The Sexual Identity Timeline: A Reflection Tool for Developing Competence in Counseling

Greater attention to sexual identity development from an inclusive and affirmative perspective must be incorporated into counselor education training. Counselors are well positioned to address issues related to human sexuality; however, without reflection across the spectrum of sexuality-related issues, counselors may rely on personal bias, or they may choose to avoid the topic altogether. In order to adequately train counselors, it is important to identify learning activities that counselor educators can utilize. Given the significance of sexuality across the lifespan, we propose that counselor educators actively guide their students through reflection about their own sexual identity development. This article presents the Sexual Identity Timeline (SIT) as a reflective learning activity to incorporate into the counseling curriculum.     

Trajectories of Social Anxiety in Children: Influence of Child Cortisol Reactivity and Parental Social Anxiety

Few studies have examined the interactive effect of intra- and extra-individual vulnerability factors on the trajectory of social anxiety in children. In this study, we examined the joint influence of familial vulnerability (i.e., parental social anxiety) and child biological stress vulnerability (i.e., cortisol reactivity) on trajectories of social anxiety. Children (N?=?112 (57 males), M _age?=?8.14 years, S.D. = 2.25) were followed over three visits spanning approximately three years. Parental social anxiety was assessed using the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory, children’s behavior and salivary cortisol reactivity were measured in response to a speech task, and children’s social anxiety was assessed at all three visits using the Screen for Child Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED; Parent-report). A growth curve analysis was used to examine trajectories of child social anxiety as predicted by children’s cortisol reactivity and parental social anxiety, adjusting for covariates. We found a significant interaction between parental social anxiety and child cortisol reactivity in predicting child social anxiety across time. Having a socially anxious parent coupled with heightened cortisol reactivity predicted the highest levels of child social anxiety, with scores that remained above clinically significant levels for social anxiety across all visits. Children with familial risk for social anxiety and who also exhibit high stress-reactivity appear to be at risk for persistent, clinically significant social anxiety. This highlights the importance of considering the interaction between both biological and contextual factors when considering the development, maintenance, and treatment of social anxiety in children across time.     

Cluster-ion bombardment studies to reveal the amorphization mode in strained Si0.8Ge0.2

Radiation damage caused by cluster ions of different sizes is predicted to be distinctly different if materials follow disparate phenomenological models of amorphization, namely overlap and direct amorphization methods. Determination of an amorphization model for a crystalline solid can be accomplished based on its radiation response to cluster sizes of bombarding ions. In the present study, we use this approach and apply it to study radiation damage in Si_0.8Ge_0.2 caused by Ag _n clusters with the number of atoms in a cluster, n, taking values from 1 to 4. The displacements measured by using channeling Rutherford backscattering spectrometry show size-enhanced damage accumulation, which is in good agreement with the atomistic detail obtained by molecular dynamics simulations. Our studies suggest that strained SiGe, a material known to have poor radiation tolerance, follows the overlap model rather than the direct amorphization model.     

Language facilitates event memory in early childhood: Child comprehension,adult-provided linguistic support and delayed recall at 16 months

Adult-provided supportive language facilitates memory for the past in preverbal and verbal children. Work conducted with 18-month-olds indicates that children benefit from supportive adult language when tested after a 4-week delay but not when tested immediately after sequence demonstration; moreover, findings reveal that supportive language provided only at test may be more facilitative of recall after a delay relative to supportive language provided only at encoding. In the present study, we examined whether child language comprehension abilities moderated the extent to which preverbal children benefitted from supportive language provided at encoding and test. The findings indicated that child language comprehension and supportive language provided at encoding were unassociated with performance at baseline or immediate imitation; however, the moderating effect of child language comprehension on adult-provided supportive language at encoding and test was observed after a 1-week delay. Correlations revealed continuous associations between general comprehension scores and recall performance after the 1-week delay on sequences presented in the most supportive condition at encoding. Taken together, the presented findings reveal that the complex interplay between language and cognition is established in early childhood, with foundational relations emerging before children are capable of verbally reporting on the past.     

Hostile affect and casual blood pressure

Abstract

The present study investigated the relation between hostile affect and casual blood pressure in men and women. Data were collected from two independent samples: (1) 204 university students, and (2) 175 adults from the community. Findings on blood pressure-hostile affect linkage are reported with age and body-mass index corrected values. Data were analyzed for subgroups split at the median for hostility and also for tercile subgroups. Median splits revealed no relationship between hostility and blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure tended to be highest in the medium and high hostility terciles. The diastolic pressure-hostility link in men represented a “V”-shaped curve. In women, there was no relationship. Heart rate levels were consistently unrelated to hostile affect. The importance of testing for linear as well as curvilinear relationships in future studies is highlighted.     

Emotional Reactions and Attitudes Prior to In Vitro Fertilization: An Inter-Spouse Study

In this study, spouse's emotional responses and attitudes to in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment were examined. The participants were 113 childless couples who suffered from infertility of unknown or mechanical (women) cause. Both partners were evaluated prior to IVF treatment. Incompatible emotional responses and attitudes to the treatment between the partners usually reflected the men reporting less distress and worries than women. Women had significantly higher state and trait anxiety and depression scores than normative levels, irrespective of whether they were successful in conceiving. Husbands of conceiving women scored higher on depression than husbands of nonconceiving women. The nonconceiving husbands had depression and trait anxiety scores significantly lower than the normative level. In addition, high emotional responses to the treatment, especially in men, were positively associated with treatment success. Recommendations for family assessment and counseling are suggested on the basis of these results.     

Language Outcome After Perinatal Stroke: Does Side Matter?

The goal of this study was to examine structured language skills in children with perinatal strokes. Participants were 28 school-age children with early focal brain lesions (17 with left hemisphere [LH] damage, 11 with right hemisphere [RH] damage), and 57 controls. A standardized test of language (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Revised) was administered. Receptive, Expressive, and Total Language scores, as well as subtest scores, were analyzed. Control participants scored within the normal range, whereas the LH and RH groups scored significantly more poorly than did controls. There were no differences between the LH and RH groups on any of the language scores, and all scores were below the 14th percentile. Within the lesion group as a whole, scores were not related to lesion laterality, site, or severity. Results also were not accounted for by socioeconomic status or IQ. However, children who experienced seizures demonstrated significantly poorer performance than did children who did not experience seizures. Damage to either the LH or RH early in development adversely affects later language abilities, particularly on tasks with structured and complex linguistic demands. Although lesion side has little effect, the presence or absence of seizures is a major contributor to language outcome.     

Implicit memory bias,explicit memory bias,and anxiety

Abstract

Normals high, medium, and low in trait anxiety performed two encoding tasks (one predominantly data-driven and the other conceptually driven) on threat-related and neutral words, followed by tests of word completion, cued recall, and free recall. Memory performance indicated the existence of negative memory biases in the high trait-anxious group, but it was generally not possible to decide whether the biases were associated with trait anxiety rather than with depression. The biases were obtained mainly when there was a match between the processes at encoding and those at the time of test, whether the matching processes were predominantly data-driven or conceptually driven. Implications of these findings for implicit and explicit memory biases associated with high trait anxiety are discussed.     

La comunicación entre pequeños gorilas criados en cautividad y sus cuidadoras

Resumen

La presente investigación tiene como sujetos a dos pequeños gorilas criados artificialmente. Entre ellos y sus cuidadoras se han creado episodios de juego manipulativo al efecto de que emergieran «formatos de acción conjunta», los cuales son típicos de los niños que se hallan en el mismo nivel de desarrollo. La respuesta de los gorilas ha sido muy pobre. Ha quedado, sin embargo, patente en otros episodios que los pequeños gorilas eran capaces de entender a sus cuidadoras y de hacerse entender de ellas. Esto nos ha llevado a estudiar hasta dónde llega ese «mutuo entendimiento» o capacidad de «compartir significados» atribuibles a estos antropoides. Dado que las acciones comunicativas más notables han ocurrido en situaciones que involucraban la satisfacción de alguna necesidad y también en el juego movido, hemos planteado la relación que existiría entre sistemas motivacionales y acción comunicativa. Nuestra elaboración teórica nos permite desvelar algunos de los prerrequisitos de la función simbólica y de las formas de comunicación más avanzadas que se dan ya entre los niños y no en nuestros gorilas como tampoco probablemente en los demás antropoides.     

Race/Ethnicity and Multicultural Competence Among School Counselors: Multicultural Training,Racial/Ethnic Identity,and Color‐Blind Racial Attitudes

This study tested a model that links race/ethnicity, multicultural training, racial/ethnic identity (REI), color‐blind racial attitudes (CoBRA), and multicultural counseling competence (MCC) among school counselors. The author examined whether multicultural training significantly moderated the association between race/ethnicity and MCC. School counselors’ REI was found to mediate this moderated association. A 3‐way interaction among race/ethnicity, training, and CoBRA revealed that White and racial/ethnic minority school counselors had the lowest MCC scores when they had limited training and higher CoBRA.