Transition planning and recidivism among mentally ill juvenile offenders

OBJECTIVES: To determine the extent to which transition planning and community service would predict lower levels of recidivism among mentally ill juvenile offenders. DESIGN: Review of legal, medical and social service records including examination of 3-month period following community release. PARTICIPANTS: Juvenile offenders incarcerated for 6 months or more (N = 44) transitioning to community. MEASURES: Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS), sum of different documented pre- and post-release discharge planning contacts, documented community service contacts. OUTCOMES: Re-offense during the first year post-release. RESULTS: Documented community service contacts in the 3 months following discharge were rare for mental health (20.5%), substance abuse (38.6%), financial assistance (29.5%), and school placement (34.1%). The average number of different pre-release and post-release discharge planning contacts was also low, M(SD)=1.86(1.68) and M(SD)= 2.34(1.71) respectively. Post-release discharge planning and the receipt of financial assistance and mental health services were all associated with lower levels of reoffending. CONCLUSIONS: Community transition planning, including the coordination and provision of community services, is an essential component of community reintegration for juvenile offenders and is associated with lower rates of recidivism during the first year post-discharge.     

The Physical Appearance Ambiguous Feedback Scale (PAAFS): a measure for indexing body image related cognitive bias

Recent conceptualizations of body image disturbance have included an information processing model that includes a focus on an interpretive information processing bias. Study 1 involved the development and validation of a measure of appearance-based cognitive bias, the Physical Appearance Ambiguous Feedback Scale (PAAFS). In Studies 2 and 3, two samples of college females (n=313) were tested and the psychometric characteristics of the PAAFS were evaluated. Reliability was acceptable and convergence with measures of body image and eating disturbance was moderate. In Study 4, 313 college females completed the PAAFS in the laboratory based on an instructional content designed to induce processing bias. Preliminary evidence indicates that the PAAFS appears to be sensitive to instructional set manipulations and dispositional level of body dissatisfaction.     

Six-year-olds' difficulties handling intensional contexts

Previous research shows that children have difficulties handling intensional contexts even when they can pass a test of false belief (e.g. Cognition 67 (1998) 287; Cognition 25 (1987) 289). Some authors (Perner, J. (1991). Understanding the representational mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Cognition 25 (1987) 289) place these difficulties in the linguistic and not the mental representational domain. The experiments reported here examined whether 6-year-old children could answer questions in an intensional context that did not require the explicit verbal characterization of a belief. We replicated previous findings and found that children answered according to their own knowledge in an intensional context. This occurred even though they responded by choosing a picture to insert into a protagonist's thought bubble rather than report the belief verbally. Children could correctly answer questions about the knowledge state of the protagonist and pass a test of false belief. Further experiments ruled out methodological explanations. Experiment 2 showed that the difference in answering according to own knowledge between the false belief and intensional stories is not accounted for by procedural factors in the two types of test. Experiment 3 revealed that children did not answer according to their own knowledge by default. Experiment 4 suggested that answering according to own knowledge was not a result of pictorial salience. Results are discussed in relation to the simulation-theory debate.     

Personality and the predisposition to engage in risky or problem behaviors during adolescence

Longitudinal data from a representative sample of 1,978 Black and White adolescents were used to examine the role of personality in multiple risk or problem behaviors. Results indicate that covariation among diverse behaviors (educational underachievement, delinquent behavior, substance use, sexual behavior) can be adequately modeled by a single higher order factor, and that impulsivity and avoidance coping serve as generalized risk factors for involvement in these behaviors. Whereas none of the personality variables examined explained change in problem behaviors once established, avoidance coping prospectively predicted involvement among a subgroup of adolescents with little or no prior involvement. Results suggest that dysfunctional styles of regulating emotions and emotionally driven behaviors are core features of risky or problem behaviors during adolescence.     

Pathways of Economic Influence on Adolescent Adjustment

An important part of a science aimed at the prevention of human dysfunction involves the development of empirically based models that identify processes of risk for or protection from emotional distress or behavioral problems over time. The present study developed and evaluated such a model that proposed two pathways through which family economic pressure was expected to influence change in adolescent internalizing symptoms (depression and anxiety) during the period from the eighth to the tenth grades. A total of 377 rural families in a midwestern state provided data for the analyses. The results were generally consistent with the conceptual model in that family economic pressure increased adolescent perceptions of family economic hardship, which, in turn, reduced the adolescent's sense of control or mastery over time. Lowered mastery was associated with increases in emotional distress. Also consistent with the model, prior levels of mastery appeared to reduce the magnitude of economic stress experienced by the adolescent, whereas prior emotional distress intensified the economic stress process. Although gender differences were found in these processes, the overall pattern of results suggests that girls and boys are both at risk for internalizing problems when families experience economic pressure. Implicatios of the findings for the dvelopment of effective preventive interventions with financially stressed families in rural areas are discussed.     

A Test of Interpersonal Theory of Depression in Youth Psychiatric Inpatients

Coyne's (1976b) interpersonal theory of depression postulated that the combination of depressive symptoms and excessive reassurance-seeking leads to interpersonal problems (e.g., loneliness, devaluation). The present study is one of the first to test this model among youth, particularly a clinical sample of youth. Sixty-eight youth psychiatric inpatients (35 girls; 33 boys; mean age = 13.34 years, SD = 2.50) completed self-report measures of excessive reassurance-seeking, depressive symptoms, and interpersonal rejection. Results conformed to the hypothesis: The statistical interaction of excessive reassurance-seeking and depressive symptoms predicted interpersonal rejection, such that high-reassurance-seeking youth with depressive symptoms reported the most interpersonal rejection. Implications of the findings for interpersonal theory of depression in youngsters are discussed.     

The dialogical principle and the mystery of being

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -