Borderline personality disorder features predict negative outcomes 2 years later

In a sample of 351 young adults, the authors assessed whether borderline personality disorder (BPD) features prospectively predicted negative outcomes (poorer academic achievement and social maladjustment) over the subsequent 2 years, over and above gender and both Axis I and Axis II psychopathology. Borderline traits were significantly related to these outcomes, with impulsivity and affective instability the most highly associated. The present findings suggest that the impulsivity and affective instability associated with BPD leads to impairment in relating well with others, in meeting social role obligations, and in academic or occupational achievement. Therefore, these may be especially important features to target in interventions for BPD.     

Ethnicity, expressed emotion, attributions, and course of schizophrenia: family warmth matters

The authors examined the role of family factors and the course of schizophrenia by carrying out additional assessments and analyses in 2 previously published studies of Mexican American and Anglo American patients and families. The authors found partial support for an attributional model of relapse for families who are low in emotional overinvolvement. Attributions of control, criticism, and warmth together marginally predicted relapse. The data also indicated that for Mexican Americans, family warmth is a significant protective factor, whereas for Anglo Americans, family criticism is a significant risk factor. These findings suggest that the sociocultural context shapes the pathways by which family processes are related to the course of illness. Moreover, the warmth findings suggest that families may contribute to preventing relapse.     

Predicting abuse in adolescent dating relationships over 1 year: the role of child maltreatment and trauma

Three mediators of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and dating violence perpetration during midadolescence (i.e., trauma-related symptoms, attitudes justifying dating violence, and empathy and self-efficacy in dating relationships) were tested over 1 year with a sample of students from 10 high schools (N = 1,317). Trauma-related symptoms had a significant cross-time effect on predicting incidents of dating violence for both boys and girls. Attitudes and empathy and self-efficacy did not predict dating violence over time, although they were correlated with such behavior at both time points. Child maltreatment is a distal risk factor for adolescent dating violence, and trauma-related symptoms act as a significant mediator of this relationship. The importance of longitudinal methodology that separates correlates from predictors is discussed.     

The Relative Influence of Client Characteristics on the Process and Outcomes of Premarital Counseling: A Survey of Providers

To explore the influence of client characteristics in premarital counseling, a five factor model is presented that includes the social context, family-of-origin influences, individual characteristics, couple interactional processes, and motivation for attending premarital counseling. The findings demonstrate that providers believe that many client characteristics influence the degree to which couples benefit from premarital counseling. Providers rated the influence of the client characteristic factors in the following order (from most to least influential): couple interactional processes, family-of-origin influences, individual characteristics, motivation for premarital counseling, and the social context. Recommendations for future theory development, practice, and research are discussed.The findings presented in this article were part of the authors doctoral dissertation at the University of Florida.     

Locomotion,incidental learning,and the selection

In three experiments, we examined the effects of locomotion and incidental learning on the formation of spatial memories. Participants learned the locations of objects in a room and then made judgments of relative direction, using their memories (e.g., "Imagine you are standing at the clock, facing the jar. Point to the book"). The experiments manipulated the number of headings experienced, the amount of interaction with the objects, and whether the participants were informed that their memories of the layout would be tested. When participants were required to maintain a constant body orientation during learning (Experiment 1), they represented the layout in terms of a single reference direction parallel to that orientation. When they were allowed to move freely in the room (Experiment 2), they seemed to use two orthogonal reference axes aligned with the walls of the enclosing room. Extensive movement under incidental learning conditions (Experiment 3) yielded a mixture of these two encoding strategies across participants. There was no evidence that locomotion, interaction with objects, or incidental learning led to the formation of spatial memories that differed from those formed from static viewing.     

The nature and treatment of stuttering as revealed by fMRI A within- and between-group comparison

This article reviews some of our recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of stuttering. Using event-related fMRI experiments, we investigated brain activation during speech production. Results of three studies comparing persons who stutter (PWS) and persons who do not stutter (PWNS) are outlined. Their findings point to a region in the right frontal operculum (RFO) that was consistently implicated in stuttering. During overt reading and before fluency shaping therapy, PWS showed higher and more distributed neuronal activation than PWNS. Immediately after therapy differential activations were even more distributed and left sided. They extended to frontal, temporal, and parietal regions, anterior cingulate, insula, and putamen. These over-activations were slightly reduced and again more right sided two years after therapy. Left frontal deactivations remained stable over two years of observation, and therefore possibly indicate a dysfunction. After therapy, we noted higher activations in persons who stutter moderately than in those who stutter severely. These activations might reflect patterns of compensation. We discuss why these findings suggest that fluency-inducing techniques might synchronize a disturbed signal transmission between auditory, speech motor planning, and motor areas.

Educational objectives: The reader will learn about and be able to: (1) identify regions of brain activations and deactivations specific for PWS; (2) describe brain activation changes induced by fluency shaping therapy; and (3) discuss the correlation between stuttering severity and brain activation.     

Event-related brain potential markers of high-language proficiency in adults

The central issue addressed is whether there are electrophysiological markers for high-language proficiency in adults. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded in 19 young adults who demonstrated either "normal" or "high" language proficiency. ERPs were obtained during a sentence-processing task and analyzed for specific response components elicited by different word types. The ERPs in the normal and high-language proficiency groups were similar for early sensory related processing but differed in the later components thought to be more closely related to lexical access and post-lexical processing. The findings for the ERP waveforms suggest that adults with high-language proficiency show slightly faster lexical access over left anterior brain regions for closed class items, and a reduced reliance on contextual information contained in sentences.     

Impaired processing of prosodic and musical patterns after right hemisphere damage

The distinction between the processing of musical information and segmental speech information (i.e., consonants and vowels) has been much explored. In contrast, the relationship between the processing of music and prosodic speech information (e.g., intonation) has been largely ignored. We report an assessment of prosodic perception for an amateur musician, KB, who became amusic following a right-hemisphere stroke. Relative to matched controls, KB's segmental speech perception was preserved. However, KB was unable to discriminate pitch or rhythm patterns in linguistic or musical stimuli. He was also impaired on prosodic perception tasks (e.g., discriminating statements from questions). Results are discussed in terms of common neural mechanisms that may underlie the processing of some aspects of both music and speech prosody.     

Age,acculturation, cultural adjustment,and mental health symptoms of Chinese,Korean, and Japanese immigrant youths

This study of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean immigrant junior high and high school students (N = 319) investigated the association between age, acculturation, cultural adjustment difficulties, and general mental health concerns. Hierarchical regression analyses determined that among all of the independent variables, age, acculturation, and cultural adjustment difficulties had significant predictive effects on mental health symptoms. Implications for theory, research, and practice are addressed, particularly as they relate to developmental issues among immigrant youths.     

Ethnicity and Social Support During Pregnancy

Data from two multi-ethnic prospective studies of African American, Latina, and non-Hispanic White pregnant women were used to examine the influence of contextual factors on social support processes during pregnancy. Multiple types of support (perceived support, received support, support satisfaction, network support) and sources of support (baby's father, family, friends) were assessed. The role of ethnicity in social support was examined after controlling for the contribution of related contextual factors (SES, marital status, age, parity, employment) to these processes. The impact of ethnicity and related contextual factors differed across sources of social support. Ethnic differences in support from family and friends, but not from the baby's father, emerged. However, marital status was a consistent predictor of support from the baby's father, and SES was a consistent predictor of support from friends. Overall, the findings of two studies suggest that although ethnicity is associated with support from friends and family, other contextual factors, such as marital status and SES, influence support processes during pregnancy.