Age trends in early behavioral predictors of serious antisocial behaviors

A risk group of disruptive boys (N=65) identified in kindergarten was assessed using the same procedures at ages 6–7, 8–9, and 10–11. Criteria used to define the predictors and criterion variable were the same at all assessment times. Severity was addressed by comparing different forms of behaviors, considering the extent of harmful consequences to others (aggressiveness was considered as most harmful, whereas inattention was considered as least harmful), manifestation in multiple settings, and extreme scores (manipulation of cutoff scores). Different assessment strategies (direct observations, ratings) and different informants (trained observers, mothers and teachers) were used. Aggressiveness as rated by mothers was highly stable from age 6 to age 11. Inattention as rated by teachers was stable only from age 6 to age 9, whereas no stability was found for observations of task inappropriate behaviors. Taskinappropriate behaviors observed in mother-child interactions and in multiple settings at age 6–7 were significant predictors of self-reported antisocial behaviors at age 12, but this prediction was not repeated at ages 8–9 and 10–11. Teacher ratings of inattention at ages 6–7 and 8–9 were also significant predictors of self-reported antisocial behaviors at age 12. The predictive power was much lower when mothers' ratings of aggressiveness were used. Findings from the present study support the hypothesis that some antisocial behavior precursors are age dependent, in that they are more characteristic of certain age groups than of others. Implications for the selection of assessment screening procedures are discussed.     

A translation-based generation effect in bilingual recall and recognition

Two experiments were performed with incidental study procedures in which generation effects were observed for relatively balanced French-English bilingual subjects on measures of both free recall and recognition. Experiment 1 used a within-subject design, and Experiment 2 used a between-subject design. In both experiments, reading translations and reading same-language repetitions generally resulted in similar amounts of retention. Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 also showed that the generation effect was abolished under intentional study procedures because of an enhancement of reading-based retention. The results suggested that previous failures to obtain a translation-based generation effect may have been due to the use of intentional study procedures. The pattern of effects was explained in terms of a single-code model of bilingual linguistic representation and an individual-item processing intetpretation of the generation effect.     

Importance of developmental theory and investigation to research in clinical child psychology

Focuses on the developmental periods of infancy, childhood, and adolescence to offer illustrations of the advantages of using developmental theory and research to establish targets for research on intervention, assessment and treatment planning, and evaluation of effective strategies for prevention of childhood and later adult disorders. The importance for training clinical graduate students in developmental approaches to research is stressed, and hopes for a future of mutual contributions of developmental and clinical psychology are expressed in light of the fact that, after a troubled history of isolation from one another and even active denigration of one another's goals and methods, developmental and clinical psychology are exhibiting joint recognition of the advantages of collaborative research.     

Combining group-based trajectory modeling and propensity score matching for causal inferences in nonexperimental longitudinal data

A central theme of research on human development and psychopathology is whether a therapeutic intervention or a turning-point event, such as a family break-up, alters the trajectory of the behavior under study. This article describes and applies a method for using observational longitudinal data to make more transparent causal inferences about the impact of such events on developmental trajectories. The method combines 2 distinct lines of research: work on the use of finite mixture modeling to analyze developmental trajectories and work on propensity score matching. The propensity scores are used to balance observed covariates and the trajectory groups are used to control pretreatment measures of response. The trajectory groups also aid in characterizing classes of subjects for which no good matches are available. The approach is demonstrated with an analysis of the impact of gang membership on violent delinquency based on data from a large longitudinal study conducted in Montréal, Canada.     

Links Between Life Course Trajectories of Family Dysfunction and Anxiety During Middle Childhood

Using data from three waves of a large Canadian data set, we examine the relationship between two middle childhood trajectory variables, family dysfunction and anxiety. We draw upon family systems theory and developmental psychopathology, while attempting to expand their boundaries by capitalizing on the strengths within both approaches. Our data treatment strategy, guided by the life course analytical framework, included separate multivariate logits to examine this relationship, with and without the extent to, which selected explanatory risk variables predicted belonging to the highest family dysfunction trajectory. We also explored possible interactions between anxiety and explanatory risk variables. Supporting our hypothesis, a prolonged duration of high doses of family dysfunction was associated with the most extreme developmental trajectories of anxious behavior during middle childhood for both boys and girls. This relationship prevailed above and beyond the influence of other correlates of family dysfunction such as marital transition, socioeconomic status, family size, and depressive symptoms experienced by the informant (mostly mothers). Specific details regarding the sample, characteristics of measures, and unspecified estimates and their standard errors per data source are available from the first author in the form of tables and figures.     

Affiliation to Youth Gangs During Adolescence: The Interaction Between Childhood Psychopathic Tendencies and Neighborhood Disadvantage

Because youth gangs tend to cluster in disadvantaged neighborhoods, adolescents living in such neighborhoods are more likely to encounter opportunities to join youth gangs. However, in the face of these opportunities, not all adolescents respond in the same manner. Those with preexisting psychopathic tendencies might be especially likely to join. In this study, we tested whether a combination of individual propensity and facilitating neighborhood conditions amplifies the probabilities of youth gang affiliation. A subset of 3,522 adolescents was selected from a nationally representative, prospective sample of Canadian youth. Psychopathic tendencies (i.e., a combination of high hyperactivity, low anxiety, and low prosociality as compared to national norms) were assessed through parent reports, while neighborhood characteristics (i.e., concentrated economic disadvantage and residential instability) were derived from the 2001 Census of Canada. Our results indicated that neighborhood residential instability, but not neighborhood concentrated economic disadvantage, interacted with individual propensity to predict youth gang membership. Adolescents with preexisting psychopathic tendencies appeared especially vulnerable mainly if they were raised in residentially unstable neighborhoods.     

Task-set reconfiguration suspends perceptual processing: evidence from semantic priming during the attentional blink

When two visual targets, Target 1 (T1) and Target 2 (T2), are presented among a rapid sequence of distractors, processing of T1 produces an attentional blink. Typically, processing of T2 is markedly impaired, except when T1 and T2 are adjacent (Lag 1 sparing). However, if a shift of task set--a change in task requirements from T1 to T2--occurs, this sparing is reduced substantially. With a semantic priming technique, in which T1 could be either related or unrelated to T2, the priming of T2 by T1 diminished markedly at Lag 1, when the transition between T1 and T2 involved a switch in either location (Experiments 1 and 2) or task (Experiment 3), but remained unaffected at other lags. These results suggest that perceptual processing of T2 cannot be carried out in parallel with task-set reconfiguration.     

The Double Cohort retention and academic success comparison: are students in the new Ontario secondary school program disadvantaged?

In September 2003, Ontario universities accepted a double cohort of new students resulting from the Ontario government’s decision to eliminate Grade 13. The admission to university of two categories of students distinguished by their age and high school program raised a number of questions, not only in terms of admission infrastructure but mostly in what concerns the sum of student retention, academic success, and graduation. Factors associated with success and with the maintenance of university studies are numerous: stress, socioeconomic status, parents’ education, intellectual capacities, motivation, social abilities, and social support (Olds & Papalia, 2000). Therefore, the objectives of this study were: (1) to test the hypothesis of a double cohort effect on student academic success during the first year of university, (2) to verify the hypothesis that high school academic history, socioeconomic variables related to stress and perceived stress predict academic success and retention at the end of first year university. In September 2003, 300 first year students answered questionnaires inquiring about their high school program and high school GPA, their socioeconomic characteristics, and their perceived stress. These measures were then used to predict drop out, final GPA, number of credits attempted, passed and failed in June 2004. Results showed that school persistence and first year university academic achievement are mostly predicted by gender, high school GPA, type of financial resources, and number of hours worked at a paid job. Although not significant, we have found a higher proportion of Grade 12 students who dropped out during first year at university, suggesting a possible long-term effect of high school program on academic achievement.     

Eye movements and serial memory for visual-spatial information: does time spent fixating contribute to recall?

This research investigated the nature of encoding and its contribution to serial recall for visual-spatial information. In order to do so, we examined the relationship between fixation duration and recall performance. Using the dot task--a series of seven dots spatially distributed on a monitor screen is presented sequentially for immediate recall--performance and eye-tracking data were recorded during the presentation of the to-be-remembered items. When participants were free to move their eyes at their will, both fixation durations and probability of correct recall decreased as a function of serial position. Furthermore, imposing constant durations of fixation across all serial positions had a beneficial impact (though relatively small) on item but not order recall. Great care was taken to isolate the effect of fixation duration from that of presentation duration. Although eye movement at encoding contributes to immediate memory, it is not decisive in shaping serial recall performance. Our results also provide further evidence that the distinction between item and order information, well-established in the verbal domain, extends to visual-spatial information.     

Infant visual habituation and parental psychological distress

Research is equivocal concerning the relationship between parental psychological distress and infant cognitive functioning. Four potential limitations of the literature are addressed: reliance on mothers' but not fathers' psychological distress, use of categorical measures of psychological distress, use of standardized measures of infant cognitive functioning, and failure to take into account potential gender differences. Ninety‐nine twin pairs and both their mothers and fathers were assessed. Infants cognitive functioning was assessed using an infant‐controlled habituation–recovery–dishabituation task. Maternal and paternal psychological distress was assessed using the Symptom Check List‐90‐Revised. No gender differences were obtained for infant visual information‐processing abilities or parental psychological distress. Maternal and paternal psychological distress was related to female visual encoding abilities only. It was concluded that parental psychological distress might degrade parent–infant interactions. Characteristics of girls when faced with parents exhibiting psychiatric difficulties may exacerbate difficulties of parent–infant interactions, thereby hindering the full development of cognitive abilities involved in the process of habituation. A need exists to examine the relationship between parental psychological distress and infant visual attention separately for girls and boys. ©2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.