Leaving home or still in the nest? Parent-child relationships and psychological health as predictors of different leaving home patterns

In this study, the author examines the patterns of leaving home in a sample of 93 participants and their parents. The quality of parent-child relationships, psychological symptomatology in adolescence and young adulthood, and attachment representation were assessed longitudinally from mid-adolescence to young adulthood. Attachment representation, adolescent autonomy, and parent-adolescent conflict were found to be important predictors of the timing of leaving home. In-time leavers were more securely attached and had been granted high autonomy during adolescence, compared with participants who had left home later or had returned to reside in the family home. Young adults with nonnormative leaving home patterns also showed higher percentages of insecure attachment representations and lower percentages of involvement with a romantic partner. Participants residing with their parents were, according to their parents' perceptions, less psychologically healthy.     

Distinctions among agency, communion, and unmitigated agency and communion according to the interpersonal circumplex, Five-factor model, and social-emotional correlates

In this study, we examined common measures of agency (AG), communion (CM), and unmitigated agency (UA) and unmitigated communion (UC) using the interpersonal circumplex and Five-factor models (FFM) as conceptual frameworks. AG aligned with interpersonal dominance in circumplex space and related positively to conscientiousness and inversely to neuroticism. CM corresponded with interpersonal affiliation and related positively to conscientiousness. UA was consistent with hostile-dominance and related to lower conscientiousness and higher neuroticism. UC related to friendly submission but was not strongly represented in the circumplex and did not relate to the FFM. Each construct showed distinct social-emotional correlates. These findings support the convergent and divergent properties of the constructs but suggest that additional attention to the conceptual definition and measurement of UC is warranted.     

Processing approaches to cognition: The impetus from the levels-of-processing framework

Processing approaches to cognition have a long history, from act psychology to the present, but perhaps their greatest boost was given by the success and dominance of the levels-of-processing framework. We review the history of processing approaches, and explore the influence of the levels-of-processing approach, the procedural approach advocated by Paul Kolers, and the transfer-appropriate processing framework. Processing approaches emphasise the procedures of mind and the idea that memory storage can be usefully conceptualised as residing in the same neural units that originally processed information at the time of encoding. Processing approaches emphasise the unity and interrelatedness of cognitive processes and maintain that they can be dissected into separate faculties only by neglecting the richness of mental life. We end by pointing to future directions for processing approaches.     

Drawing as a means of communication at the initial interview with children with cancer

Cancer is always associated with distress and fear. In working with children who have cancer, a trusting relationship and meaningful dialogue often cannot be established by talking on its own. Drawings may offer an opportunity for children to express their feelings without giving up resistance completely. This paper summarizes the aims of the first interview with an ill child, one of its main purposes being the evaluation of the children's and their family's resources to cope with the strains of the illness. The meaning of drawings in this process is discussed in two case reports.     

Processing of non-canonical word-order: A case-series on lesion-induced reorganized language and age-effects in typical development

Complex grammatical structures are mastered late in language acquisition. We studied age-effects on performance in object topicalization in 48 typically developing German-speaking participants (aged 8–30 years) and in five patients (children and adolescents) with lesion-induced atypical language representation. Production was tested by a sentence repetition task, comprehension by an acting out task. Three topicalized conditions with differing disambiguation (agreement, case, and case plus agreement) were contrasted with canonical control sentences.     

Parent–adolescent conflict,treatment adherence and glycemic control in Type 1 diabetes: The importance of adolescent externalising symptoms

Parent–adolescent conflict has been demonstrated to relate to treatment adherence and glycemic control in adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. The present longitudinal study investigated how these variables were interrelated over time, and examined whether externalising and internalising symptoms function as mediating variables. A total of 109 adolescents with diabetes participated at four annual time points and completed measures on conflict with parents, internalising and externalising symptoms. Information on treatment non-adherence and glycemic control was obtained from treating physicians. Cross-lagged analyses from a structural equation modelling approach indicated that father–adolescent but not mother–adolescent conflict positively influenced treatment non-adherence over time, which, in turn, was associated with higher glycosylated haemoglobin-values. Further, externalising but not internalising symptoms were found to mediate the pathway from father–adolescent conflict to treatment adherence over time. Finally, mother–adolescent conflict was found to relate indirectly to treatment non-adherence through its relationship with externalising symptoms. Hence, the present longitudinal study provides evidence that externalising symptoms represent an important mechanism through which earlier experiences of parent–adolescent conflict may influence later treatment non-adherence and poorer glycemic control. Implications and suggestions for future research are outlined.     

Konflikt- und Strukturachse der Operationalisierten Psychodynamischen Diagnostik des Kindes- und Jugendalters

This paper presents the advantages of a comprehensive Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostic in childhood and adolescence (OPD-CA) for subsequent treatment planning. Information about the conflict and structural axes as a function of age, gender, diagnosis and proposed form of treatment (outpatient/inpatient) was analyzed in a group of 116 patients. Independent from the diagnosis, a similar ranking in the importance of conflicts was found. Self-esteem conflicts were more prominent for inpatient children and adolescents and identity conflicts were more prevalent in children and adolescents who were at the start of outpatient therapy. Patients with an indication for inpatient treatment had a significantly lower level in all structural dimensions. This study analyzes the reasons for these findings.     

Intensive video gaming improves encoding speed to visual short-term memory in young male adults

The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of action video gaming on central elements of visual attention using Bundesen's (1990) Theory of Visual Attention.To examine the cognitive impact of action video gaming, we tested basic functions of visual attention in 42 young male adults. Participants were divided into three groups depending on the amount of time spent playing action video games: non-players (< 2 h/month, N = 12), casual players (4–8 h/month, N = 10), and experienced players (> 15 h/month, N = 20). All participants were tested in three tasks which tap central functions of visual attention and short-term memory: a test based on the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA), an enumeration test and finally the Attentional Network Test (ANT). The results show that action video gaming does not seem to impact the capacity of visual short-term memory. However, playing action video games does seem to improve the encoding speed of visual information into visual short-term memory and the improvement does seem to depend on the time devoted to gaming. This suggests that intense action video gaming improves basic attentional functioning and that this improvement generalizes into other activities. The implications of these findings for cognitive rehabilitation training are discussed.     

Family Climate of Adolescents with and Without Type 1 Diabetes: Longitudinal Associations with Psychosocial Adaptation

Family climate is theorized to influence psychosocial functioning of adolescents both with and without type 1 diabetes. Family system theory considers adolescent behavior as a function of the dynamic interactions between family members. In the present multi-informant longitudinal study, we used two-step cluster analysis to empirically derive family climates based on four family dimensions (i.e., cohesion, conflict, organization, and control) at baseline and we related these climates to longitudinal assessments of adolescent psychosocial functioning. Analyses were conducted on a total of 220 adolescents (102 with diabetes, 118 healthy controls), 217 mothers, and 168 fathers. Cluster analysis on the four FES subscales revealed the following four family climates: a cohesive (moderately high on cohesion and moderately low to low on the other dimensions), balanced (high on cohesion and organization, low on conflict), conflictual (high on conflict, low on organization and cohesion), and controlling (high on control, moderately high on conflict and organization, moderately low on cohesion) climate. Adolescents with diabetes were somewhat overrepresented in the balanced climate, and underrepresented in the cohesive and conflictual climate as compared to their healthy peers. Consistent with hypotheses, we found that adolescents raised in cohesive or balanced climates fared better in terms of internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, and self-concept as compared to adolescents raised in conflictual or controlling climates. Additionally, family climate was not associated with differential changes in outcome variables over time. These finding were consistent across informants and across time. Finally, these associations were not moderated by having type 1 diabetes. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are discussed.