Comparison of extra- and within-stimulus prompting to teach prepositional discriminations to preschool children with developmental disabilities

Journal of Behavioral Education -     

Sándor Ferenczi's Ideas and Methods and Their Relevance to Group Psychotherapy

Over the last 20years, I have been attempting to translate Ferenczi's significant discoveries into contemporary clinical practice. There are five basic Ferenczian concepts upon which I have elaborated a contemporary version, relevant for the conduct of an analytic group. The presentation of group interaction illustrates these five dimensions: 1. Confusion of Tongues Theory and Trauma; 2. Compassionate Confrontation; 3. Judicious Self-Disclosure; 4. Reparative Therapeutic Experiences; and 5. Group as Therapist to the Group Analyst.     

Some nontraditional (Unconventional and/or innovative) sychosocial treatments for children and adolescents: Critique and proposed screening principles

Five examples of nontraditional psychosocial treatments used for children/adolescents are reviewed: eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, electroencephalographic (EEG) biofeedback, deep pressure/touch therapies, stress-challenge treatments, and confrontational scare treatments. The generic recommendations from the September 1992 National Institutes of Health Conference on Unconventional Medical Treatments are summarized. Additional screening principles specific for psychosocial treatments are proposed and applied to the five treatments. The screens do not validate treatment efficacy or evaluate the quality of any previous research, but only facilitate decisions as to whether treatments deserve controlled investigation. Scientific evaluation of the nontraditional treatments reviewed could in general benefit from blinds (at least for assessment); control conditions matched for intensity, frequency, and duration (double blind where feasible); dose-response studies; testing of generalization and endurance supplements or boosters for quick, cheap treatments with time- or domain-limited effects; and comparing cost-effectiveness with established treatments. Two unscientific pitfalls must be avoided: embracing new treatments uncritically and rejecting them without fair examination. These pitfalls must be skirted without dissipating scarce research resources.The views and proposals in this article are those of the author, and do not in any way reflect any official National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) position. Further, mention or review of any particular treatment does not constitute endorsement of that treatment by either NIMH or the author.     

Comparing the CASI-4R and the PGBI-10 M for Differentiating Bipolar Spectrum Disorders from Other Outpatient Diagnoses in Youth

We compared 2 rating scales with different manic symptom items on diagnostic accuracy for detecting pediatric bipolar spectrum disorder (BPSDs) in outpatient mental health clinics. Participants were 681 parents/guardians of eligible children (465 male, mean age = 9.34) who completed the Parent General Behavior Inventory-10-item Mania (PGBI-10 M) and mania subscale of the Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory-Revised (CASI-4R). Diagnoses were based on KSADS interviews with parent and youth. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses and diagnostic likelihood ratios (DLRs) determined discriminative validity and provided clinical utility, respectively. Logistic regressions tested for incremental validity in the CASI-4R mania subscale and PGBI-10 M in predicting youth BPSD status above and beyond demographic and common diagnostic comorbidities. Both CASI-4R and PGBI-10 M scales significantly distinguished BPSD (N = 160) from other disorders (CASI-4R: Area under curve (AUC) = .80, p < 0.0005; PGBI-10 M: AUC = 0.79, p < 0.0005) even though scale items differed. Both scales performed equally well in differentiating BPSDs (Venkatraman test p > 0.05). Diagnostic likelihood ratios indicated low scores on either scale (CASI: 0–5; PGBI-10 M: 0–6) cut BPSD odds to 1/5 of those with high scores (CASI DLR- = 0.17; PGBI-10 M DLR- = 0.18). High scores on either scale (CASI: 14+; PGBI-10 M: 20+) increased BPSD odds about fourfold (CASI DLR+ = 4.53; PGBI-10 M DLR+ = 3.97). Logistic regressions indicated the CASI-4R mania subscale and PGBI-10 M each provided incremental validity in predicting youth BPSD status. The CASI-4R is at least as valid as the PGBI-10 M to help identify BPSDs, and can be considered as part of an assessment battery to screen for pediatric BPSDs.     

How does chronic burnout affect dealing with weekly job demands? A test of central propositions in JD-R and COR-theories

This study uses job demands–resources and conservation of resources theories to propose that chronic levels of job burnout may aggravate the positive relationship of weekly job demands with week-level burnout symptoms, dysfunctional coping, and self-undermining. Specifically, we hypothesize that weekly job demands (workload and emotional demands) relate positively to maladaptive behaviors through weekly burnout symptoms, particularly when chronic burnout is higher (vs. lower). We collected data among 84 employees from various occupational sectors, who first filled out a general survey, and then completed weekly diary surveys every Friday, for five consecutive weeks (total n = 415 occasions). Results of multilevel analyses generally supported the hypotheses. Weekly job demands were positively related to weekly burnout and self-undermining only when employees scored higher on chronic burnout. Moreover, as predicted, the results showed that job demands were most strongly related to dysfunctional coping and self-undermining through weekly burnout symptoms for individuals higher (vs. lower) in chronic burnout. These findings highlight the interplay between weekly job demands and chronic burnout in the process of resource loss.     

Imagining the near and far future: The role of location familiarity

Plausible personal events envisioned as occurring in the near future tend to be reported as more vivid than those set in the far future. Why is this? The present set of three experiments identified one’s familiarity with the location in which the event is placed as critical in this regard. Specifically, Experiment 1 demonstrated that amongst a wide range of phenomenological characteristics, clarity of location appears to drive the overall difference in vividness between events imagined to take place in the near and the far future. Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to further elucidate this finding. Experiment 2 demonstrated that near future events are more likely than far future events to be imagined in familiar locations. Experiment 3 showed that future events set in familiar locations tend to be imagined with greater clarity than those set in unfamiliar locations. The results of all three experiments converge on the conclusion that the difference in vividness of events imagined as occurring in the near and far future is mediated by one’s familiarity with the location in which the event is imagined to occur.     

Discrepant integration times for upright and inverted faces

Judgments of upright faces tend to be more rapid than judgments of inverted faces. This is consistent with encoding at different rates via discrepant mechanisms, or via a common mechanism that is more sensitive to upright input. However, to the best of our knowledge no previous study of facial coding speed has tried to equate sensitivity across the characteristics under investigation (eg emotional expression, facial gender, or facial orientation). Consequently we cannot tell whether different decision speeds result from mechanisms that accrue information at different rates, or because facial images can differ in the amount of information they make available. To address this, we examined temporal integration times, the times across which information is accrued toward a perceptual decision. We examined facial gender and emotional expressions. We first identified image pairs that could be differentiated on 80% of trials with protracted presentations (1 s). We then presented these images at a range of brief durations to determine how rapidly performance plateaued, which is indicative of integration time. For upright faces gender was associated with a protracted integration relative to expression judgments. This difference was eliminated by inversion, with both gender and expression judgments associated with a common, rapid, integration time. Overall, our data suggest that upright facial gender and expression are encoded via distinct processes and that inversion does not just result in impaired sensitivity. Rather, inversion caused gender judgments, which had been associated with a protracted integration, to become associated with a more rapid process.     

Development and validation of the job crafting scale

We developed and validated a scale to measure job crafting behavior in three separate studies conducted in The Netherlands (total N = 1181). Job crafting is defined as the self-initiated changes that employees make in their own job demands and job resources to attain and/or optimize their personal (work) goals. In Study 1 and 2 the Dutch job crafting scale (JCS) was developed and tested for its factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity. The criterion validity of the JCS was examined in Study 3. The results indicated that there are four independent job crafting dimensions, namely increasing social job resources, increasing structural job resources, increasing challenging job demands, and decreasing hindering job demands. These dimensions could be reliably measured with 21 items. The JCS shows convergent validity when correlated with the active constructs proactive personality (+), personal initiative (+), and the inactive construct cynicism (?). In addition, results indicated that self-reports of job crafting correlated positively with colleague-ratings of work engagement, employability, and performance — thus supporting the criterion validity of the JCS. Finally, self-rated job crafting behaviors correlated positively with peer-rated job crafting behaviors.     

Test publishers' perspective on "an updated meta-analysis": comment on Van Iddekinge, Roth, Raymark, and Odle-Dusseau (2012)

Van Iddekinge, Roth, Raymark, and Odle-Dusseau's (2012) meta-analysis of pre-employment integrity test results confirmed that such tests are meaningfully related to counterproductive work behavior. The article also offered some cautionary conclusions, which appear to stem from the limited scope of the authors' focus and the specific research procedures used. Issues discussed in this commentary include the following: (a) test publishers' provision of studies for meta-analytic consideration; (b) errors and questions in the coding of statistics from past studies; (c) debatable corrections for unreliable criterion measures; (d) exclusion of laboratory, contrasted-groups, unit-level, and time-series studies of counterproductive behavior; (e) under-emphasis on the prediction of counterproductive workplace behaviors compared with job performance, training outcomes, and turnover; (f) overlooking the industry practice of deploying integrity scales with other valid predictors of employee outcomes; (g) implication that integrity test publishers produce biased research results; (h) incomplete presentation of integrity tests' resistance to faking; and (i) omission of data indicating applicants' favorable response to integrity tests, the tests' lack of adverse impact, and the positive business impact of integrity testing. This commentary, therefore, offers an alternate perspective, addresses omissions and apparent inaccuracies, and urges a return to the use of diverse methodologies to evaluate the validity of integrity tests and other psychometric instruments.