Supporting Out‐of‐School Time Staff in Low Resource Communities: A Professional Development Approach

Federally funded out‐of‐school time (OST) programs provide academic support, enrichment, and safety for students and families in low‐resource communities. However, programs struggle to meet these aims, in part because of the lack of program structure and limited training and support for staff. This observational case study documents the training and technical assistance (TA) delivered to OST frontline staff and program leadership to implement Positive Behavior in Out‐of‐School Time (Positive BOOST), an adaptation of positive behavior interventions and supports conducted in multiple settings. Findings across three programs indicate that varied levels of TA (i.e., business as usual, performance feedback, coaching) are associated with different levels of staff‐ and program‐level implementation. Taken together with previous research, these findings suggest that targeted investment in developing the skills of OST staff and improving program‐wide outcomes is critical for supporting youth in low‐resource communities.     

Return of the question "why": advantages of exploring pre-existing explanations

We suggest that there are many advantages in thoroughly exploring the causal explanations given by clients or members of their social network to account for their problems. Specific interviewing techniques are presented to uncover clients' causal explanations or their impressions about the causal explanations of others. Various advantages of exploring these explanations are discussed. They include improved cooperation, development of "systemic empathy," detachment from the explanations of other professionals, recognition and avoidance of coalitions, loosening of firmly held explanations, dilution of noxious explanations, generation of new and positive explanations toward solutions, and taking a bird's-eye view or meta position about such explanations. We conclude that acceptance and appreciation of the human tendency to believe in causal explanations is a fruitful way to enhance interaction between clinicians and clients.     

Positive,Negative, and Neutral Peer Interactions as Indicators of Children's Social Competency: The Issue of Concurrent Validity

Many studies examining the effects of treatments for socially isolated/withdrawn children have used behavioral measures to assess children's peer relations. In an attempt to examine the concurrent validity of these measures, we observed 258 preschool children during free play and coded their interactions into the categories of positive, negative, and neutral behaviors. We also interviewed these children individually, using a sociometric nomination procedure, and asked them to indicate liked and disliked peers. Our examination of the results revealed that, consistent with other research, the correlation between the sociometric measures and the children's total rate of interaction with peers was low. In addition, measures of positive, negative, and neutral behaviors were also only weakly correlated with the children's sociometric scores. We agree with others in concluding that multiple methods of assessment are needed to properly assess the adequacy of children's peer relations.     

How Do Mothers Feel About Their Very Low Birth Weight Infants? Development of a New Measure

The early relationship between a mother and her very low birth weight (VLBW; <1.5 kg) infant may be difficult to evaluate. Therefore, we aimed to develop a useful and practical method to describe a mother's early relationship with her VLBW infant. Mothers (mean age=27 years, 46% married) of 119 singleton VLBW infants (mean BW=1,056 g, mean GA=28 weeks) admitted to the neonatal ICU at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital completed a novel questionnaire regarding their feelings about their infant at 3 weeks' postnatal age, and at 35 weeks', 40 weeks' (term), and 4 months' postmenstrual ages. Factor analysis of initial interview data was used to construct subscales to measure unique domains hypothesized to underpin the beginning maternal–infant relationship. Three subscales were identified: (a) The Worry subscale focuses on the mother's concerns about her infant's current medical condition and future development, (b) the Enjoyment subscale examines the mother's positive feelings about and responsiveness to her infant, and (c) the Separation Anxiety subscale examines the mother's mental anxiety about being physically separated from her infant. Statistical and clinical validation of the subscales produced positive supporting evidence that the subscales are a meaningful measure of the mother–infant relationship. We have developed a unique and practical measure for describing the early mother–VLBW infant relationship.     

The Emerging Field of Adolescent Romantic Relationships

Romantic relationships are central in adolescents' lives. They have the potential to affect development positively, but also place adolescents at risk for problems. Romantic experiences change substantially over the course of adolescence; the peer context plays a critical role as heterosexual adolescents initially interact with the other sex in a group context, then begin group dating, and finally have dyadic romantic relationships. Adolescents' expectations and experiences in romantic relationships are related to their relationships with their peers as well as their parents. Although research on adolescents' romantic relationships has blossomed in the past decade, further work is needed to identify the causes and consequences of romantic experiences, examine the diversity of romantic experiences, and integrate the field with work on sexuality and adult romantic relationships.     

Effect of preparation on dual-task performance in postural control

The authors applied an overlapping-task design to study the interaction between postural control and cognitive task processes in young (n = 10) and older (n = 10) adults. A rapid destabilizing floor translation was followed at specific time intervals by a simple auditory reaction time (RT) task. The translations were preceded by either an informational cue or no cue. Interference between postural task demands and the RT task was found only in the first 50 ms. Cueing also had an effect on both the onset of the postural recovery response and RT performance. The results suggest (a) only a brief interference between postural and cognitive processing demands in relatively easy tasks, (b) competition for a common central mechanism, possibly a response-selection mechanism, and (c) no differential impact of aging on that interaction.     

They saw a movie: long-term memory for an extended audiovisual narrative

We measured long-term memory for a narrative film. During the study session, participants watched a 27-min movie episode, without instructions to remember it. During the test session, administered at a delay ranging from 3 h to 9 mo after the study session, long-term memory for the movie was probed using a computerized questionnaire that assessed cued recall, recognition, and metamemory of movie events sampled ~20 sec apart. The performance of each group of participants was measured at a single time point only. The participants remembered many events in the movie even months after watching it. Analysis of performance, using multiple measures, indicates differences between recent (weeks) and remote (months) memory. While high-confidence recognition performance was a reliable index of memory throughout the measured time span, cued recall accuracy was higher for relatively recent information. Analysis of different content elements in the movie revealed differential memory performance profiles according to time since encoding. We also used the data to propose lower limits on the capacity of long-term memory. This experimental paradigm is useful not only for the analysis of behavioral performance that results from encoding episodes in a continuous real-life-like situation, but is also suitable for studying brain substrates and processes of real-life memory using functional brain imaging.     

The Early Development of the Autonomic Nervous System Provides a Neural Platform for Social Behavior: A Polyvagal Perspective

We present a biobehavioral model that explains the neurobiological mechanisms through which measures of vagal regulation of the heart (e.g., respiratory sinus arrhythmia) are related to infant self-regulatory and social engagement skills. The model describes the sequential development of the neural structures that provide a newborn infant with the ability to regulate physiological state in response to a dynamically changing postpartum environment. Initially, the newborn uses primitive brainstem-visceral circuits via ingestive behaviors as the primary mechanism to regulate physiological state. However, as cortical regulation of the brainstem improves during the first year of life, reciprocal social behavior displaces feeding as the primary regulator of physiological state. The model emphasizes two sequential phases in neurophysiological development as the fetus transitions to postpartum biological and social challenges: 1) the development of the myelinated vagal system during the last trimester, and 2) the development of cortical regulation of the brainstem areas regulating the vagus during the first year postpartum.