Le stress des mères monoparentales en relation avec l'agressivité de l'enfant d'âge préscolaire

Dans cette étude, nous avons décrit la relation existante entre le stress parental des mères vivant avec ou sans conjoint et le niveau d'agressivité de l'enfant vis-à-vis de ses pairs. De plus, nous avons observé les comportements des mères en situation de jeu avec leur enfant. Notre échantillon se compose de 32 mères monoparentales et de 43 mères biparentales ayant des enfants de trois ou quatre ans évalués au QECP comme étant agressifs (n = 47) et non-agressifs (n = 28). Nos résultats démontrent: (1) le niveau de stress parental est similaire pour les mères monoparentales et biparentales, sauf si l'enfant est agressif; (2) en contrôlant statistiquement le revenu financier, il existe un lien très clair entre le stress des mères monoparentales et l'agressivité de l'enfant en garderie; (3) le niveau de scolarisation de la mère est la variable la plus reliée au stress maternel; (4) l'agressivité de l'enfant est reliée au faible revenu financier des mères; plus les mères sont pauvres, plus l'enfant est agressif; (5) en situation de jeu avec l'enfant, les mères monoparentales sont plus contrôlantes et moins positives que les mères biparentales, et le négativisme de l'enfant augmente avec le niveau de stress de la mère.     

The use of structural equation modeling in generative research: Toward the design of a preventive intervention for bereaved children

Describes a generative study of processes which may lead to symptomatology in children who have experienced the death of a parent. Based on existing literature, four putative mediating variables were identified: parental demoralization, family warmth, negative family events, and positive stable family events. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to compare several potential causal models involving these variables. The results were most consistent with a model in which bereavement was not directly related to the child symptomatology, but rather its effects were transmitted through these four mediational mechanisms. The implications of the results of the structural modeling for the design and evaluation of preventive interventions are discussed briefly.     

An investigation of neuronal integrity in severe paediatric traumatic brain injury.

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) and its association with neuropsychological functioning was examined in the chronic injury phase of paediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI). Fifteen children, aged 10-16 years, with severe TBIs were compared with 15 controls, matched for age and gender. The TBI group was found to have significantly lower levels of -acetyl aspartate (NAA) and Choline (Cho) in the right frontal lobe and generally displayed reduced performances on neuropsychological tests. A correlation between metabolites and reaction times was also obtained. Findings indicate a role of proton MRS as a measure of neuronal integrity following severe paediatric TBI and suggest a potential association of MRS with specific neuropsychological impairments.     

Sexual Harassment Severity: Assessing Situational and Personal Determinants and Outcomes1

The current study bridges literatures on sexual harassment, person‐environment systems, and stress and appraisal processes. Conventional wisdom equates severity of sexual harassment with type of harassment. We test this notion empirically and posit a more comprehensive model that examines both person‐ and situation‐level variables. Data came from 13,743 U.S. Armed Forces women responding to survey questions about a significant experience of sexual harassment. Multiple regression results indicate that pervasiveness of sexual harassment relates outcomes better than does type of sexual harassment. Pervasiveness and type interact to predict subjective appraisal of harassment. Additionally, according to multiple‐group structural equation models, appraisal mediates relations between pervasiveness and outcomes. Results further suggest that relations among sexual‐harassment antecedents and outcomes are consistent, regardless of the type of sexual harassment. These findings highlight the importance of examining both persons and situations when assessing sexual harassment severity.     

Poorer divided attention in children born very preterm can be explained by difficulty with each component task,not the executive requirement to dual-task

Children born very preterm (VP, ≤ 32 weeks) exhibit poor performance on tasks of executive functioning. However, it is largely unknown whether this reflects the cumulative impact of non-executive deficits or a separable impairment in executive-level abilities. A dual-task paradigm was used in the current study to differentiate the executive processes involved in performing two simple attention tasks simultaneously. The executive-level contribution to performance was indexed by the within-subject cost incurred to single-task performance under dual-task conditions, termed dual-task cost. The participants included 77 VP children (mean age: 7.17 years) and 74 peer controls (mean age: 7.16 years) who completed Sky Search (selective attention), Score (sustained attention) and Sky Search DT (divided attention) from the Test of Everyday Attention for Children. The divided-attention task requires the simultaneous performance of the selective- and sustained-attention tasks. The VP group exhibited poorer performance on the selective- and divided-attention tasks, and showed a strong trend toward poorer performance on the sustained-attention task. However, there were no significant group differences in dual-task cost. These results suggest a cumulative impact of vulnerable lower-level cognitive processes on dual-tasking or divided attention in VP children, and fail to support the hypothesis that VP children show a separable impairment in executive-level abilities.     

Visual feature binding in younger and older adults: encoding and suffix interference effects

Three experiments investigated younger (18–25 yrs) and older (70–88 yrs) adults’ temporary memory for colour–shape combinations (binding). We focused upon estimating the magnitude of the binding cost for each age group across encoding time (Experiment 1; 900/1500?ms), presentation format (Experiment 2; simultaneous/sequential), and interference (Experiment 3; control/suffix) conditions. In Experiment 1, encoding time did not differentially influence binding in the two age groups. In Experiment 2, younger adults exhibited poorer binding performance with sequential relative to simultaneous presentation, and serial position analyses highlighted a particular age-related difficulty remembering the middle item of a series (for all memory conditions). Experiments 1–3 demonstrated small to medium binding effect sizes in older adults across all encoding conditions, with binding less accurate than shape memory. However, younger adults also displayed negative effects of binding (small to large) in two of the experiments. Even when older adults exhibited a greater suffix interference effect in Experiment 3, this was for all memory types, not just binding. We therefore conclude that there is no consistent evidence for a visual binding deficit in healthy older adults. This relative preservation contrasts with the specific and substantial deficits in visual feature binding found in several recent studies of Alzheimer's disease.     

Training Genetic Counsellors to Deliver an Innovative Therapeutic Intervention: their Views and Experience of Facilitating Multi-Family Discussion Groups

Innovations in clinical genetics have increased diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of inherited genetic conditions (IGCs). This has led to an increased number of families seeking genetic testing and / or genetic counselling and increased the clinical load for genetic counsellors (GCs). Keeping pace with biomedical discoveries, interventions are required to support families to understand, communicate and cope with their Inherited Genetic Condition. The Socio-Psychological Research in Genomics (SPRinG) collaborative have developed a new intervention, based on multi-family discussion groups (MFDGs), to support families affected by IGCs and train GCs in its delivery. A potential challenge to implementing the intervention was whether GCs were willing and able to undergo the training to deliver the MFDG. In analysing three multi-perspective interviews with GCs, this paper evaluates the training received. Findings suggests that MFDGs are a potential valuable resource in supporting families to communicate genetic risk information and can enhance family function and emotional well-being. Furthermore, we demonstrate that it is feasible to train GCs in the delivery of the intervention and that it has the potential to be integrated into clinical practice. Its longer term implementation into routine clinical practice however relies on changes in both organisation of clinical genetics services and genetic counsellors’ professional development.     

Getting down and dirty: An exploration of participation in the field of obstacle challenges

This paper examines the contemporary phenomenon of obstacle challenges and why people participate in events that result in them getting soaking wet, freezing cold, and dirtier than they have ever been while also getting shot with pellets and receiving “electric shocks.” Many participants in these challenges have taken part numerous times and keep coming back for more. Using multiple research methods including questionnaires, participant observation where the author completed one of Ireland's more well‐known and “toughest physical and mental endurance challenges,” and also depth interviews with challenge participants has resulted in a rich and detailed account of the obstacle challenge experience. These events are so much more than a few hours of strenuous and muddy physical exercise. The sense of community and camaraderie that people experience during these challenges could be described as “transformative” with participants in many cases more rewarded and moved by this collaborative aspect than the gruelling physical endeavour that they undertake. The escapism provided by the experience is also one its main rewards, relief from the quotidian and the chance to just “be.” The servicescape proves to be critically important to the experience but in ways that are largely incompatible with research in this area to date in that the comfort and cleanliness expected of more traditional servicescapes are spurned and physical hardship is welcomed. As this is an exploratory and novel research topic, suggestions for further research are plentiful.     

Dyslexic and nondyslexic reading fluency: Rapid automatized naming and the importance of continuous lists

Rapid automatized naming (RAN; Denckla & Rudel, 1976) tasks are consistent predictors of fluency that also discriminate between dyslexic and nondyslexic reading groups. The component processes of RAN that are responsible for its relationship with reading ability remain underspecified, however. We report a study on dyslexic and nondyslexic adult groups that experimentally manipulated RAN formats to elucidate how different components of RAN differentially influence dyslexic and nondyslexic performance. The dyslexic group showed a pervasive deficit in rapid access of individually presented items. Additionally, they showed a significant impairment when multiple items were presented, whereas nondyslexic readers showed marginal facilitation for this format. We discuss the implications of these findings with respect to reading-group differences in reading fluency.     

Positive attributional style,life events and their effect on children's mood: Prospective study

The present study extended previous research into the role of cognitive style in predicting depressive symptoms in children by examining positive attributional style for positive events in a prospective manner, with a focus on the influence of prior life experience. A non‐clinical sample of 102 children (aged 10–12 years) was recruited. Participants completed self‐report measures of depression, attributional style, stressful life events, and positive life events on two occasions (approximately 6 months apart). Positive attributional style for positive events moderated the relationship between negative life events and follow‐up depressive symptoms. Number of positive events did not significantly moderate the negative life events–depression symptoms relationship although there was a trend in the expected direction. Positive attributional style for positive events appeared to act as both a mediator and moderator in the positive events–depression symptoms relationship. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.