Adolescents with high mental toughness adapt better to perceived stress: A longitudinal study with Swiss vocational students

A mindset of mental toughness enables an individual to cope successfully with the pressures and demands of life. This 10-month study prospectively examined the association between mental toughness and stress resilience in 865 students (M = 17.86 years, 42.7% girls) from two vocational schools. Within each school, separate cluster analyses identified groups with different profiles of risk (assessed with perceived stress) and adaptation (operationalized with depressive symptoms and life satisfaction). Four clusters emerged characterizing students with well-adjusted (low risk, good adaptation), maladjusted (elevated risk, bad adaptation), deteriorated (low initial risk, worsening adaptation) and resilient profiles (elevated initial risk, improving adaptation). The latter two clusters reported similar levels of mental toughness at baseline, but resilient adolescents scored significantly higher on mental toughness at follow-up. After controlling for possible confounds, baseline toughness levels predicted depressive symptoms and life satisfaction over time. This study shows that mental toughness operates as a stress resilience resource. Mental toughness is, therefore a topic of interest for health specialists working with adolescent populations.     

Assessing Language Competence: Guidelines for Assisting Persons With Limited English Proficiency in Research and Clinical Settings

Current guidelines indicate that therapeutic interactions must be in the client's primary language. This article addresses the ethical dilemmas faced by monolingual clinicians and researchers who must assess the foreign language competence of an interpreter. Guidelines are proposed for assessing language competence of staff in clinical and research settings. Las directrices actuales indican que la interacción terapéutica debe tomar lugar en el primer idioma del cliente. Este artículo trata los dilemas éticos que confrontan los clínicos e investigadores monolingües que tienen que asesorar la competencia linguística de un intérprete. Se proponen directrices para el asesoramiento linguístico de personal en escenarios clínicos y de investigación.     

Colonial Mentality and Mental Health Help‐Seeking of Filipino Americans

Filipino Americans present with very low rates of mental health help‐seeking. Because of the colonial history between the Philippines and the United States, the authors examined how colonial mentality and internalized oppression, along with ethnic identity, acculturation, and social support, were related to mental health help‐seeking attitudes of Filipino Americans (N = 410). Furthermore, the authors investigated how colonial mentality affects the ethnic identity of Filipino Americans. Major findings included that colonial mentality was negatively related to ethnic identity development and social support, and higher levels of colonial mentality significantly predicted negative mental health help‐seeking attitudes above and beyond ethnic identity, acculturation, social support, and demographic variables. Implications for the counseling profession are considered.     

Genetic Counseling and Screening of Consanguineous Couples and Their Offspring: Recommendations of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

The objective of this document is to provide recommendations for genetic counseling and screening for consanguineous couples (related as second cousins or closer) and their offspring with the goals of1. providing preconception reproductive options2. improving pregnancy outcome and identifying reproductive choices3. reducing morbidity and mortality in the 1st years of life, and4. respecting psychosocial and multicultural issues.The recommendations are the opinions of a multicenter working group (the Consanguinity Working Group (CWG)) with expertise in genetic counseling, medical genetics, biochemical genetics, genetic epidemiology, pediatrics, perinatology, and public health genetics, which was convened by the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC). The consensus of the CWG and NSGC reviewers is that beyond a thorough medical family history with follow-up of significant findings, no additional preconception screening is recommended for consanguineous couples. Consanguineous couples should be offered similar genetic screening as suggested for any couple of their ethnic group. During pregnancy, consanguineous couples should be offered maternal–fetal serum marker screening and high-resolution fetal ultrasonography. Newborns should be screened for impaired hearing and detection of treatable inborn errors of metabolism. These recommendations should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of management, nor does use of such recommendations guarantee a particular outcome. The professional judgment of a health care provider, familiar with the facts and circumstances of a specific case, will always supersede these recommendations.     

Gapping: Electrophysiological evidence for immediate processing of "missing" verbs in sentence comprehension

In the present study we use event related potentials (ERPs) to explore the time course of identification and resolution of verb gaps. ERPs were recorded while participants read sentences that contained a verb gap like Ron took/sanded the planks, and Bill ? the hammer... Plausibility of the critical words (hammer) that followed the verb gap was manipulated. Relative to the plausible control (preceded by took), ERPs to the critical word in the implausible condition (preceded by sanded) showed an N400, followed by a positivity (P600). ERPs to determiners following gapped verbs showed a negativity between 100 and 300 ms, and a positivity between 300 and 500 ms compared to determiners in non-gapping constructions. These results suggest that the sentence processor recognizes a verb gap and reconstructs the verb information at the earliest possible occasion, and that this reconstruction process is different from the reconstruction of antecedents in other filler-gap constructions (e.g., WH gaps).     

Building Leadership,Capacity, and Power to Advance Health Equity and Justice through Community‐Engaged Research in the Midwest

The Health Equity Advancement Lab (HEAL) at the University of Iowa College of Public Health began in 2012 to support students, researchers, and community members interested in tackling persistent health inequities through a community‐based participatory research (CBPR) approach. Using concepts from critical consciousness theory, we developed an approach to building students’, faculty members’, and community partners’ capacity to engage in CBPR to promote health equity that involved immersion in developing CBPR projects. Our paper describes the evolution of HEAL as a facilitating structure that provides a support network and engages diverse stakeholders in critical reflection as they participate in research to advance health equity, and resulting political efficacy and social action. We describe one HEAL‐affiliated research project that employs a CBPR approach and has a strong focus on providing transformative learning experiences for students, faculty, and community members. We highlight challenges, successes, and lessons learned in the application of critical consciousness as a framework that engages diverse academic and community partners seeking to promote health equity. We argue that critical consciousness is a relevant theoretical framework to promote transformative learning among students, faculty, and community partners to promote health equity research in diverse communities.     

Executive Function and Theory of Mind in Children with ADHD: a Systematic Review

In developmental research, the relationship between Executive Function (EF) and Theory of Mind (ToM) has been extensively assessed, and EF has been considered a condition for ToM. However, few researchers have studied the relationship between EF and ToM in clinical populations, especially that of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by symptoms of inattention and motor hyperactivity/impulsivity, in which EF is largely impaired. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model, 201 English and Spanish articles evaluating EF and ToM in ADHD were chosen. Fifteen papers met the inclusion criteria and were selected for further analysis. The first study dates from 2001. Most of the studies’ designs are cross-sectional, include mostly male children, have a small sample size, and were conducted in European countries. Unlike tasks assessing EF, tasks assessing ToM were heterogeneous across studies. The EFs most correlated with ToM were inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and attention. Interest in studying the relationship between EF and ToM in ADHD is recent,but increasing based on new findings and tuning of ToM instruments. However, while an association between EF and ToM is indicated in ADHD, the degree of prediction and predictability of one over the other cannot yet be established because of the studies’ heterogeneity.