Adolescents with suicidal and nonsuicidal self-harm: clinical characteristics and response to therapeutic assessment

Self-harm is one of the best predictors of death by suicide, but few studies directly compare adolescents with suicidal versus nonsuicidal self-harm. Seventy adolescents presenting with self-harm (71% young women, ages 12-18 years) who participated in a randomized controlled trial were divided into suicidal and nonsuicidal self-harm categories using the Columbia Classification Algorithm of Suicide Assessment. Adolescents with suicidal self-harm were more likely than those with nonsuicidal self-harm to be young women, 22/23 (96%) versus 34/47 (72%), odds ratio (OR) = 8.33, 95% confidence interval (CI) [1.03, 50.0]; had a later age of onset of self-harm, 15.4 years vs. 13.8 years, mean difference = 1.6, 95% CI [.8, 2.43]; and used self-poisoning more often, 18/23 (78%) versus 11/47 (23%), OR = 3.43, 95% CI [2.00, 5.89]. Only those with nonsuicidal self-harm had an improvement on Children's Global Assessment Scale score following a brief therapeutic intervention, mean difference = 8.20, 95% CI [.97, 15.42]. However, there was no interaction between treatment and suicidality. There are important differences between adolescents presenting with suicidal and nonsuicidal self-harm. Suicidal self-harm in adolescence may be associated with a less favorable response to therapeutic assessment.     

How and to What Extent Do Two Cover, Copy, and Compare Spelling Interventions Contribute to Spelling, Word Recognition, and Vocabulary Development?

We used an adapted alternating treatments design to evaluate and compare the effects of 2 spelling interventions on spelling acquisition and maintenance, word reading, and vocabulary in three first-grade students. The first intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC), involved having participants look at a word, cover it, write it, then compare the written response with the original stimulus. For the second intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare + Sentence Definition (CCC + SD), CCC was supplemented with the experimenter reading a sentence containing the word and a brief definition of the word. Results showed that both interventions increased participants’ spelling at an equivalent rate, which was greater than a control condition. All participants showed greater gains in word reading in the 2 interventions than the control condition, and only 1 participant was better able to define words learned in the CCC + SD condition relative to the CCC condition.     

Longitudinal Results of Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Youths with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Depressive Symptoms

Youths with chronic physical illnesses face increased rates of psychological problems and the burden of coping with physical illness-related challenges. The following data describes treatment outcome maintenance results from a randomized clinical trial investigating the impact of a cognitive behavioral intervention Primary and Secondary Control Enhancement Therapy-Physical Illness (PASCET-PI) as compared to treatment as usual (TAU) on youths with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Forty-one participants aged 11-17 with IBD and concurrent depressive symptomatology were randomized to PASCET-PI (n?=?22) or TAU (n?=?19). Self-reported depressive features, global functioning, and DSM-IV depressive symptomatology were assessed immediately post-treatment (T2), followed by assessments at 6-months (T3) and 12-months (T4) post-treatment initiation. Repeated measure models revealed significantly improved global psychosocial functioning in youths randomized to PASCET-PI compared to youths randomized to TAU. Improvements in self-reported depressive features and DSM-IV depressive symptoms were found at the trend level for youths randomized to PASCET-PI relative to those receiving TAU. Effect size estimates for all outcome variables suggested large to medium treatment effects.     

Task rules, working memory, and fluid intelligence

Many varieties of working memory have been linked to fluid intelligence. In Duncan et al. (Journal of Experimental Psychology:General 137:131-148, 2008), we described limited working memory for new task rules: When rules are complex, some may fail in their control of behavior, though they are often still available for explicit recall. Unlike other kinds of working memory, load is determined in this case not by real-time performance demands, but by the total complexity of the task instructions. Here, we show that the correlation with fluid intelligence is stronger for this aspect of working memory than for several other, more traditional varieties-including simple and complex spans and a test of visual short-term memory. Any task, we propose, requires construction of a mental control program that aids in segregating and assembling multiple task parts and their controlling rules. Fluid intelligence is linked closely to the efficiency of constructing such programs, especially when behavior is complex and novel.     

Affect-biased attention as emotion regulation

The affective biasing of attention is not typically considered to be a form of emotion regulation. In this article, we argue that 'affect-biased attention' - the predisposition to attend to certain categories of affectively salient stimuli over others - provides an important component of emotion regulation. Affect-biased attention regulates subsequent emotional responses by tuning one's filters for initial attention and subsequent processing. By reviewing parallel research in the fields of emotion regulation and affect-biased attention, as well as clinical and developmental research on individual differences in attentional biases, we provide convergent evidence that habitual affective filtering processes, tuned and re-tuned over development and situation, modulate emotional responses to the world. Moreover, they do so in a manner that is proactive rather than reactive.     

Transposed-letter priming effect in Hebrew in the same-different task

We investigated the interaction between morphological structure and transposed-letter priming using the same-different task with Hebrew, a Semitic language in which morphology has been shown to play a key role in visual word recognition. In contrast to the results observed with lexical decision (e.g., Velan & Frost, 2009, 2011), a transposed-letter priming effect was observed irrespective of the morphological structure of the words. We take these results to suggest that morphological decomposition occurs only in the service of lexical access. We discuss further a unique feature of written Arabic, another Semitic language, to explain the apparent conflict between our findings and those reported by Perea, Abu Mallouh, García-Orza, and Carreiras (2010).     

Agnosticism gone awry: Why developmental robotics must commit to an understanding of embodiment and shared intentionality

We argue that developmental robotics, in its integration of developmental psychology and robotics, has the potential to encounter unexpected and unexamined conceptual difficulties. In particular, the various uses of embodiment and shared intentionality single out certain robots and behaviors as more or less relevant for the modeling of social cognition. As these terms have relatively orthogonal histories, there is no account for how their use will interact to shape methodology. We provide a brief discussion of how they may do so. Moreover, theorists often avoid explicit endorsement of some use or another. Although this agnosticism is understandable, we use the model of Dominey and Warneken (2011) as an illustrative example of why it is potentially dangerous. While Dominey and Warneken have succeeded in encouraging theorists to adopt clearer formulations of shared intentionality, their model suffers from important difficulties in interpretation, which, we argue, are a consequence of their uses of embodiment and shared intentionality respectively.     

Mentors Enhance Resilience in At-Risk Children and Adolescents

Mentors can play an important role in promoting resilience among at-risk children and adolescents. Nonparental adults who serve as mentors can provide reliable support, communicate moral values, teach information and skills, inspire, motivate, enhance interpersonal relatedness, and foster self-esteem. A number of researchers have reported that at-risk children who have mentors, especially nonparental kin, exhibit fewer problem behaviors, more positive attitudes towards school, greater school efficacy, less marijuana use, less nonviolent delinquency, and lower levels of anxiety and depression. The most successful mentors are those who invest time and energy and have frequent and prolonged contact with the children they guide. The relationship between mentoring and resilience in at-risk children and adolescents may best be understood from psychological, social, and neurobiological perspectives. As described and recommended by Allen and Hauser, the in-depth analysis of narratives provided by at-risk children and adolescents, particularly over the course of their development into young adulthood, will undoubtedly help researchers to isolate specific features of mentoring that are critical for fostering resilience.     

Teachers' Understandings of Probability

Probability is an important idea with a remarkably wide range of applications. However, psychological and instructional studies conducted in the last two decades have consistently documented poor understanding of probability among different populations across different settings. The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical framework for describing teachers' understandings of probability. To this end, we conducted an 8-day seminar with eight high school statistics teachers in the summer of 2001. The data we collected include videotaped sessions and interviews, teachers' written work, and researchers' field notes. Our analysis of the data revealed that there was a complex mix of conceptions and understandings of probability, both within and across the teachers, which were situationally triggered, often incoherent when the teachers tried to reflect on them, and which did not support their attempts to develop coherent pedagogical strategies regarding probability and statistical inference.     

Youth’s Negative Self-Statements as Related to Social Self-Efficacy Among Differing Relationships

Background

Cognitive variables are often neglected in child and adolescent populations despite their roles in the development and maintenance of psychopathology. Furthermore, the importance of examining these variables contextually is underestimated.

Objective

The present study aimed to examine the relationship between two theoretically related cognitive variables in a contextually relevant fashion by proposing several models demonstrating the association between negative self-statements and social self-efficacy holistically and among differing relationships (i.e., peers, adults, strangers) using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) techniques.

Method

As part of a larger study, 126 participants (ages from 11 to 14 years) were recruited for participation from the middle school grades. Participants’ parents were contacted for informed consent, and subsequently, participants were asked to fill out a set of measures in assembly format.

Results

Results indicated that the structural model was well-fitted to the data. Specifically, the frequency of negative self-statements was found to indicate the amount of social self-efficacy present with more negative self-statements being associated with less social self-efficacy. Further, when examined among differing relationships via path analysis, the frequency of negative self-statements was found to be indicative of the social self-self efficacy with peers and adults, but not with strangers.

Conclusions

These findings provide useful information concerning cognitive trends, which are likely relevant for the enhancement of treatment processes in children and adolescents. Implications and recommendations are discussed.