USING PARENTS TO MAINTAIN IMPROVED DENTAL FLOSSING SKILLS IN CHILDREN

An experimenter-administered intervention involving prompts, self-monitoring, permanent product collection, rewards for plaque reduction, and corrective feedback was used to improve the flossing skills of four 7- to 11-year-old children. Parents were subsequently trained in the reward and feedback procedures to facilitate maintenance. In a multiple baseline across subjects design, all four subjects snowed improvement in plaque between teeth during experimenter-administered intervention. Three subjects maintained low plaque levels during the 3- to 4-month parent-administered rewards and feedback follow-up condition. Improved plaque levels on nontargeted tooth surfaces also were observed. Pediatric dentistry applications are discussed.     

Post-training down-regulation of memory consolidation by a GABA-A mechanism in the amygdala modulated by endogenous benzodiazepines

In rats, amygdala benzodiazepine-like immunoreactivity decreases by 29% immediately after the animals step down from the platform of an inhibitory avoidance apparatus and decreases by a further 45% immediately after they receive a training footshock. The decrease is attributable to a release of diazepam or diazepam-like molecules. The immediate post-training intraamygdala injection of the central benzodiazepine antagonist flumazenil (10 nmole/amygdala) causes memory facilitation, and that of the GABA-A agonist muscimol (0.005 to 0.5 nmole) causes retrograde amnesia. Pretraining ip flumazenil administration (2.0 and 5.0 mg/kg) attenuates the effect of post-training muscimol by a factor of at least 100. The higher dose of pretraining flumazenil also causes memory facilitation. The data suggest that post-training consolidation is down-regulated by a GABA-A mechanism in the amygdala modulated by endogenous benzodiazepines released during training and at the time of consolidation.     

Foundations of infants' social group evaluations

Previous research has suggested that infants exhibit a preference for familiar over unfamiliar social groups (e.g., preferring individuals from their own language group over individuals from a foreign language group). However, because past studies often employ forced‐choice procedures, it is not clear whether infants' intergroup preferences are driven by positivity toward members of familiar groups, negativity toward members of unfamiliar groups, or both. Across six experiments, we implemented a habituation procedure to independently measure infants' positive and negative evaluations of speakers of familiar and unfamiliar languages. We report that by 1 year of age, infants positively evaluate individuals who speak a familiar language, but do not negatively evaluate individuals who speak an unfamiliar language (Experiments 1 and 2). Several experiments rule out lower‐level explanations (Experiments 3–6). Together these data suggest that children's early social group preferences may be shaped by positive evaluations of familiar group(s), rather than negative evaluations of unfamiliar groups.     

Ignoring Easterlin: Why Easterlin’s Correlation Findings Need Not Matter to Public Policy

Many believe that the lack of correlation between happiness and income, first discovered by Richard Easterlin in 1974, entails the conclusion that well-being policies should be made based on happiness measures, rather than income measures. I argue that distinguishing between how well-being is characterized and how that characterization is measured introduces ways of denying the conclusion that policies should be made based on happiness measures. It is possible to avoid the conclusion either by denying that well-being hedonism is true or by denying that happiness measures are a better way of operationalizing hedonism than income measures are. By making these possibilities explicit, we find that less hinges on whether income and happiness are correlated than is often thought.     

Memory of the traumatic event as a risk factor for the development of PTSD: lessons from the study of traumatic brain injury

Traumatic memories, and the mechanisms by which they operate, continue to occupy a central role in the scientific investigation of risk factors for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, empirically based studies are constrained by practical and ethical considerations and are limited to naturalistic models. Consequently, the paradigms most appropriate for the exploration of the relationship between traumatic memories and PTSD have been identified in conditions involving traumatic events where memories may be compromised. Indeed, traumatic brain injury, a condition that is commonly associated with memory impairment, has often been utilized as a naturally occurring model for the study of traumatic memory and its contribution to the development of PTSD. This article presents a critical review of these research efforts and discusses their theoretical and clinical implications.     

The principles of conventionality and contrast in word learning: an empirical examination

In Study 1, 4-year-olds avoided 2 names for an object when exposed to a common or a proper noun in a puppet's presence or to a common noun in a puppet's absence, but not when exposed to a proper noun in a puppet's absence. In Study 2, 3-year-olds avoided 2 names for an object when the requester for the referent of a second label in a different language was bilingual and present during naming, but not when the speaker was bilingual but absent or monolingual. Study 3 followed up on the results of the first 2 studies. When children could assume that the puppet knew the name the experimenter used, they inferred that the puppet's use of a different name implied a different referential intent.     

Accuracy in discriminating blood glucose levels in a sample of children with type 1 diabetes

The present study explores accuracy in estimating blood glucose levels (BGL) in children with type 1 diabetes and analyzes the kinds of symptoms and cues which they use to estimate their BGL. Forty two children with type 1 diabetes completed a SI/IC-3 scale consisting of 28 items (22 symptoms and 6 feelings), indicating those which they perceived at the time and their intensity. They estimated their BGL and gave reasons for their estimation, before having a blood glucose level analysis performed. The results indicated great variability in the accuracy of estimating BGL. They showed failures in the correct discrimination of symptoms of hypoglycemia as well as the presence of false beliefs regarding indicative symptoms of hyperglycemia, and the absence of symptoms as an indicator for euglycemia, beliefs which provoke different and frequent errors in the estimation of BGL. Correct use of external signs is shown to be related to correct estimations of normal BGL, as well as hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. We discuss the implications these results could have on designing psychological intervention procedures for diabetics in the form of training programs to discriminate BGL accurately, taking into account these findings and previous studies completed in the same field.     

Two-year-olds' sensitivity to speakers' intent: an alternative account of Samuelson and Smith

Seventy-two 2-year-olds participated in a study designed to test two competing accounts of the effect of contextual change on children's ability to learn a word for an object. The mechanistic account hypothesizes that any change in context that highlights a target object will lead to word learning; the social-pragmatic account maintains that a change in context must be perceived as relevant to the speaker's communicative intentions. Consistent with the latter account, we found that children learned the word when a change in context was intentional but not when it was accidental, and children failed to learn the word for the highlighted object when a speaker naive to the preceding context named the object.     

Evidence for the substantia nigra pars compacta as an essential component of a memory system independent of the hippocampal memory system

The aim of the present study was to test if the nigrostriatal pathway is an essential component for a water maze cued task learning and if it works independently of the hippocampal memory system. This hypothesis was tested using an animal model of Parkinson's disease in which male Wistar rats were lesioned in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) by the intranigral infusion of 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP), thus causing a partial depletion of striatal dopamine. SNc-lesioned and sham-operated animals were implanted bilaterally with guide cannulae above the dorsal hippocampus in order to be tested after the administration of 0.4 microl 2% lidocaine or saline into this structure. The animals were tested in a spatial or in a cued version of the water maze, memory tasks previously reported to model hippocampal-dependent spatial/relational and striatal-dependent S-R learning, respectively. Hippocampal inactivation, but not SNc lesion, impaired learning and memory in the spatial version of the water maze. An opposite situation was observed with the cued version. No significant interaction was observed between the SNc lesion and hippocampal inactivation conditions affecting scores in the spatial or in the cued version of the water maze. These results suggest that the nigrostriatal pathway is an essential part of the memory system that processes S-R learning and that it works independently of the hippocampal memory system that processes spatial/relational memories.     

Change in the Psychological Adjustment of Children with Cystic Fibrosis or Sickle Cell Disease and Their Mothers

Objectives: This study has three interrelated objectives: (1) to track the adjustment of children and adolescents with sickle cell disease (SCD) or cystic fibrosis (CF) and their mothers through a third assessment point 2 years after the initial assessment; (2) to determine whether the adaptational processes of the transactional stress and coping model associated with adjustment at the initial assessment continue to be associated with adjustment 2 years later; and (3) to determine whether the pattern of association of adaptational processes with adjustments differs by illness subgroup. Methods: The study samples included 59 children with CF and 50 children with SCD and their mothers. Measures were obtained on maternal adjustment and appraisals of daily and illness stress, coping methods, and family functioning. Child measures included child-reported and mother-reported child adjustment and child perceptions of self-worth and health locus of control and pain coping methods. Results: Consistency in adjustment classification was only 31–32% for child self-report, 66% for mother-reported child behavior problems, and 56–77% for mother self-reported adjustment for the CF and SCD groups, respectively. Support was provided for the association of adaptational processes with maternal adjustment and with the adjustment of children with SCD but not for children with CF. Conclusion: The stability of adjustment has implications for prevention and treatment intervention and subsequent research steps. Intervention efforts should be focused on the relatively small subgroups of children with chronic illnesses and their mothers with consistently poor adjustment.