Depression and literacy are important factors for missed appointments

Multiple variables are related to missed clinic appointments. However, the prevalence of missed appointments is still high suggesting other factors may play a role. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between missed appointments and multiple variables simultaneously across a health care system, including patient demographics, psychiatric symptoms, cognitive functioning and literacy status. Chart reviews were conducted on 147 consecutive patients who were seen by a primary care psychologist over a six month period and completed measures to determine levels of depression, anxiety, sleep, cognitive functioning and health literacy. Demographic information and rates of missed appointments were also collected from charts. The average rate of missed appointments was 15.38%. In univariate analyses, factors related to higher rates of missed appointments included younger age (p = .03), lower income (p = .05), probable depression (p = .05), sleep difficulty (p = .05) and limited reading ability (p = .003). There were trends for a higher rate of missed appointments for patients identifying as black (p = .06), government insurance (p = .06) and limited math ability (p = .06). In a multivariate model, probable depression (p = .02) and limited reading ability (p = .003) were the only independent predictors. Depression and literacy status may be the most important factors associated with missed appointments. Implications are discussed including regular screening for depression and literacy status as well as interventions that can be utilized to help improve the rate of missed appointments.     

Cognitive Effects of HIV-1 Infection

The major neurological complication of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection is cognitive impairment, which can range in severity from a mild subclinical cognitive inefficiency to a severe dementing illness. Mild to moderate cognitive impairment is identified primarily by neuropsychological tests. The prevalence and severity of cognitive impairment associated with HIV-1 infection increases as the disease progresses. Deficits in attention, information processing speed, memory, and motor abilities can occur early in the course of HIV-1 infection, with deficits in abstraction and executive functions observed in later stages of infection. The nature of the cognitive impairment observed is thought to reflect the effects of HIV-1 infection on the integrity of subcortical or frontostriatal brain systems. Issues related to the detection of subclinical to severe cognitive impairment are discussed, along with the clinical significance of mild cognitive impairment as a significant risk factor for mortality in HIV-1 infection. The need to control for possible confounding factors that can influence test performance is also reviewed.     

The link between children's sport participation and self-esteem: Exploring the mediating role of sport self-concept

Background and PurposeSport participation is positively associated with indices of adjustment, such as self-esteem, among adolescent participants. Less is known about the processes through which younger children benefit from their sport participation. The purpose of this investigation was to test whether children's sport self-concept mediated the longitudinal associations between time spent in individual- and team-oriented organized sport activities and later self-esteem.MethodsWe used four waves of data from the Childhood and Beyond Study collected from three cohorts of elementary school-aged children (N = 987), their parents, and their teachers.ResultsFindings indicated that children who spent more time in team sports, but not time in individual sports, reported higher sport self-concept, which, in turn, was associated with higher self-esteem than their peers. Multi-group analyses suggested that these relations did not vary across gender, sport ability, sport importance beliefs, or peer acceptance.ConclusionsStudy results suggested that the relations between time spent in sports and children's sport self-concept depends, in part, on whether the time was spent in team or individual sports. This investigation highlighted the value of examining mediating processes so as to better explicate the association between time in sports and self-esteem.     

Variations in the Gender-Stereotyped Content of Children's Television Cartoons Across Genres

This study examined the gender-stereotyped content of children's TV network cartoons across 4 genres: traditional adventure (e.g., "Spiderman"), nontraditional adventure (e.g., "Reboot"), educational/family (e.g., "Magic School Bus"), and comedy ("Animaniacs"). Acting negatively, showing physical aggression, and being a victim were significantly less likely in the educational/family genre cartoons than any of the other three genres. Demonstrating romantic behavior was significantly more likely in the traditional adventure and the comedy genres than the other genres. Male characters were represented in cartoons significantly more than were female characters, but only in the traditional adventure and the comedy genres. Male characters were more likely than were female characters to use physical aggression, but only in the traditional adventure genre. Behaviors that were relatively more likely among female characters across genres included showing fear, acting romantic, being polite, and acting supportive. Most of the significant differences were also associated with very large effect sizes.     

Non‐generalized and generalized conditioned reinforcers: establishment and validation

Conditioned reinforcers, or tokens, are frequently used in clinical settings; however, little applied research has focused on establishing and validating their effectiveness. Following pairing of a novel token with an edible reinforcer in the present study, preference and reinforcer assessments verified that the tokens functioned as conditioned reinforcers. Results indicated that the tokens were established as conditioned reinforcers that matched the reinforcer value of the primary reinforcers with which they had been paired. The effects of motivating operations (MOs) on the effectiveness of these conditioned reinforcers were then evaluated. Conditioned reinforcer effectiveness decreased during satiation conditions. Subsequently it was found that increasing the number of backup reinforcers with which the token was paired resulted in the effectiveness maintaining during satiation conditions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“I think you did it!”: Examining the effect of presuming guilt on the verbal output of innocent suspects during brief interviews

Innocent suspects interviewed by a guilt‐presumptive versus innocence‐presumptive or neutral interviewer may tend more to display non‐verbal behaviours which neutral judges consider indicative of guilt. We examined the effects of interviewer's presumption of guilt on innocent mock suspects' alibis. Participants (N = 90) provided an alibi to convince an interviewer of their innocence of a theft after she implied that she believed that they were guilty or innocent or that she had no belief about their veracity. On the basis of existing conflicting findings for suspects' verbal behaviour during accusatory interviews, we predicted that alibis in the guilt‐belief condition would contain the highest or lowest number of correct details with overall higher or poorer accuracy rates, respectively. Although participants perceived the interviewer's presumptive approach, the number of correct details provided and accuracy rates of alibis did not differ significantly between conditions. We propose explanations to these findings and future research paths.     

Attentional guidance in singleton search: An examination of top-down,bottom-up,and intertrial factors

While it is clear that the goals of an observer change behaviour, their role in the guidance of visual attention has been much debated. In particular, there has been controversy over whether top-down knowledge can influence attentional guidance in search for a singleton item that is already salient by a bottom-up account (Theeuwes, Reimann, & Mortier, 2006). One suggestion is that passive intertrial priming accounts for what has been called top-down guidance (e.g., Maljkovic & Nakayama, 1994). In the present study, participants responded to the shape of a singleton target among homogenous distractors in a trial-by-trial cueing design. We examined the influence of target expectancy, trial history, and target salience (which was manipulated by changing the number of distractors). Top-down influence resulted in fast RTs that were independent of display size, even on trials that received no priming. Our findings show there is a role for top-down guidance, even in singleton search. The designation of intertrial priming as a bottom-up factor, rather than an implicit top-down factor (Wolfe, Butcher, Lee, & Hyle, 2003), is also discussed.     

Keeping the reader's mind in mind: Development of perspective-taking in children's dictations

This study investigated when children can take the perspective of their reader if the information-processing demands of writing are removed by means of dictation to a scribe. Participants (N = 96) aged 5, 6 and 7 years dictated letters to an addressee who possessed requisite content knowledge, and then revised the letter or dictated a new letter to an addressee who lacked this knowledge (counterbalanced). Results showed that 19% of 5-year-olds, 41% of 6-year-olds, and 72% of 7-year-olds considered their reader's missing knowledge. Children's awareness of their reader's knowledge was neither related to performance on higher-order theory of mind tasks, nor to measures of executive function. Significantly greater perspective-taking was demonstrated in children's new letters than revised letters. However, although revision is considered a late-developing skill, half of even the 5-year-olds were able to make revisions (albeit few revisions demonstrated actual perspective-taking). Findings have significant implications for the emergent-literacy curriculum.