Childhood abuse and neglect and cognitive flexibility in adolescents

Childhood maltreatment (CM) has been associated with diminished executive functioning in children and adults; however, there is a relative paucity of study of executive function in adolescents exposed to CM. Yet, executive dysfunction in adolescence may have important adverse consequences including increased vulnerability to risky behaviors and impaired school functioning. This study investigates the relationship between self-reported CM and an executive function, cognitive flexibility, in adolescents without identified psychiatric disorders. Effects of physical and emotional, abuse and neglect, maltreatment subtypes were explored. Thirty adolescents ages 12-17 years, 50% females, completed the retrospective self-report Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and were administered the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Correlational analyses assessed the relationship between WCST perseverative error scores norm-referenced for age and education with CTQ total scores. The relationship with nonperseverative errors, as well as with physical and emotional abuse and neglect CM subscores, were explored. Total CTQ scores showed significant associations with perseverative errors on the WCST, but not with nonperseverative errors. Significant associations with perseverative errors were seen for physical abuse and physical neglect among the CTQ subscales. The results suggest both physical abuse and physical neglect are associated with diminished cognitive flexibility in adolescents. These effects were detected in adolescents without identified psychiatric diagnoses suggesting the importance of considering executive dysfunction in adolescents exposed to CM who may not meet diagnostic criteria for an Axis I disorder and that tests of perseverative errors, such as those of the WCST, may be sensitive indicators of this dysfunction.     

Executive function on the Psychology Experiment Building Language tests

The measurement of executive function has a long history in clinical and experimental neuropsychology. The goal of the present report was to determine the profile of behavior across the lifespan on four computerized measures of executive function contained in the recently developed Psychology Experiment Building Language (PEBL) test battery and evaluate whether this pattern is comparable to data previously obtained with the non-PEBL versions of these tests. Participants (N = 1,223; ages, 5–89 years) completed the PEBL Trail Making Test (pTMT), the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (pWCST; Berg, Journal of General Psychology, 39, 15–22, 1948; Grant & Berg, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 38, 404–411, 1948), the Tower of London (pToL), or a time estimation task (Time-Wall). Age-related effects were found over all four tests, especially as age increased from young childhood through adulthood. For several tests and measures (including pToL and pTMT), age-related slowing was found as age increased in adulthood. Together, these findings indicate that the PEBL tests provide valid and versatile new research tools for measuring executive functions.     

The relationships between fat talk, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness: perceived stress as a moderator

Although body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness are commonplace in college-aged women, their relationships with fat talk and stress are understudied. This study examined (a) whether fat talk predicts body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness and (b) whether stress moderates these relationships. Results from self-report questionnaires completed by 121 female college students revealed that fat talk and perceived stress were significantly positively correlated with body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. Although fat talk was a significant independent predictor of body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness, stress moderated these relationships such that they were stronger at lower stress levels. Although contrary to predictions, these results are logical when means are considered. Results suggest that fat talk positively predicts body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness in students with relatively lower stress levels, but does not for students under high stress because mean levels of these constructs are all already high.     

Ecological Design-Based Research for Computer Science Education: Affordances and Effectivities for Elementary School Students

Abstract

This article integrates an ecological approach and design-based research in computer science education research by following the simultaneous development of a computer programming environment and curriculum for elementary school age children over 2-1/2 years. We studied the alignment of the affordances provided by the programming environment and curriculum with the effectivities of students in 4th through 6th grade (9-12 years old). We used the computer science concept of initializing as a tracer idea and both qualitative and quantitative data to identify mismatches between the affordances provided by our programming environment and the learners’ effectivities. These included requisite mathematical skills, confusion between resetting and setting up, and incorrectly assuming that features of the programming environment conveyed information. We then describe how we addressed the mismatches by removing or adding functionality to the programming environment, adding signifiers, adapting the curriculum to include scaffolding related to the effectivities, or removing activities.     

Beliefs about surgery: Development and validation of an instrument to assess cognitive representations about surgery,in the context of a chronic illness

Objectives: Within a trial of medical and surgical treatments for gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GORD), involving randomised arms and preference arms, we tested the applicability of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) and developed and tested the validity of a new Beliefs about Surgery Questionnaire (BSQ). Methods: Patients with GORD (N = 43) were interviewed to elicit their beliefs about medical and surgical treatments. These contributed to the development of BSQ items. The BMQ and BSQ were completed by trial participants at baseline (randomised trial: N = 325; preference trial: N = 414). Factor analysis and discriminant function analysis were used to assess validity. Results: Principal components analysis (PCA) largely replicated the four-factor BMQ structure. PCA of the combined BMQ/BSQ yielded six factors explaining 54.5% variance. BSQ items loaded onto distinct factors, demonstrating divergence from BMQ. As predicted, BMQ/BSQ scores enabled correct classification of 78.5% of participants to medication and surgery groups in the preference trial (χ²(6) = 205.9, p < 0.001) but only 54.5% (no better than chance) in the randomised trial (χ²(6) = 9.4, p = 0.154). Conclusions: The BSQ is a valid measure of perceptions about surgical treatments for GORD. With the BMQ, it provides information that may guide patients’ choices about treatment. This measure may be applicable to other conditions.     

Patient role orientations,doctor-patient fit,and visit satisfaction

Abstract

Two studies were conducted using the Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS), an instrument that measures the role orientations of patients. In the first, 297 students responded to a pool of 61 items concerning their attitudes about doctor-patient relationships (e.g., about power-sharing and the importance of physicians' supportiveness). The scale was reduced, and associations between PPOS scores and gender, race, country of origin as well as Health Locus of Control were found. In Study 2, 90 additional students filled out the PPOS, read two doctor-patient scenarios, and rated their satisfaction as if they had been the patient. In one, the physician exhibited a controlling style, and in the other a more open style. As predicted, patient-centered physicians generated higher satisfaction, and patients were most satisfied with a physician whose style matched their own role orientation. These studies suggest the potential usefulness of the PPOS as an indicator of patient attitudes and doctor-patient fit, and as an predictor of visit satisfaction.     

COMPREHENSION MONITORING IN GOOD AND POOR READERS: EVIDENCE FROM VERBAL AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES

The present study examined the ability of second grade good and poor readers to monitor their comprehension of inconsistent texts. Comprehension monitoring was assessed by both a performance measure (underlining inconsistencies) as well as verbal measures (ratings of passage comprehensibility and liking). Because poor readers equate adequate comprehension with accurate decoding, while good reader equate adequate comprehension with accurately deriving the meaning of a text, it was expected that performance and verbal measures of comprehension monitoring would be related for good but not for poor readers. As predicted, self‐reports of comprehension and liking were highly related to the performance measure of error detection for good readers but not for poor readers. The implications of these results for assessing comprehension monitoring ability are discussed.     

The Gender Pay Gap: Challenging the Rationalizations. Perceived Equity, Discrimination, and the Limits of Human Capital Models

A gender gap in earnings has proven both persistent and universal. This paper relies mainly on U.S. data, but a gap between women’s and men’s earnings exists in every country. There is a continuing debate as to the extent to which the gap reflects merely the inevitable and reasonably fair result of differing work patterns and behaviors by women and men or the impact of employment discrimination against women. The human capital approach, in which various explanatory variables are used to shrink the perceived size of the gap, is often used to argue that much of the gap is due, not to discrimination, but to differing investments in employment by women and men. However, neither “investments” nor “outcomes” can be assessed in gender-neutral ways and the model’s underlying notion of rational choices made against the backdrop of a gender-neutral playing field is flawed. Discrimination appears to be entwined with gendered work patterns and behaviors; many of the human capital “explanatory” variables themselves require explanation. Understanding the gap requires recognition of the limitations of human capital models, and a willingness both to take a more sophisticated approach to such models, and to think beyond this approach.     

The Waiting Room: Ontological Homelessness, Sexual Synecdoche, and Queer Becoming

An autobiographical reflection on the experience of being diagnosed as intersex, this essay considers the waiting room an apt metaphor for lives shaped by medical understandings of queer corporealities. Drawing upon the work of Gayle Salamon, Malatino develops the concept of sexual synecdoche as a useful analytic tool for considering the operations of medical pathologization in the realm of non-normative gender. She concludes with a discussion of queer becoming as an alternative ontology of gendered being that offers a resistant, coalitional way beyond contemporary, problematic institutionalized understandings of intersex subjectivities.