Engagement in Child and Adolescent Treatment: The Role of Parental Cognitions and Attributions

Parental engagement in the treatment process is influenced by parents' beliefs about the cause of their children's problems, perceptions about their ability to handle such problems, and expectations about the ability of therapy to help them. This paper examines the role of parental cognitions related to attributions and expectations in relation to engagement in child mental health treatment. Reviewed studies indicate that parental attributions and expectations influence three aspects of treatment: help seeking, engagement and retention, and outcome. This paper integrates findings from developmental and clinical research, highlights gaps in the literature, presents the beginnings of a model regarding the parental attributional process as it relates to engagement in treatment, recommends future research directions, and discusses clinical implications.     

Reading Aloud from Logographic and Alphabetic Texts: Comparisons Between Chinese and German

The following study investigated the effect of writing systems (logographic vs. alphabetic) on the temporal organization of reading aloud. More specifically, we wished to test Perfetti and Zhang's (1995) assertion that the reader of an alphabetic system can do better at recovering the phonological form, less well at recovering the semantic category of the word (p. 186f.). Native speakers of Chinese and German read a semantically identical passage from texts written in their own language. The Chinese version consisted of 132 characters (132 syllables), the German of 80 words (also 132 syllables). In accord with Perfetti and Zhang's position, Chinese readers articulated significantly more slowly; they also used significantly more pauses. Moreover, German readers used a set pattern of pause positions, whereas Chinese did not. Logographic and alphabetic determinants of reading aloud are discussed.     

Recovery from aphasia: Spontaneous speech versus language comprehension

Seventy-four aphasic patients, subdivided into four groups (fluent, mixed, nonfluent, and severely nonfluent), were tested three times in the course of 1 year to assess recovery of spontaneous speech and sentence comprehension. Although 12 of the 28 spontaneous speech variables employed showed significant time changes, some of these changes indicated improvement and others deterioration. There was no overall clinical improvement in spontaneous speech in any group. On the sentence comprehension tests, however, all four groups did show considerable, significant improvement. There were no qualitative or quantitative differences among the groups in the course of recovery, despite the fact that the groups differed in the severity of aphasia as well as on the fluency dimension. In certain patients there was also some improvement in spontaneous speech, but this did not in most cases correlate with an improvement in either fluency or sentence comprehension. Possible reasons why receptive abilities improved more than expressive abilities are discussed.     

Positive crossover: Parent perceived partner responsiveness and health of youth with asthma

Romantic relationship functioning has implications that extend beyond the romantic dyad. This study tests whether a key positive aspect of relationships, perceived partner responsiveness, can cross over from parents' romantic relationships to children's health and well-being via parenting behavior. In a sample of 112 youth with asthma and their primary caregivers, when caregivers perceived higher partner responsiveness in their romantic relationship, youth experienced improved self-reported asthma symptoms, pulmonary functioning, and positive affect. The associations were robust while controlling for parents' relationship conflict and other relevant covariates, except for the pulmonary functioning outcome, which was instead predicted by parents' conflict. However, parenting behavior (i.e., positive and negative parenting) did not appear to mediate these links. This work highlights the importance of positive romantic relationship processes for youth health and well-being, emphasizing the relevance of clinical intervention work and the need to continue investigating mechanisms through which these processes may be linked.     

Collective views of vaccination predict vaccine hesitancy and willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine

We examined the association between sociodemographic factors, views of vaccines as being an individual choice to protect oneself versus a collective choice to protect others, general vaccine hesitancy, and willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. In a sample of adults (N = 619; 33% non-white), we showed that demographic factors explain significant variance in both vaccine hesitancy and willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Viewing vaccines as an individual choice to protect oneself explained additional variance in vaccine hesitancy. However, people who viewed vaccines as a collective choice to protect others showed both less vaccine hesitancy and greater willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. These findings suggest that promoting prosocial attitudes about vaccinations may decrease vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine uptake.     

Statistically Induced Chunking Recall: A Memory-Based Approach to Statistical Learning

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking, may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short-term memory is fundamentally shaped by long-term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word-like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two-alternative forced-choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature.     

Increasing item engagement and decreasing automatically reinforced problem behavior within a modified competing stimulus assessment

A competing stimulus assessment (CSA) is commonly used to identify leisure items for use in treatments designed to decrease automatically reinforced problem behavior. However, this type of assessment may not yield useful information if participants do not readily engage with leisure items. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a modified CSA that included additional treatment components (i.e., prompting, prompting plus differential reinforcement of alternative behavior). The modified CSA identified the treatment components and leisure items that were most effective for increasing leisure-item engagement and decreasing problem behavior for each participant. Modified CSA outcomes maintained during an extended treatment analysis in a natural setting and when intervention components were faded.     

Renewal of fear and avoidance in humans to escalating threat: Implications for translational research on anxiety disorders

Exposure-based treatment for threat avoidance in anxiety disorders often results in fear renewal. However, little is known about renewal of avoidance. This multimodal laboratory-based treatment study used an ABA renewal design and an approach–avoidance (AP–AV) task to examine renewal of fear/threat and avoidance in twenty adults. In Context A, 9 visual cues paired with increases in probabilistic money loss (escalating threats) produced increases in ratings of feeling threatened and loss expectancies and skin-conductance responses (SCR). During the AP–AV task, a monetary reinforcer was available concurrently with threats. Approach produced the reinforcer or probabilistic loss, while avoidance prevented loss and forfeited reinforcement. Escalating threat produced increasing avoidance and ratings. In Context B with Pavlovian extinction, threats signaled no money loss and SCR declined. During the AP–AV task, avoidance and ratings also declined. In a return to Context A with Pavlovian threat extinction in effect during the AP–AV task, renewal was observed. Escalating threat was associated with increasing ratings and avoidance in most participants. SCR did not show renewal. These are the first translational findings to highlight renewal of avoidance in humans. Further research should identify individual difference variables and altered neural mechanisms that may confer increased risk of avoidance renewal.     

A Multifaceted and Dyadic Examination of Intimate Relationship Quality during Pregnancy: Implications for Global Relationship Satisfaction

Understanding how couples navigate and negotiate the challenges and demands of pregnancy has important implications for family health. The aim of this study was to apply a multidimensional model of intimate relationship quality in a sample of 154 pregnant, cohabitating couples, to investigate the association between a range of intimate relationship processes (i.e., emotional intimacy, conflict management, sexual quality, received respect and acceptance, and received support) and the global relationship satisfaction of each partner. Semistructured clinical interviews were administered to each partner assessing multiple qualities of the relationship, and participants completed home surveys of global relationship satisfaction each day for 14 days. Results demonstrated that multiple dimensions of the intimate relationship were associated with greater relationship satisfaction. Some processes (e.g., degree of emotional intimacy and closeness, conflict management) had larger effects on relationship satisfaction than others (e.g., quality of the sexual relationship). Furthermore, some processes were more important for maternal than paternal satisfaction (e.g., emotional intimacy, support, respect). Finally, results varied, to some degree, as a function of whether parents were transitioning to parenthood for the first time. We discuss the implications of adopting a multidimensional approach to studying the specific relationship processes associated with global relationship satisfaction and present implications for clinicians working with couples navigating the transition into parenthood.     

Infant music perception: domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms?

We review the literature on infants' perception of pitch and temporal patterns, relating it to comparable research with human adult and non-human listeners. Although there are parallels in relative pitch processing across age and species, there are notable differences. Infants accomplish such tasks with ease, but non-human listeners require extensive training to achieve very modest levels of performance. In general, human listeners process auditory sequences in a holistic manner, and non-human listeners focus on absolute aspects of individual tones. Temporal grouping processes and categorization on the basis of rhythm are evident in non-human listeners and in human infants and adults. Although synchronization to sound patterns is thought to be uniquely human, tapping to music, synchronous firefly flashing, and other cyclic behaviors can be described by similar mathematical principles. We conclude that infants' music perception skills are a product of general perceptual mechanisms that are neither music- nor species-specific. Along with general-purpose mechanisms for the perceptual foundations of music, we suggest unique motivational mechanisms that can account for the perpetuation of musical behavior in all human societies.