Coping with body image changes following a disfiguring burn injury.

The influence of emotion-focused coping on distress following disfiguring injury was examined. Two types of emotion-focused coping (i.e., venting emotions vs. mental disengagement) were assessed in 78 patients with burn injury at baseline during acute hospitalization. Body image dissatisfaction (BID) was assessed 1 week and 2 months following discharge. Use at baseline of both venting emotions and mental disengagement, compared with use of only one or neither of these coping methods, was associated at the 2-month postdischarge follow-up with significantly higher BID related to nonfacial aspects of appearance and with a greater negative social impact of disfigurement. D. M. Wegner's (1994) theoretical model of mental control and a proposed motivational analysis are used to interpret these findings.     

Effects of Lag Schedules and Response Blocking on Variant Food Consumption by a Girl with Autism

Food selectivity by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often viewed in the behavioral literature as a problem with compliance and treated accordingly. However, when viewed as a problem with invariance, it may be appropriate to treat the problem by using procedures that increase variant food consumption. Lag schedules of reinforcement have been shown to increase variability in verbal and play behavior of children with ASD. Therefore, we attempted to evaluate the effects of a lag schedule of positive reinforcement on variant food consumption by a girl with ASD and food selectivity. Ultimately, a lack of baseline variability in consumption precluded an evaluation of the programmed lag schedule but suggested that a discovery research approach may be informative. Thus, additional treatment components were added and evaluated in a component analysis. Response blocking of invariant consumption appeared to establish a lag schedule of reinforcement that increased variability and variety in food consumption, which was maintained across changes in the value of the lag schedule. Some potential behavioral processes responsible for the effects and implications for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Striving for optimal relevance when answering questions

When people are asked "Do you have the time?" they can answer in a variety of ways, such as "It is almost 3", "Yeah, it is quarter past two", or more precisely as in "It is now 1:43". We present the results of four experiments that examined people's real-life answers to questions about the time. Our hypothesis, following previous research findings, was that people strive to make their answers optimally relevant for the addressee, which in many cases allows people to give rounded, and not exact, time responses. Moreover, analyses of the non-numeral words, hesitations, and latencies of people's verbal responses to time questions reveal important insights into the dynamics of speaking to achieve optimal relevance. People include discourse markers, hesitation marks, like "uh" and "um", and pauses when answering time questions to maximize the cognitive effects (e.g., a rounded answer is adequate) listeners can infer while minimizing the cognitive effort required to infer these effects. This research provides new empirical evidence on how relevance considerations shape collaborative language use.     

Increasing physical activity in children 8 to 12 years old: experiences with VERB Summer Scorecard

Interventions which facilitate physical activity of youth are vital for promoting community health and reducing obesity. This study assessed the results of a community-driven program, VERB Summer Scorecard, as knowledge of exposure to and awareness of community-based interventions for physical activity among youth could inform design and implementation of such interventions. A total of 2,215 youth ages 8 to 12 years responded to a survey about physical activity. Ordinal logistic regression suggested that youth who participated in this program were 1.73 times (95% CI = 1.41, 2.11) more likely to report high physical activity than nonparticipating youth 9 mo. after the intervention's first full-scale application. The program appeared to appeal more to girls than boys. Such results are encouraging for use in communities.     

Development of Phonological Awareness of Chinese Children in Hong Kong

Three studies were conducted in Hong Kong to examine the development of phonological awareness of Chinese children from the ages of 3 to 8. Like English-speaking children, Chinese children were found to be able to detect relatively large sound segments (e.g., partial homophones) at the beginning and gradually progress to smaller sound segments (e.g., rhymes and tones). Tasks detecting onsets and rhymes in a similarity format were found to be easier for Chinese children than those in an oddity format. In addition, cross-linguistic comparisons indicated that Chinese children develop an awareness of initial consonants and rhymes later than their English counterparts. The possible impact from differences in the oral and written languages between Chinese and English are also discussed.     

Validity of Adolescents' Report of Maternal Age

Examined the validity of adolescents' reports of their mother's age. Most research on the validity of self-report focuses on personal behaviors such as alcohol and substance use, or response bias due to social desirability. Few studies investigate the validity of adolescents reporting of nonsensitive information. Data from 80 mother–adolescent pairs were collected. The sample included 9th graders from four high school English classes, equal numbers of males and females, and 15% African Americans. The correlation between mothers' reports and youths' reports of mother's age was .99, and 95% of the youth were within a year of their mother's correct age. No race or gender differences were found. These results allow researchers to examine adolescent outcomes for youth born to teen mothers without the expense of also collecting data from their mothers. Results also suggest that adolescents' self-reports of other nonsensitive familial data may also be valid.