Psychiatric Disorders in Clinical Genetics II: Individualizing Recurrence Risks

This is the second article of a two-part professional development series on genetic counseling for personal and family histories of psychiatric disorders. It is based on an Educational Breakout Session presented by The Psychiatric Special Interest Group of the National Society of Genetic Counselors at the 2006 Annual Education Conference. While the first article in this two part series dealt with addressing family histories of psychiatric disorders in clinical practice, the following discussion deals with the generation and provision of individualized recurrence risks for psychiatric disorders, based on empiric risk data. We present four cases that illustrate important components of and process for generating individualized risk assessment for family histories of psychiatric disorders.     

Repressive Coping,Emotional Adjustment,and Cognition in People Who Have Lost Loved Ones to Suicide

Research indicates that a repressive coping style is psychologically protective against the stress of trauma, yet it is unclear whether this finding generalizes to suicide bereavement. Thus, we assessed cognitive ability and mental health among individuals who lost a loved one to suicide. The results indicate that repressive coping may be associated with greater emotional health during suicide bereavement. Interestingly, “repressors” also had lower scores on both cognitive tasks compared to “nonrepressors,” but it is unclear whether their more recent loss accounts for this difference. These results are based on cross‐sectional data, and should be interpreted with caution.     

Substance-abuse prevention: Beyond the schoolyard

Substance-abuse prevention in children and youth has had limited success, possibly because the scope of traditional interventions, usually school based, is too narrow. Children who live in poverty and/or whose homes are dysfunctional need environmental changes beyond what traditional school-based programs can offer. Community psychologists need to expand their work in this area. School-based and community-based interventions are addressed. Ideas for broadening interventions to include elements such as family, media, and community collaboration are evaluated and discussed, along with successful examples of such interventions. Suggestions are made for further innovative work in this area.     

Toward accurate inferences of response class membership

In their review of synthesis within the functional analysis (FA) literature, Slaton and Hanley (2018) reported that most synthesized contingency analyses have included multiple topographies of problem behavior in the reinforcement contingency class. This leaves the question of whether one, some, or all forms of problem behavior are sensitive to the synthesized reinforcement contingencies in published analyses. To address this ambiguity, all topographies of problem behavior that were reported by caregivers to co-occur with the most concerning problem behavior were analyzed for 10 participants. We implemented extinction across one or more forms of problem behavior to determine whether all forms reported to co-occur were sensitive to the same synthesized reinforcement contingency. For nine of 10 participants, the most concerning topographies were sensitive to the same synthesized reinforcement contingencies as the less concerning topographies (results were inconclusive for one). Implications for inferring response class membership from single analyses are discussed.     

Community-delivered infant–parent psychotherapy improves maternal sensitive caregiving: Evaluation of the Michigan model of infant mental health home visiting

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a home-based psychotherapeutic Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH-HV) intervention for enhancing parenting sensitivity; a secondary aim was to evaluate whether the use of video feedback was associated with greater treatment response. Participants were N = 78 mothers and their children (age at entry ranged from prebirth to 24-month old (M = 9.8, SD = 8.4), who were initiating IMH-HV services with community mental health-based therapists (N = 51). Dyads were assessed during extended home visits via standardized interviews and observational and questionnaire methods within the first month of treatment (baseline), and again 6 and 12 months thereafter. Following each of these extended home visits, study evaluators completed a standard Q-sort to capture observations of maternal sensitivity during the visit. Therapists completed fidelity checklists used to derive the total number of IMH-HV sessions received (i.e., dosage) and frequency with which therapists provided video feedback. Results indicated a dose–response relationship between number of sessions and maternal sensitivity, and that video review with parents independently contributed to improved maternal sensitivity. Discussion focuses on the effectiveness of this community-based psychotherapeutic home visiting model for enhancing parenting, as well as the value of video feedback as a specific therapeutic strategy.     

Grey wolves (Canis lupus) discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar human voices

Animal Cognition - The ability to discriminate between different individuals based on identity cues, which is important to support the social behaviour of many animal species, has mostly been...     

Maternal Harsh Parenting,SES, and Young Children’s Sleep

Journal of Child and Family Studies - There is a need to better understand the influence of daytime parenting behaviors on children’s sleep. We investigated relations between maternal harsh...     

Decomposing the within-person and between-person sources of variation in physical activity-cognition associations for low-active older adults

Abstract

Objectives: To examine within-person and between-person sources of variation in the relationship between physical activity and cognition in older adults participating in a walking program. To explore whether demographic, health and fitness variables, and their interactions with activity, are significant predictors of cognition.

Design: Brief longitudinal burst design.

Participants: 118 participants (91 females, mean age?=?72.81?+ 5.24 years).

Main Outcome Measures: Cognition, self-reported moderate-to-vigorous walking and self-reported moderate-to-vigorous physical activity were assessed at baseline and 6, 9, 12 and 16 weeks follow-up. Attendance at weekly walks was also recorded.

Results: Within-persons, changes in physical activity were related to select measures of executive functioning, with increased activity predictive of better cognition (three of four cognitive functions, p<.05). Between-persons, activity was also associated with cognition (two of four cognitive functions, p<.05). Younger age and higher education were related to better cognition. Interactions of demographic, health, and fitness variables with changes in within-person activity were generally non-significant.

Conclusion: The results highlight the importance of distinguishing within- from between-person effects in longitudinal analyses of the association between physical activity and cognition. This stringent within-person test of association underscores the potential value of simple physical activity interventions for improving cognitive function.