An experiment promoting interdisciplinary applied human development: The University of Pittsburgh model

The University of Pittsburgh Office of Child Development is an unusual university facilitative and administrative unit that promotes, funds, plans, implements, manages, and conducts interdisciplinary applied education, research, service demonstration, program evaluation, and policy projects pertaining to children, youth, and families. In the 9+ years of its existence, its soft-money budget has grown more than 34 times, its number of employees has increased 27-fold, and it has played a major role $75 million worth of collaborative projects. This article describes the Office's rationale, structure, purposes, principles of operation, projects, evaluation, and positive and negative factors in its development so that others may benefit from this case-study experiment in interdisciplinary applied human development programming.     

Relative alpha desynchronization and synchronization during perception of music

Relative desynchronization (ERD) and synchronization (ERS) of the 8–10 Hz and 10–12 Hz alpha freqency bands elicited by music were studied in ten musically untrained right-handed subjects. The subjects listened to two five-minute musical excerpts representing two different musical genres, popular and classical, presented both foward and backward. ERD/ERS of the two alpha frequency bands was examined during the first four minutes of stimulus presentation using one-minute time windows. The results demonstrated that both the 8–10 Hz and the 10–12Hz frequency band exhibited reactivity to musical stimuli. The responses of the 8–10Hz and 10–12 Hz alpha frequency bands were dissimilar, dymanic and dependent on both time and stimulation type. The dynamics of these changes over time may explain some discrepancies in earlier EEG studies during listening to music.     

The Role of Personal Spirituality and Religious Social Activity on the Life Satisfaction of Older Widowed Women

We examined the impact of personal spiritualityand religious social activity on the life satisfactionof older widowed women. Fifty-one White, femaleretirement community residents completed measures of personal spirituality, religious socialactivities, and life satisfaction. Ten residents werealso interviewed about their religious beliefs andactivities. Although the interviews revealed bothpersonal spirituality and religious social activity tobe central to the life satisfaction of these women,quantitative results suggested only involvement withreligious social activities was related to lifesatisfaction. Interviews revealed thatchurch activitiesprovided the women a loving family and a supportivecommunity. Religious activities helped these older womenovercome hardships, gave them a chance to sustainfriendships, and provided a vehicle through which they couldcontribute to their community.     

Emotion in Speech: The Acoustic Attributes of Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Joy

Decoders can detect emotion in voice with much greater accuracy than can be achieved by objective acoustic analysis. Studies that have established this advantage, however, used methods that may have favored decoders and disadvantaged acoustic analysis. In this study, we applied several methodologic modifications for the analysis of the acoustic differentiation of fear, anger, sadness, and joy. Thirty-one female subjects between the ages of 18 and 35 (encoders) were audio-recorded during an emotion-induction procedure and produced a total of 620 emotion-laden sentences. Twelve female judges (decoders), three for each of the four emotions, were assigned to rate the intensity of one emotion each. Their combined ratings were used to select 38 prototype samples per emotion. Past acoustic findings were replicated, and increased acoustic differentiation among the emotions was achieved. Multiple regression analysis suggested that some, although not all, of the acoustic variables were associated with decoders' ratings. Signal detection analysis gave some insight into this disparity. However, the analysis of the classic constellation of acoustic variables may not completely capture the acoustic features that influence decoders' ratings. Future analyses would likely benefit from the parallel assessment of respiration, phonation, and articulation.     

Measuring Child Mental Health Status for Services Research

Epidemiological studies of the prevalence of mental health disorders typically contain multiple measures of mental health, using different instruments and different informants (child, parent, and interviewer). We used the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescents Mental Disorder (MECA) study of U.S. youth to assess the effects of employing a range of these measures in mental health services research. We examined the effect of including various measures of mental health status in regressions of income on mental health service use. The estimated effect of income on service use varied widely, depending on the measure of mental health status used. Some measures of mental health status have little explanatory power in service use regressions. Measures of mental health status based on parental assessment of impairment or need, such as the Columbia Impairment Scale, are less costly to collect and also have good explanatory power, but are more strongly correlated with income. The Non-Clinician Child Global Assessment Scale (NC-CGAS) performs best in terms of explanatory power and correlation with income. Higher income parents appeared to judge behaviors differently from lower income parents, so analyses based on measures derived from parental report may lead to an understatement of the effect of income on service use.     

Proprioceptive feedback as a mediator in interlimb timing

Prior findings regarded as evidence for proprioceptive feedback as a mediator in interlimb timing can also be interpreted as evidence for motor outflow because they came from research that had subjects make voluntary movements, and such movements allow for both feedback and outflow to operate. The present study was designed to resolve this controversy by determining if these findings could be replicated with passive movements which allow for feedback, but not outflow, to operate. The interlimb timing task studied was one where subjects made the timing response with their right hand while moving their left arm during the 1.5-sec interval to be timed. Three groups of 16 male college students performed 50 trials of the right-hand response with knowledge of results, under one of three left-arm conditions: (a) passive movement, (b) voluntary movement, and (c) no movement. The results indicated that the findings were replicated with passive movements and this was interpreted as support for the involvement of proprioceptive feedback in interlimb timing.     

Dueling Experiences and Dual Ambivalences: Emotional and Motivational Ambivalence of Women in High Status Positions

A laboratory study demonstrates that women in high status positions experience emotional ambivalence (simultaneous experience of positive and negative affect) and motivational ambivalence (simultaneous desires to build relationships and display power). These effects were found with 2 different measures of ambivalence, 1 derived from the attitudinal ambivalence literature and the other from the structure of affect literature. These findings have implications about the experience of women in the workplace, as well as the current debates concerning structure of affect.     

Improvements in early care in Russian orphanages and their relationship to observed behaviors

This article describes a unique study that attempts to promote positive social‐emotional relationships and attachment between caregivers and children in orphanages in St. Petersburg, Russia. The children who reside in these orphanages are typically between birth and 48 months of age; approximately 50% are diagnosed with disabilities, and approximately 60% leave through foreign adoption. Initially, their orphanage caregivers showed a high level of current anxiety and depression and were detached from and communicated little with the children. Likewise, during baseline observations, the children demonstrated poor attachment behaviors such as indiscriminant friendliness, lack of eye contact with adults, aggression, and impulsive behavior. Two interventions were used in a quasiexperimental design: (a) training of caregivers to promote warm, responsive caregiving and (b) staffing and structural alterations to support relationship building, especially increasing the consistency of caregivers. The methodology required that both the training and staffing interventions be provided to one orphanage, only the training to a second, and neither to a third. (At any one time, ns = 80–120 in each condition.) Initial informal observations reveal positive behaviors for both the caregivers and the children, such as increased two‐way conversations, animated and enthusiastic emotional responses, and positive social and language interactions. Early data analyses show an increase in the consistency and stability of caregivers and increased scores for caregivers on every subscale of the HOME Scales. Children showed improvements in physical growth, cognition, language, motor, personal‐social, and affect, with children having severe disabilities improving the most. The implications of these findings suggest that training staff with modest educational backgrounds and structural changes are effective, can increase socially responsive caregiving behaviors, and improves social interactions of children, at least temporarily. ©2005 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Video-based assessment of interpersonal problem solving skills in patients with schizophrenia, their siblings and non-psychiatric controls

The aim of this study was to analyze social functioning in patients with schizophrenia and their biological relatives with a Swedish version of the video-based vignette test Assessment of Interpersonal Problem Solving Skills (AIPSS). In a new video production with simulated "real life" situations we tested the ability to receive, process and send social information in 25 individuals with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia, 20 siblings to patients with schizophrenia and 25 randomly selected non-psychiatric controls. The test proved to have good validity and interrater reliability. After controlling for positive or negative symptoms, patients had poor performance especially in acting out solutions leading to effective problem solving. Siblings generally did not differ from controls, but showed some deficiencies in non-verbal language. To conclude, AIPSS is appropriate for use in a Swedish-speaking context and might be useful in research on vulnerability indicators and in assessment of treatment interventions.     

A randomized control trial to investigate the impact of the Lidcombe Program on early stuttering in German-speaking preschoolers

In order to investigate whether the Lidcombe Program effects a short-term reduction of stuttered speech beyond natural recovery, 46 German preschool children were randomly assigned to a wait-contrast group or to an experimental group which received the Lidcombe Program for 16 weeks. The children were between 3;0 and 5;11 years old, their and both of their parents’ native language was German, stuttering onset had been at least 6 months before, and their stuttering frequency was higher than 3% stuttered syllables. Spontaneous speech samples were recorded at home and in the clinic prior to treatment and after 4 months. Compared to the wait-contrast group, the treatment group showed a significantly higher decrease in stuttered syllables in home-measurements (6.9%SS vs. 1.6%SS) and clinic-measurements (6.8%SS vs. 3.6%SS), and the same increase in articulation rate. The program is considered an enrichment of currently applied early stuttering interventions in Germany.

Educational objectives: Readers will discuss and evaluate: (1) the short-term effects of the Lidcombe Program in comparison to natural recovery on stuttering; (2) the impact of the Lidcombe Program on early stuttering in German-speaking preschool children.