Innovative Assessment of Childhood Trauma and Its Link to HIV and Substance Abuse in Post-Incarcerated Women

Women who are incarcerated often report unresolved early life traumas, which research has linked to subsequent HIV and substance abuse risks. This article presents an arts-based counseling technique used with women re-entering society after incarceration. Women were assessed for childhood trauma (i.e. sexual, emotional, and/or physical abuse) in relation to age of onset and frequency of events using an interactive pictorial assessment technique, Healing Me Timeline activity. The technique allowed women to use color-coded graphs in identifying points along a timeline during which traumatic events occurred and to process insights to foster healthy coping strategies. The timeline activity was an innovative and gender-appropriate method for uncovering the nature and extent of women’s trauma and counseling needs. Facilitators used the counseling tool to assist women in processing personal insights and to make referrals to mental health counseling, medical services, and substance use programs.     

A meta‐analysis of the effects of speakers' accents on interpersonal evaluations

This paper reports a meta‐analysis of the empirical literature on the effects of speakers' accents on interpersonal evaluations. Our review of the published literature uncovered 20 studies that have compared the effects of standard accents (i.e., the accepted accent of the majority population) versus non‐standard accents (i.e., accents that are considered foreign or spoken by minorities) on evaluations about the speakers. These 20 studies yielded 116 independent effect sizes on an array of characteristics that were selected by the original researchers. We classified each of the characteristics as belonging to one of three domains that have been traditionally discussed in this area, namely status (e.g., intelligence, social class), solidarity (trustworthiness, in‐group–out‐group member), and dynamism (level of activity and liveliness). The effect was particularly strong when American Network accented speakers were compared with non–standard‐accented speakers. These results underscore prior research showing that speakers' accents have powerful effects on how others perceive them. These and other results are discussed in the context of the literature along with implications for future research in this area. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thematic moment analysis: A didactic application of a procedure for phenomenological analysis of narrative data

Abstract

Following in the theoretical and methodological roots of the ‘Duquesne school,’ this work presents a procedure for the phenomenological analysis of narrative data. After describing its ‘approach,’ this work lays out the procedure for ‘thematic moment analysis’ using the work of Giorgi as a point of reference. Idiographic results of single datum of being afraid are presented along with the steps through which this ‘idiographic thematic narrative’ was developed. Procedures for arriving at ‘comparative analysis’ of more than one piece of data are presented and distinguished from claims of generality sought by works drawing on larger data pools. Finally, this work discusses issues of internal and external validity both specifically in regards to the ‘thematic moments’ procedure and in terms of phenomenological research in general.     

Unwed Teenage Mothers: An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Ton of Cure

A problem that impacts many segments of our society today can be directly traced to unwed adolescent girls giving birth. This article details the consequences and impact such births have on our nation as a whole, and explores ways to prevent the pregnancies rather than merely offering up more coping solutions once such teenage girls become pregnant.     

Knowledge and the Prediction of Behavior: The Role of Information Accuracy in the Theory of Planned Behavior

The usefulness of a combined protection motivation and self-efficacy theory as a model of health enhancement was investigated via a persuasive communications paradigm. Self-efficacy expectancy, outcome expectancy (i.e., perceived response efficacy) and outcome value (i.e., perceived social value) of a health-enhancing behavior were manipulated. As predicted, both self-efficacy expectancy and response efficacy had significant main effects on subjects' intentions to perform the health-enhancing behavior. Outcome value had no significant effect on behavioral intentions. Correlational data indicated that response efficacy was the best single predictor of intentions and that self-efficacy expectancy was also a significant predictor of intentions. Outcome value added no predictability. These results support the utility of the combined protection motivation and self-efficacy theory as a model of health enhancement.     

Change in sleep symptoms across Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure: A longitudinal perspective

Sleep disturbance is a core component in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although cognitive-behavioral treatments for PTSD reduce the severity of sleep symptoms, they do not lead to complete remission. The present study examines the impact of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE) on subjective measures of sleep disturbance from treatment randomization through long-term follow-up (LTFU). Participants were 171 female rape victims with PTSD who were randomly assigned to CPT, PE, or Minimal Attention (MA). After 6-weeks, the MA group was randomized to CPT or PE. Sleep symptoms were assessed at baseline, post-MA, post-treatment, 3-months, 9-months and LTFU using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and nightmare and insomnia items from the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale. Change in sleep during MA, from pre- to post-treatment for CPT and PE, and from post-treatment through LTFU was assessed using piecewise hierarchical linear modeling with the intent-to-treat sample. Controlling for medication, sleep improved during CPT and PE compared to MA, and treatment gains were maintained through LTFU. CPT and PE were equally efficacious and improvements persist over LTFU, yet, neither produced remission of sleep disturbance. Overall, sleep symptoms do not remit and may warrant sleep-specific treatments.     

A Brief Educational Attainment Scale for Clinical Use

Abstract

La Grande Guerre. Catalogue raisonné des estampes, originaux, affiches illustrées, imageries, vignettes, cartes postales, médailles, bons de monnaies, timbres, etc., du 1er Aout 1914 au 31 Décembre, 1915. Préface de Georges Cain. Tome premier. Collection Henri Leblanc. Destiné à l'Etat. Paris, Emile-Paul Frères, 1916. 434 p. Reviewed By Louis N. Wilson     

Effect of interaction type on the characteristics of pet-directed speech in female dog owners

Recent studies focusing on the interspecific communicative interactions between humans and dogs show that owners use a special speech register when addressing their dog. This register, called pet-directed speech (PDS), has prosodic and syntactic features similar to that of infant-directed speech (IDS). While IDS prosody is known to vary according to the context of the communication with babies, we still know little about the way owners adjust acoustic and verbal PDS features according to the type of interaction with their dog. The aim of the study was therefore to explore whether the characteristics of women’s speech depend on the nature of interaction with their dog. We recorded 34 adult women interacting with their dog in four conditions: before a brief separation, after reuniting, during play and while giving commands. Our results show that before separation women used a low pitch, few modulations, high intensity variations and very few affective sentences. In contrast, the reunion interactions were characterized by a very high pitch, few imperatives and a high frequency of affectionate nicknames. During play, women used mainly questions and attention-getting devices. Finally when commanding, women mainly used imperatives as well as attention-getting devices. Thus, like mothers using IDS, female owners adapt the verbal as well as the non-verbal characteristics of their PDS to the nature of the interaction with their dog, suggesting that the intended function of these vocal utterances remains to provide dogs with information about their intentions and emotions.     

Long Lives and Old Age Poverty: Social Stratification and Life-Course Institutionalization in Switzerland

This article combines an inter- and an intra-cohort perspective to study economic vulnerability in old age. The theoretical background is given through the combination of a social stratification framework and an institutional perspective emphasizing life course policies. At the macro level, the increase in overall education levels and the implementation of a pension system were the driving forces of the strong decrease in old age poverty over the last three decades. At an individual level, the pathway from low education early in life to economic hardship after retirement is most prominent, corresponding to a social stratification and cumulative disadvantage view.     

Temporal precision and the capacity of auditory–verbal short-term memory

The capacity of serially ordered auditory–verbal short-term memory (AVSTM) is sensitive to the timing of the material to be stored, and both temporal processing and AVSTM capacity are implicated in the development of language. We developed a novel “rehearsal-probe” task to investigate the relationship between temporal precision and the capacity to remember serial order. Participants listened to a sub-span sequence of spoken digits and silently rehearsed the items and their timing during an unfilled retention interval. After an unpredictable delay, a tone prompted report of the item being rehearsed at that moment. An initial experiment showed cyclic distributions of item responses over time, with peaks preserving serial order and broad, overlapping tails. The spread of the response distributions increased with additional memory load and correlated negatively with participants’ auditory digit spans. A second study replicated the negative correlation and demonstrated its specificity to AVSTM by controlling for differences in visuo-spatial STM and nonverbal IQ. The results are consistent with the idea that a common resource underpins both the temporal precision and capacity of AVSTM. The rehearsal-probe task may provide a valuable tool for investigating links between temporal processing and AVSTM capacity in the context of speech and language abilities.