing to be useful continued to value it after testing, while parents who did not perceive it as being useful for their child’s future held the same view a year later. The only parents who changed their views regarding the usefulness of genetic testing for hearing loss were those who reported that their children underwent significant changes in their hearing loss or were faced with other life threatening conditions. Parents were also often unaware of the role of the genetic counselor and how genetic counseling could help address many of their lingering questions and concerns. These emergent themes indicate the need for geneticists and genetic counselors to be aware of and sensitized to the questions and attitudes that bring parents to a genetic evaluation, as well as the reasons why parents may not follow up with genetic testing for hearing loss when recommended.