Experiences of Women Who Have Had Carrier Testing for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Becker Muscular Dystrophy During Adolescence

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) are X-linked recessive degenerative muscular conditions. Carrier testing is available to at-risk females. Though carrier testing is often offered to adolescent females, it raises ethical issues related to autonomy. This study aimed to address the impact of DMD/BMD carrier testing during adolescence, to elucidate what motivates adolescents to seek testing, and to assess the carrier testing experience. Retrospective semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 12 women out of 28 initially contacted. Data were coded using thematic analysis. For most (8/12) participants, discovering their carrier status during adolescence appeared to have helped alleviate uncertainty. The majority (9/12) of participants felt that they had made an autonomous decision and most (10/12) seemed to have adjusted well to their test result. Reproductive factors were framed as having been a key motivator prior to testing. However, following testing, participants’ views on prenatal diagnosis seemed more closely linked to their lived experience than to their test result. Just over half (7/12) the participants reported having not had the opportunity for genetic counseling prior to testing and after receiving their result, an issue that warrants further consideration.     

Memory and conceptual learning of relevant and non-relevant items in item-method directed forgetting

The present research investigates the fate of non-target information when people are trying to either intentionally memorise or forget target information. By using an object-based attentional manipulation within a directed forgetting paradigm (item-method), we show a directed forgetting effect (DFE, i.e., better memory for to-be-remembered (TBR) than for to-be-forgotten (TBF) items) for items that participants are explicitly instructed to attend but not for irrelevant items that happen to be part of the context. Alongside the classic DFE, we investigate how the category of the attended and unattended items are learned. The results obtained in three experiments, show that people can successfully learn only the category of the TBR attended items and that the DFE extends to new items that are related to the old TBR and TBF items (an effect that we call conceptual DFE). These results give us new insight about how TBR and TBF items are processed and conceptually learned.     

Development of rule-based eye-hand-decoupling in children and adolescents

In the present study, we characterize how the ability to decouple guiding visual information from a motor action emerges during childhood and adolescence. Sixty-two participants (age range 8–15 yrs.) completed two eye-hand coordination tasks. In a direct interaction task, vision and motor action were in alignment, and participants slid their finger along a vertical touch screen to move a cursor from a central target to one of four peripheral targets. In an eye-hand-decoupled task, eye and hand movements were made in different planes and cursor feedback was 180° reversed. We analyzed whether movement planning, timing and trajectory variables differed across age in both task conditions. There were no significant relationships between age and any movement planning, timing, or execution variables in the direct interaction task. In contrast, in the eye-hand-decoupled task, we found a relationship between age and several movement planning and timing variables. In adolescents (13–15 yrs.), movement planning and timing was significantly shorter than that of young children (8–10 yrs.). Eye-hand-decoupled maturation emerged mainly during late childhood (11–12 yrs.). Notably, we detected performance differences between young children and adolescents exclusively during the eye-hand decoupling task which required the integration of rule-based cognitive information into the motor action. Differences were not observed during the direct interaction task. Our results quantify an important milestone for eye-hand-decoupling development in late childhood, leading to improved rule-based motor performance in early adolescence. This eye-hand-decoupling development may be due to frontal lobe development linked to rule-based behavior and the strengthening of fronto-parietal networks.     

Acoustic correlates of emotional dimensions in laughter: Arousal,dominance, and valence

Although laughter plays an essential part in emotional vocal communication, little is known about the acoustical correlates that encode different emotional dimensions. In this study we examined the acoustical structure of laughter sounds differing along four emotional dimensions: arousal, dominance, sender's valence, and receiver-directed valence. Correlation of 43 acoustic parameters with individual emotional dimensions revealed that each emotional dimension was associated with a number of vocal cues. Common patterns of cues were found with emotional expression in speech, supporting the hypothesis of a common underlying mechanism for the vocal expression of emotions.     

Effectiveness of Pre-counseling Genetic Education Workshops at a Large Urban Community Health Center Serving Low-Income Chinese American Women

Chinese American pregnant women and women of childbearing age face economic, cultural and linguistic barriers in accessing mainstream health care services. The Charles B. Wang Community Health Center developed a culturally and linguistically competent genetic education workshop for high-risk Chinese American prenatal patients. Patients referred for genetic counseling for thalassemia, abnormal triple screen results, and/or advanced maternal age were recruited to participate in the workshop. The workshop provided basic “genetic 101” education, focusing on topics that were directly relevant to the patients’ reasons for referral. The effectiveness of the workshop was measured using a quasi-experimental design with pre-post surveys administered to intervention and control group participants. The evaluation also included a genetic counselor assessment and a pilot study of genetic counseling appointment length. Overall, workshop participants showed significant increases in knowledge, positive attitude and self-efficacy regarding genetic services as compared to their control group counterparts. The pilot appointment length study data revealed that the workshop reduced the length of the genetic counseling appointment time by 40%. These positive findings suggest that it would be worthwhile to replicate the genetic education workshop at other health agencies serving Chinese-speaking populations and that further evaluation research should be conducted.     

College Women��s Feminist Identity: A Multidimensional Analysis with Implications for Coping with Sexism

This study examined components of women's feminist identity and possible relations to their reported coping responses to sexism. A sample of 169 undergraduate women (M?=?19.4?y, SD?=?1.2) from diverse ethnic backgrounds completed surveys assessing their experiences and gender-related views. The first set of analyses revealed that women's social gender identity, exposure to feminism, and gender-egalitarian attitudes independently contributed to feminist identification; moreover, non-stereotyping of feminists further predicted feminist self-identification. A second set of analyses tested the relative contribution of feminist identity components to women's cognitive appraisals of coping responses to sexual harassment. Seeking social support was predicted by self-identification as a feminist (for White European American women only). Confronting was predicted by social gender identity, non-stereotyping of feminists, and public identification as a feminist. Findings highlight possible components of women's feminist identity and their possible impact on coping responses to sexism.     

Considerations of elder sibling closeness in predicting younger sibling substance use: social learning versus social bonding explanations

Adolescent siblings are often similar in a variety of adjustment outcomes, yet little is known about the processes that explain sibling influences during adolescence. Two alternative explanations were tested, attachment (based in social bonding theory) and anaclitic identification (based in social learning theory). Hypotheses were tested with a sample of 613 adolescent sibling pairs (206 nonadopted, 407 adopted; elder sibling mean age = 16.1 years, younger sibling mean age = 13.8 years) across three sibling contexts (gender composition, age difference, and genetic similarity). Attachment explanations were supported so that the greater the perceived sibling emotional and behavioral closeness, the lower the likelihood of substance use; however, there were considerable moderating effects of sibling gender composition. Anaclitic identification explanations were not supported; closeness and elder sibling substance use did not interact to predict younger sibling substance use. Overall, this research adds to a body of work demonstrating important sibling influences on adolescent substance use.     

Childhood maltreatment, emotional distress, and early adolescent sexual intercourse: multi-informant perspectives on parental monitoring

This prospective investigation used multi-informant models to examine whether parental monitoring moderated associations between child maltreatment and either emotional distress or sexual intercourse. Data included 637 youth in the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). Child maltreatment was determined by lifetime Child Protective Service records and youth self-report and included sexual, physical, psychological abuse, and neglect (age 12). The moderating variable was youth- and caregiver-reported parental monitoring (age 12). Outcome variables were emotional distress (age 12) and sexual intercourse (age 14). Analyses included multi- and individual-informant models, adjusting for age, ethnicity/race, family income, and study site. Rates of parental monitoring did not differ by gender, but gender-specific analyses found that among girls, but not boys, youth-reported parental monitoring buffered the effect of maltreatment on emotional distress. Subtype analyses found that the buffering effects of monitoring on emotional distress were strongest for sexual and physical abuse and when youth experienced multiple subtypes of maltreatment. Caregiver-reported monitoring was not associated with reduced emotional distress. Youth and caregiver reports of parental monitoring were inversely associated with sexual intercourse, regardless of maltreatment history. Findings suggest that promoting parental monitoring among caregivers, and perceptions of monitoring among youth, may prevent early sexual intercourse regardless of maltreatment history. Promoting parental monitoring among youth with a history of maltreatment, especially girls or those who have experienced sexual or physical abuse or multiple subtypes of abuse, may reduce the likelihood of emotional distress.