Reflections Relative to Death,Dying, and Grieving Workshops

Death, dying, and grieving are frequent counseling themes. Developmental workshops and courses, such as described in this article, address the crucial existential aspects related to living and dying.     

The influence of parent negative emotional expression on adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with their parents

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parent affective expression in interactions and adolescent perceptions of their relationship. Observational and self-report data were collected on 85 intact families with adolescents in grades 5 to 9 (n = 44 males, 41 females). Each parent and adolescent took part in two 8-minute conversations–one about an activity they reported enjoying together and one about a disagreement or area of conflict. Conversations were coded on a speaker turn basis for positive, negative, neutral, mixed, and altered affect (kappa = .76). Physical maturation was related to adolescent perceptions of increased negative communication quality in all parent-adolescent dyads. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that expression by fathers of negative and mixed affect significantly predicted adolescent perceptions of communication quality, psychological autonomy, and firm/lax control, in addition to the effects of adolescent pubertal maturation. Mother affective expression in interactions was less consistently related to adolescent perceptions of relationship satisfaction. Implications for the salience of father versus mother affective expression in interactions with adolescents are discussed.     

AN EVALUATION OF GENERIC TEAMWORK SKILLS TRAINING WITH ACTION TEAMS: EFFECTS ON COGNITIVE AND SKILL-BASED OUTCOMES

This study evaluated the utility of generic teamwork skills training for enhancing the effectiveness of action teams. Results from 65 4-person action teams working on an interdependent command and control simulator revealed that generic teamwork skills training had a significant and positive impact on both cognitive and skill-based outcomes. Trained team members evidenced higher levels of declarative knowledge regarding teamwork competencies and demonstrated greater proficiency in the areas of planning and task coordination, collaborative problem-solving, and communication. Furthermore, results indicated that cognitive and skill based outcomes were interrelated. Team members' declarative knowledge regarding teamwork competencies positively affected planning and task coordination, collaborative problem solving, and communication skills. However, we found that the effects of declarative knowledge differed across team members depending on their roles and responsibilities. The team benefited the most from the knowledge held by the team member who occupied the most critical position in the workflow. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.     

Exploring intergenerational patterns of infidelity

Three studies explored how parental infidelity is related to offspring's infidelity behavior and used social learning theory to test potential mechanisms. In Study 1, parental infidelity was positively associated with offspring infidelity; trust and relationship self‐efficacy did not mediate the association. In Study 2, infidelity was associated with parental infidelity and more positive infidelity beliefs. In Study 3, parental infidelity was positively associated with offspring infidelity. Study 3 revealed that parental infidelity is associated with offspring reports of receiving negative messages about fidelity and positive messages about infidelity from their family of origin. These communications are linked to more positive and accepting infidelity beliefs. The results of these studies support the conclusion that parent infidelity is associated with an individual's own infidelity.     

Is there an alternative cerebral network associated with enhanced phonological processing in deaf speech-users? An exceptional case

Most people born deaf and exposed to oral language show scant evidence of sensitivity to the phonology of speech when processing written language. In this respect they differ from hearing people. However, occasionally, a prelingually deaf person can achieve good processing of written language in terms of phonological sensitivity and awareness, and in this respect appears exceptional. We report the pattern of event-related fMRI activation in such a deaf reader while performing a rhyme-judgment on written words with similar spelling endings that do not provide rhyme clues. The left inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis and the left inferior parietal lobe showed greater activation for this task than for a letter-string identity matching task. This participant was special in this regard, showing significantly greater activation in these regions than a group of hearing participants with a similar level of phonological and reading skill. In addition, SR showed activation in the left mid-fusiform gyrus; a region which did not show task-specific activation in the other respondents. The pattern of activation in this exceptional deaf reader was also unique compared with three deaf readers who showed limited phonological processing. We discuss the possibility that this pattern of activation may be critical in relation to phonological decoding of the written word in good deaf readers whose phonological reading skills are indistinguishable from those of hearing readers.