Development in reading and math in children from different SES backgrounds: the moderating role of child temperament

Socioeconomic risks (SES risks) are robust risk factors influencing children's academic development. However, it is unclear whether the effects of SES on academic development operate universally in all children equally or whether they vary differentially in children with particular characteristics. The current study aimed to explore children's temperament as protective or risk factors that potentially moderate the associations between SES risks and academic development. Specifically, latent growth modeling (LGM) was used in two longitudinal datasets with a total of 2236 children to examine how family SES risks and children's temperament interactively predicted the development of reading and math from middle childhood to early adolescence. Results showed that low negative affect, high effortful control, and low surgency mitigated the negative associations between SES risks and both reading and math development in this developmental period. These findings underline the heterogeneous nature of the negative associations between SES risks and academic development and highlight the importance of the interplay between biological and social factors on individual differences in development.     

Telling in-tune from out-of-tune: widespread evidence for implicit absolute intonation

Absolute pitch (AP) is the rare ability to name or produce an isolated musical note without the aid of a reference note. One skill thought to be unique to AP possessors is the ability to provide absolute intonation judgments (e.g., classifying an isolated note as “in-tune” or “out-of-tune”). Recent work has suggested that absolute intonation perception among AP possessors is not crystallized in a critical period of development, but is dynamically maintained by the listening environment, in which the vast majority of Western music is tuned to a specific cultural standard. Given that all listeners of Western music are constantly exposed to this specific cultural tuning standard, our experiments address whether absolute intonation perception extends beyond AP possessors. We demonstrate that non-AP listeners are able to accurately judge the intonation of completely isolated notes. Both musicians and nonmusicians showed evidence for absolute intonation recognition when listening to familiar timbres (piano and violin). When testing unfamiliar timbres (triangle and inverted sine waves), only musicians showed weak evidence of absolute intonation recognition (Experiment 2). Overall, these results highlight a previously unknown similarity between AP and non-AP possessors’ long-term musical note representations, including evidence of sensitivity to frequency.     

Using the Double ABCX Model to Integrate Services for Families of Children with ASD

This conceptual paper reviews the need for a family-focused service delivery model within the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) field and suggests that the Double ABCX Model of Stress and Adaptation is a way to address this need. Within the ASD field, there is an absence of service delivery models that are able to address the needs of the family as a unit, rather than the individual child with ASD. This gap is striking given the reciprocal relationship between parent and child outcomes within the ASD field. To support our argument that the Double ABCX model could be used to integrate parent and child-focused interventions within the ASD field, this paper starts by reviewing the mental health outcomes often associated with having a child with ASD. We next provide a historical overview of the Double ABCX model and review a body of ASD intervention literature within the context of the Double ABCX model framework. Doing so shows that a number of child and parent focused interventions within the ASD field can be fit within the Double ABCX framework. However, a handful of methodological and sampling limitations prevent the Double ABCX model from being fully supported as a model that could be applied in a variety of settings. Taken together, this review highlights that the Double ABCX model is a promising strategy to integrate child and parent-focused interventions within the ASD field, but highlights that specific areas of future research are needed in order to build continued support for this argument.     

Knowledge and Attitudes Regarding Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) and Preferences for Risk Information among High School Students in Sweden

Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) was recently introduced for prenatal testing of genetic disorders. Cell-free fetal DNA is present in maternal blood during pregnancy and enables detection of fetal chromosome aberrations in a maternal blood sample. The public perspective to this new, simple method has not been illuminated. The views of young people (i.e. future parents) are important to develop suitable counseling strategies regarding prenatal testing. The aim was to explore Swedish high school students’ attitudes, knowledge and preferences regarding NIPT. A questionnaire was completed by 305 students recruited from one high school in Stockholm, November and December 2014. Most students (80 %) considered prenatal testing as good. The majority (65 %) was positive or very positive towards NIPT and 62 % stated that they potentially would like to undergo the test if they or their partner was pregnant. The vast majority (94 %) requested further information about NIPT. Most students (61 %) preferred verbal information, whereas 20 % preferred information via the Internet. The majority of the high school students was positive towards prenatal testing and most was positive towards NIPT. Further, information was requested by the vast majority before making a decision about NIPT. Most of the students preferred verbal information and to a lesser extent information via the Internet. The attitudes, knowledge and preferences for risk information concerning NIPT in young adults are important, in order to increase knowledge on how to educate and inform future parents.     

Why did she put nail polish in my drink? Applying the Therapeutic Assessment model with an African American foster child in a community mental health setting

Although the majority of research on Therapeutic Assessment (TA) discusses the application of TA in research or private practice settings, we found that the model could be applied in a community mental health setting. We argue that when implementing this model with racially diverse, low socioeconomic status children, it is essential to integrate issues of class, privilege, and race into the assessment process. A case is presented that illuminates the specific concerns and struggles of adapting this model to a community psychology population. This analysis includes the interface with systems, placement stability, and consideration of culturally responsible treatment. We also demonstrate how the support of a treatment team helps the individual clinician process and integrate the levels of trauma and pain with which these families present.     

Effects of differential rates of alternative reinforcement on resurgence of human behavior

Despite the success of exposure‐based psychotherapies in anxiety treatment, relapse remains problematic. Resurgence, the return of previously eliminated behavior following the elimination of an alternative source of reinforcement, is a promising model of operant relapse. Nonhuman resurgence research has shown that higher rates of alternative reinforcement result in faster, more comprehensive suppression of target behavior, but also in greater resurgence when alternative reinforcement is eliminated. This study investigated rich and lean rates of alternative reinforcement on response suppression and resurgence in typically developing humans. In Phase 1, three groups (Rich, n = 18; Lean, n = 18; Control, n = 10) acquired the target response. In Phase 2, target responding was extinguished and alternative reinforcement delivered on RI 1 s, RI 3 s, and extinction schedules, respectively. Resurgence was assessed during Phase 3 under extinction conditions for all groups. Target responding was suppressed most thoroughly in Rich and partially in Lean. Target responding resurged in the Rich and Lean groups, but not in the Control group. Between groups, resurgence was more pronounced in the Rich group than the Lean and Control groups. Clinical implications of these findings, including care on the part of clinicians when identifying alternative sources of reinforcement, are discussed.     

Attachment Insecurity and Perceived Partner Suffering as Predictors of Personal Distress

This study examined the extent to which perceptions of partner suffering mediate the association between attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) and personal distress among spouses of older adults with osteoarthritis. Fifty-three spouses watched two videos of targets (their partner and an opposite sex stranger) perform a pain-eliciting household task, and spouses were asked to rate their own distress and perceptions of the targets' pain. Spouses also completed self-report measures of trait attachment. Results revealed that attachment anxiety was associated with greater personal distress in reaction to the partner's suffering, and heightened perceptions of partner pain mediated this association. Avoidant attachment was associated with less distress in reaction to the partner's suffering, but not with less perceived pain. The results of this study identify an important mechanism linking attachment insecurity and heightened distress responses when observing the suffering of a significant other.     

False rumors and true belief: Memory processes underlying children’s errant reports of rumored events

Previous research has shown that overhearing an errant rumor—either from an adult or from peers—about an earlier experience can lead children to make detailed false reports. This study investigates the extent to which such accounts are driven by changes in children’s memory representations or merely social demands that encourage the reporting of rumored information. This was accomplished by (a) using a warning manipulation that eliminated social pressures to report an earlier heard rumor and (b) examining the qualitative characteristics of children’s false narratives of a rumored-but-nonexperienced event. Findings indicated that overheard rumors can induce sensory and contextual characteristics in memory that can lead children to develop genuine false beliefs in seeing rumored-but-nonexperienced occurrences. Such constructive tendencies were especially likely among 3- and 4-year-olds (relative to 5- and 6-year-olds) and when rumors were picked up from peers during natural social interactions (relative to when they were planted by an adult).     

Family Factors Predicting Categories of Suicide Risk

We compared family risk and protective factors among potential high school dropouts with and without suicide-risk behaviors (SRB) and examined the extent to which these factors predict categories of SRB. Subjects were randomly selected from among potential dropouts in 14 high schools. Based upon suicide-risk status, 1,083 potential high school dropouts were defined as belonging to one of four groups; 573 non-suicide risk, 242 low suicide risk, 137 moderate suicide risk and 131 high suicide risk. Results showed significant group differences in all youth self-reported family risk and protective factors. Increased levels of suicide risk were associated with perceived conflict with parents, unmet family goals, and family depression; decreased levels of risk were associated with perceived parental involvement and family support for school. Perceived conflict with parents, family depression, family support satisfaction, and availability of family support for school were the strongest predictors of adolescent SRB. Our findings suggest that suicide vulnerable youth differ from their non-suicidal peers along the dimensions of family risk and protective factors.     

NGRI Revisited: Venirepersons' Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defense1

Three hundred venirepersons from the 12^th Judicial Circuit in Sarasota, Florida completed the following booklet of stimulus materials: one question measuring participants' level of support for insanity defense; a 16‐item measure assessing participants' attitudes toward the myths associated with the insanity defense, the legal definitions of insanity, and mental illness; a case scenario; verdict preference; and standard demographic questions. Level of support for the insanity defense was significantly related to participants' attitudes toward legal standards of insanity, mental illness, and the myths associated with the insanity defense. In addition, results indicated that level of support for the insanity defense, age, educational level, occupation, type of prior jury service, and political views were significantly related to verdict preference. Notably, three factors that have been found to impact verdict preference in previous research failed to do so in the current study: participants' experience with psychological disorders; participants' exposure to psychotropic medications; and participants' experience with psychologists or psychiatrists. The findings both replicate and extend earlier findings by suggesting that attitudes toward the insanity defense are more complex than previously imagined.