Mental imagery and dyslexia: a deficit in processing multipart visual objects?

Dyslexic and normal control subjects memorized simple line patterns inside a grid and subsequently judged whether an "X" would have fallen on the pattern had it been present in an empty grid. The patterns were letters and novel shapes. The grids were presented to the left visual field, to the right visual field, or in central vision. Dyslexic subjects had difficulty generating images of multipart patterns, but this deficit was limited to letters. The findings suggest that dyslexics may have selective difficulty integrating visual information stored in long-term memory.     

Youth at Risk: Another Point of View

In this rejoinder to Tidwell and Corona Garrett (1994), the authors discuss three important aspects of the term at risk that help to clarify its meaning.     

Revisiting self-regulatory techniques to promote physical activity in older adults: null-findings from a randomised controlled trial

Objective. A randomised controlled trial (RCT) was conducted to evaluate a three-hour face-to-face physical activity (PA) intervention in community-dwelling older German adults with four groups: The intervention group (IG) received behaviour change techniques (BCTs) based on the health action process approach plus a views-on-ageing component to increase PA. The second intervention group ‘planning’ (IGpl) contained the same BCTs, only substituted the views-on-ageing component against an additional planning task. An active control group received the same BCTs, however, targeting volunteering instead of PA. A passive control group (PCG) received no intervention.

Design. The RCT comprised 5 time-points over 14 months in N = 310 participants aged 64+.

Main outcome measures. Self-reported as well as accelerometer-assessed PA.

Results. Neither PA measure increased in the IG as compared to the other groups at any point in time. Bayes analyses supported these null-effects.

Conclusion. A possible explanation for this null-finding in line with a recent meta-analysis is that some self-regulatory BCTs may be ineffective or even negatively associated with PA in interventions for older adults as they are assumed to be less acceptable for older adults. This interpretation was supported by observed reluctance to participate in self-regulatory BCTs in the current study.     

Do Childhood Externalizing Disorders Predict Adult Depression? A Meta-Analysis

Childhood externalizing disorders have been linked to adult affective disorders, although some studies fail to substantiate this finding. Multiple longitudinal cohort studies identifying childhood psychopathology and their association with adult psychiatric illness have been published. To examine the association between childhood externalizing symptoms or disorders and the development of adult depression across cohorts, a meta-analysis was performed. Potential studies were identified using a PubMed search through November 2013. All published, prospective, longitudinal, community-sampled cohort studies of children (≤ 13 years) with externalizing symptoms or disorders (aggression, conduct problems, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder), reassessed in adulthood (≥ 18 years) for depressive disorders (major depressive disorder, depressive disorder NOS, or dysthymic disorder) were included. A random effects model was used to summarize the pooled effect sizes. Ancillary analyses considered covariates that could account for variance among studies. Ten studies representing eight cohorts of children initially assessed at age 13 or younger (N?=?17,712) were included in the meta-analysis. Childhood externalizing behavior was associated with adult depressive disorders (OR?=?1.52, 95 % confidence interval?=?1.27–1.80, p?相似文献   

Very Young Child Well-being in Military Families: A Snapshot

Since the September 11th attacks on the U.S., more than 2 million children have experienced parental deployment during their early years, with potentially lasting impact. When a parent is deployed, a number of factors may affect the well-being of the service member and his/her family. One parental factor—posttraumatic stress disorder or distress—might be particularly powerful in its effect on young children and the family system. We analyzed baseline data from an intervention development project which focused on supporting military families with very young children during post-deployment. The purpose of this research is to understand the relationships between parental mental health status, parenting stress, couple functioning, and young child well-being. The effects of mental health status of home-front and service member parents and the role of couple functioning on parent–child interactions and behavioral problems of young children were examined in a sample of military families during the post-deployment period. Findings suggest that service member posttraumatic stress symptoms are associated with higher parental report of child behavior problems. Higher quality of the couple relationship appears to lessen the impact of parental posttraumatic stress but is not related to parent perceptions of child behavior concerns. Implications for future research with military families are discussed.     

Emotion Socialization in Families of Children With an Anxiety Disorder

Compared emotion socialization in 26 children with anxiety disorders ages 8–12 years and their mothers to 26 nonclinical counterparts without psychopathology. Children and their mothers participated in an emotion interaction task in which they discussed occasions when the child felt worry, sadness, and anger. Responses were coded for length of discussion, proportion of words spoken by child vs. mother, frequency of positive and negative emotion words, explanatory discussion of emotion, and maternal facilitation of emotion discussion. Children and their mothers also completed the Expressiveness and Control scales of the Family Environment Scale. Results indicated that mothers of children with an anxiety disorder spoke less frequently than their child, used significantly fewer positive emotion words, and discouraged their childrens emotion discussions more than did mothers of nonclinical children. Nonclinical children and their mothers indicated significantly more emotional expressiveness in their families than did children with an anxiety disorder and their mothers. These results highlight the potential role of truncated family emotional expressivity in the emotional development and functioning of children with an anxiety disorder.     

Taxonicity of anxiety sensitivity: an empirical test among youth

Taxometric coherent cut kinetic analyses were used to test the latent structure of anxiety sensitivity (AS) among 371 youth. Anxiety sensitivity was indexed by the 18-item Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman et al., J. Clin. Child Psychol. (1991), 20, 162-168). Two sets of manifest indicators of AS were constructed using the CASI: (1) three item-parcel manifest indicators: disease concerns, unsteady concerns, and mental illness concerns; and (2) nine single-item indicators representing each of these three facets of AS. Results from standard and short-scale MAXCOV procedures, internal consistency tests, analyses of simulated Monte Carlo data, and MAMBAC external consistency tests indicated that the latent structure of anxiety sensitivity among youth was taxonic. Estimated base rate of the observed AS taxon ranged between 13.6 and 16.5%. The present findings are discussed in terms of theoretical implications for the study of AS and vulnerability for anxiety psychopathology.     

Dating Violence Victimization,Dispositional Aggression,and Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury among Psychiatrically Hospitalized Male and Female Adolescents

The objective of the current study was to characterize the association between dating violence victimization and dispositional aggression in predicting nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) among psychiatrically hospitalized male and female adolescents. One hundred fifty‐five adolescents (ages 13–17) and their parents completed the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School‐Age Children clinical interview to assess NSSI and child abuse; adolescents completed self‐report measures of aggression and dating violence victimization (verbal, physical, and sexual). Dating violence victimization and NSSI were found to be highly prevalent among both males and females in this psychiatric inpatient sample. Two moderational models were supported, wherein dating violence was associated with NSSI in the context of elevated trait anger in males and indirect aggression in females. Findings suggest that helping victims of dating violence acquire skills to address certain forms of dispositional aggression may attenuate NSSI.