Sensory Processing Difficulties, Behavioral Problems, and Parental Stress in a Clinical Population of Young Children

This study examined the relationship between sensory processing difficulties, parental stress, and behavioral problems in a clinical sample of young children with developmental and behavioral difficulties. We hypothesized that a high rate of sensory processing difficulties would be found, that there would be a high rate of comorbidity between sensory processing difficulties and behavioral problems, and that children’s sensory processing difficulties and parental stress would be highly correlated. Parents of 59 children ages two to five who attended an out-patient clinic in a low income, urban community completed the Child Behavior Checklist, Parental Stress Inventory-Short Form and the Short Sensory Profile. Children in this clinical population showed a high prevalence (55.9 %) of sensory processing difficulties, a significantly higher rate than previously reported. Sensory processing deficits were correlated with behavioral difficulties and parental stress levels-suggesting that as sensory processing difficulties increase, so do behavioral difficulties and parental stress. Parents of children with sensory processing deficits had significantly higher levels of parental stress than parents of children without sensory deficits. Parenting stress levels were also clinically elevated for the cohort of children in which sensory processing difficulties and behavioral concerns co-existed. These findings suggest that treatment outcomes might improve and parental stress could be reduced if mental health clinicians were trained to identify and address sensory problems. This could result in more children being screened and treated for sensory processing difficulties and an eventual reduction in the rates of parental stress.     

Predictors of Response and Mechanisms of Change in an Organizational Skills Intervention for Students with ADHD

The purpose of the study was to evaluate predictors of response and mechanisms of change for the Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) intervention for middle school students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Twenty-three middle school students with ADHD (grades 6–8) received the HOPS intervention implemented by school mental health providers and made significant improvements in parent-rated materials organization and planning skills, impairment due to organizational skills problems, and homework problems. Predictors of response examined included demographic and child characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, intelligence, ADHD and ODD symptom severity, and ADHD medication use. Mechanisms of change examined included the therapeutic alliance and adoption of the organization and planning skills taught during the HOPS intervention. Participant implementation of the HOPS binder materials organization system and the therapeutic alliance as rated by the student significantly predicted post-intervention outcomes after controlling for pre-intervention severity. Adoption of the binder materials organization system predicted parent-rated improvements in organization, planning, and homework problems above and beyond the impact of the therapeutic alliance. These findings demonstrate the importance of teaching students with ADHD to use a structured binder organization system for organizing and filing homework and classwork materials and for transferring work to and from school.     

Predictors of Relational Aggression and the Moderating Role of Religiousness

Predictors of relational aggression and the moderating role of religiousness on associations between relevant predictors and relational aggression were examined in a sample of 244 university students. Increased childhood relational aggression, increased adult relational victimization, lower agreeableness, and lower emotional stability significantly predicted increased adult relational aggression. Prayer moderated the relationship between agreeableness and adult relational aggression and the association between relational victimization and aggression, and religious service attendance moderated the relationship between emotional stability and relational aggression. Results are discussed in terms of the higher level latent personality constructs of self-regulation and communion, which suggest a potential protective function for religiousness in association with relational aggression.     

Homelessness and the problem of containment

Homelessness is a problem that is hardly spared to any society in our modern world. Usually discussed by people concerned with social policy, sociology, public health and politics, homelessness has only quite recently begun to command the attention of professionals concerned with psychological and psychotherapeutic processes. Following from the author's experience of working therapeutically with homeless people, as well as in discussions with homeless services, the paper follows a line of thinking around homelessness that is explicitly psychodynamic in orientation. The central argument here is that homelessness is an experience that is, so to speak, waiting to happen. Homelessness is portrayed as a natural extension of an underlying experience of the sister states of uncontainment and alienation. I argue that the homeless person not only experienced a lack of containment in his earliest interactions, but has grown through life with significant difficulties in this area. Homelessness then is an extreme response to a deeper psychological reality that projects into a part of the person's life the agonies associated with uncontainment. Homelessness is the realization of an internal situation –a shifting of a personal struggle into a new and more visible stage. This view of homelessness is designed to provide an amendment to current views that privilege the roles of poverty and social exclusion in the origins of homelessness rather than as an alternative account of the origins of homelessness.     

Dystonien

A fruitless debate as to whether dystonias are an organic or psychogenic condition has dominated the scientific approach to psychiatric issues in dystonias. E.g., spasmodic torticollis (ST) was once considered “neurotic”, whereas today rather the notion of reactive psychiatric disorders in ST prevails. In our review current clinical and etiological findings in this area are presented focussed on spasmodic torticollis in order to discuss the extent and quality of psychiatric comorbidity as well as the interaction between psychological and somatic factors. Finally, typical clinical cases are presented and discussed within a multidimensional psychotherapeutic and a psychoanalytically-oriented treatment approach.     

Gender differences in perceptions of normal body weights

The current study employed an alternative methodology to assess perceptions of normal range body weight. Male and female undergraduates were asked to give weight ranges for male and female targets, rather than use figure silhouettes. Male respondents felt that lighter weights in men and women were more normal. Female participants believed that heavier weight ranges were normal, both for themselves and for men. Despite this, women were no more likely than men to report being overweight and to be dieting. Future studies should utilize both figure silhouette drawings and acceptable weight range estimates to determine the influence of methodology on reported findings.     

Behavior in adulthood and during aging is affected by contaminant exposure in utero

Environmental contaminants can alter the course of neural development, with consequences that appear in behavior. Such effects extend into adulthood and sometimes accelerate the rate of aging, even when exposure ceases by birth. The neurotoxicant methylmercury provides an interesting case study that reveals much about how disrupted neural development has lifelong consequences. Methylmercury also provides an example of the assessment and management of risks associated with exposure to developmental neurotoxicants.