Testimonial Engagement: Undocumented Latina Mothers Navigating a Gendered Deportation Regime

This community-based qualitative study investigated the real or threatened impact of immigration enforcement on undocumented mothers as they navigate a “gendered deportation regime.” We analyzed seven interviews with undocumented mothers who have experienced the deportation of someone close to them and live under the constant threat of deportation. Based on an inductive, team-based analysis process, we present case examples of four themes that illustrate how undocumented mothers describe their experience negotiating the aftermath and threat of deportation: quality of life, material possibilities, balancing the social, and engaging with advocacy networks. Findings expand on previous research emphasizing the impact of “deportability” on the everyday lives of undocumented immigrants by attending to gendered aspects of immigration enforcement. As a collaborative research team composed of social work faculty, graduate students, and immigrant rights activists, we also critically engage with our attempts to meld research and community organizing in order to illustrate challenges that scholars and social service practitioners face when working with undocumented populations.     

Implementing Effective Educational Practices at Scales of Social Importance

Implementing evidence-based practices is becoming both a goal and standard across medicine, psychology, and education. Initial successes, however, are now leading to questions about how successful demonstrations may be expanded to scales of social importance. In this paper, we review lessons learned about scaling up evidence-based practices gleaned from our experience implementing school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) across more than 23,000 schools in the USA. We draw heavily from the work of Flay et al. (Prev Sci 6:151–175, 2005. doi: 10.1007/s11121-005-5553-y) related to defining evidence-based practices, the significant contributions from the emerging “implementation science” movement (Fixsen et al. in Implementation research: a synthesis of the literature, University of South Florida, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, The National Implementation Research Network (FMHI Publication #231), Tampa 2005), and guidance we have received from teachers, family members, students, and administrators who have adopted PBIS.     

Stimulus–response bindings code both abstract and specific representations of stimuli: evidence from a classification priming design that reverses multiple levels of response representation

Repetition priming can be caused by the rapid retrieval of previously encoded stimulus–response (S–R) bindings. S–R bindings have recently been shown to simultaneously code multiple levels of response representation, from specific Motor-actions to more abstract Decisions (“yes”/”no”) and Classifications (e.g., “man-made”/”natural”). Using an experimental design that reverses responses at all of these levels, we assessed whether S–R bindings also code multiple levels of stimulus representation. Across two experiments, we found effects of response reversal on priming when switching between object pictures and object names, consistent with S–R bindings that code stimuli at an abstract level. Nonetheless, the size of this reversal effect was smaller for such across-format (e.g., word–picture) repetition than for within-format (e.g., picture–picture) repetition, suggesting additional coding of format-specific stimulus representations. We conclude that S–R bindings simultaneously represent both stimuli and responses at multiple levels of abstraction.     

Using neutralizing routines to reduce problem behaviors.

Establishing operations can alter problem behaviors by changing the momentary value of reinforcers associated with those problem behaviors. If establishing operations (EOs) precede the presentation of discriminative stimuli (S^Ds) for problem behaviors, it may be possible to introduce neutralizing routines that both reduce the value of reinforcers associated with problem behaviors and decrease the occurrence of problem behaviors. The present study examined this logic with 3 adolescents with severe intellectual disabilities. Initial functional analyses indicated that problem behaviors were motivated by either escape or tangible items. Functional assessment interviews identified possible establishing operations that were associated with the occurrence of problem behavior and indicated that these establishing operations occurred over 1 hr before presentation of the S^D for problem behaviors. We used an alternating treatments design to examine problem behaviors during instruction under four conditions: EO + S^D, S^D only, EO only, and neither S^D nor EO. For all 3 participants, problem behaviors occurred almost exclusively during the EO + S^D condition. A further analysis compared the EO + S^D condition when neutralizing routines were embedded between the EO and the S^D. Results from an ABAB reversal design supported the effectiveness of neutralizing routines to reduce these problem behaviors. Applied and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Co-Occurring Traumatic Brain Injury,PTSD Symptoms,and Alcohol Use in Veterans

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been identified as a significant health problem among veterans. Recent research demonstrates the potential interaction and magnification of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders (SUD) in veterans with a history of TBI; however, there is very limited research on the co-occurrence of the three conditions. Veterans (N = 115) with comorbid PTSD and SUD completed a baseline assessment for enrollment into a larger treatment study. As part of that assessment, participants completed a TBI screener as well as self-report measures for pain and physical health, affective symptoms, and substance use. Almost half of the sample (48 %) endorsed a history of a previous head trauma with loss of consciousness (LOC). Participants with and without head trauma with LOC were compared across various measures of functioning. Increased severity of physical health complaints and affective symptoms were reported by the TBI group compared to controls. However, the increases in affective symptoms were relatively small. No group differences were observed for alcohol use. Together, the findings suggest that treatment-seeking veterans with a history of head trauma with LOC may present with roughly equivalent symptoms of PTSD and SUD to those without said history.     

Belief Systems and the Analytic Work

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

School-Wide Behavioral Support: Starting the Year Off Right

Two years of office referral data are presented in evaluation of a school-wide behavioral support program designed to define, teach, and reward appropriate student behavior in a rural middle school (grades 6, 7, and 8). During 1994-95, the school had 530 students and recorded 2,628 office referrals. The 1995-96 school year began with a full day in which students were taught five school expectations. Throughout the year, students also received rewards for appropriate behavior and office referrals for infractions. Results during 1995-96 document a 42% reduction in office referrals from the previous year. While the evaluation results do not document functional relationship, they suggest an efficient process for evaluating school-wide behavioral support, teaching appropriate behaviors, and changing the overall climate of the school. Implications for future research, and the use of schools as a unit of analysis, are discussed.     

The effects of complexity on the perception of vibrotactile patterns

Vibrotactile patterns were presented to subjects’ left index fmgerpads using the array from the Optacon. A set of simple (one-line) patterns and a set of complex (two-line) patterns were constructed so that they were equally identifiable when presented individually. In Experiment 1, discrimination performance was lower for two-line patterns than for one-line patterns. Communality, the number of lines that two patterns share in common, appeared to be the major factor in reducing discrimination performance for two-line patterns. Experiment 2 measured the time required to identify individual patterns. There was no significant difference in identification times for one- and two-line patterns, suggesting that features within a pattern were processed simultaneously. In the presence of a temporal masking stimulus (Experiment 3), two-line patterns were more difficult to identify than one-line patterns, but reaction times were similar for the two sets of patterns. The results suggest that varying complexity affects perception of patterns at later stages of processing.     

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN THREE SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Controversy exists over the benefits that workers with severe disabilities accrue under different supported employment options. This study focused upon one benefit of supported employment: social integration. Direct observation procedures were used to assess the social interactions of 37 adults with severe disabilities in 18 employment programs representing three different supported employment contexts (individual, enclave, and work crew). Results indicated that workers employed in individual and enclave programs had significantly more contact with nondisabled persons than did members of work crews. No differences were detected in the social contact rate between disabled and nondisabled workers in individual versus enclave sites. Furthermore, few differences in type of interactions across the three different work options were revealed. Results suggest that both individual and enclave models are capable of facilitating social integration. However, characteristics of specific job sites, more so than the employment model per se, may determine whether a particular employment setting is conducive to social integration.