Caregiver Factors Predicting Service Utilization Among Youth Participating in a School-based Mental Health Intervention

Large numbers of children and adolescents experience diagnosable psychiatric disturbances; however, the majority of those with need do not utilize mental health services. Characteristics of caregivers are important predictors of which youth will access and continue to use services over time. In recent years school-based mental health intervention programs have played a key role in identifying youth with mental health needs and linking them to treatment. In this study we sought to identify the caregiver demographic and contextual factors that predict days of service use among youth participating in a school-based mental health intervention program. Our sample included 85 youth ages 5–18 and their caregivers. We analyzed the data using bivariate and multivariate Poisson regressions with caregiver factors as the independent variables and days of service as the dependant variable. We found significant bivariate and multivariate associations for every caregiver demographic (sex, age, race) and contextual (education, employment, income, insurance, health, strain, and was it the caregivers idea to seek treatment) factor that was examined. In this study we identified the caregiver factors that are likely important in predicting youth service utilization even when steps have been taken to improve identification and access.     

Sympathetic reactivity in late pregnancy is related to labour onset in women

Stress regulation during pregnancy is considered to be connected to the timing of labour initiation. Although increasing knowledge is emerging on the regulation of parturition, there is currently no way to predict the start of spontaneous labour in women. The main aim of this study was to assess pain threshold and the sympathetic nervous system response to cold pain in relation to the onset of labour in healthy pregnant women. Ninety-three pregnant women were recruited and assessed for skin conductance (SC) activity during a cold pressor test in gestational week 38. Pain threshold and cold endurance were also measured and the results were compared with data obtained from hospital records. Seventy-four women had a spontaneous labour onset and a valid SC measurement. SC activity during the cold pressor test decreased significantly with the number of days left to spontaneous parturition. This may indicate a gradual decrease in sympathetic autonomic nervous system reactivity even during the last weeks of pregnancy. Measuring SC activity during mild stress provocation is a rapid and non-invasive means to study variation in sympathetic reactivity during pregnancy, and may be useful in research on stress regulation in pregnancy and its relation to labour initiation.     

Mapping the Personality Psychopathology Five Domains Onto DSM–IV Personality Disorders in Dutch Clinical and Forensic Samples: Implications for DSM–5

The Personality Psychopathology Five (PSY–5) model represents 5 broadband dimensional personality domains that align with the originally proposed DSM–5 personality trait system, which was eventually placed in Section III for further study. The main objective of this study was to examine the associations between the PSY–5 model and personality disorder criteria. More specifically, we aimed to determine if the PSY–5 domain scales converged with the alternative DSM–5 Section III model for personality disorders, with a particular emphasis on the personality trait profiles proposed for each of the specific personality disorder types. Two samples from The Netherlands consisting of clinical patients from a personality disorder treatment program (n = 190) and forensic psychiatric hospital (n = 162) were used. All patients had been administered the MMPI–2 (from which MMPI–2–RF PSY–5 scales were scored) and structured clinical interviews to assess personality disorder criteria. Results based on Poisson or negative binomial regression models showed statistically significant and meaningful associations for the hypothesized PSY–5 domains for each of the 6 personality disorders, with a few minor exceptions that are discussed in detail. Implications for these findings are also discussed.     

The generation of conscious awareness in an incidental learning situation

The purpose of the present experiments was to investigate the generation of conscious awareness (i.e., of verbal report) in an incidental learning situation. While the single-system account assumes that all markers of learning, verbal or nonverbal, index the same underlying knowledge representation, multiple-systems accounts grant verbal report a special status as a marker of learning because they assume that the nonverbal and verbal effects of learning rely on different memory representations. We tested these two accounts in two experiments in which we held the amount of learning in the nonverbal memory system constant while manipulating independent variables aimed at affecting learning in the declarative system. The results of both experiments revealed significant differences in verbal report between experimental conditions, but no significant differences in response times. Overall, these results provide clear evidence in favor of the multiple-systems account.     

Are strategy shifts caused by data-driven processes or by voluntary processes?

The present research investigates the role of voluntary, conscious processing in strategy change. In 2 experiments, we address whether the switch to a new strategy is the result of data-driven, automatic processes or of voluntary processes. Experiment 1 demonstrates that participants performing an alphabet verification task are able to (a) transfer a newly adopted strategy to dissimilar information never encountered before, (b) verbally describe the task regularity that allows for the generation and application of the new strategy immediately after the strategy was adopted. Using the same experimental task, Experiment 2 shows that participants, and (c) decide against adopting a new strategy when the available evidence suggests that the new strategy cannot be used for the entire range of problems encountered. Overall, the obtained results support the view that strategy change is mediated by voluntary controlled processing. They do not support the view that strategy change is an inevitable, automatic consequence of task practice. The present research thus highlights a potential function of conscious human processing.     

The Role of Information Reduction in Skill Acquisition

Theories of skill acquisition assume that the effects of practice on task performance are due to either qualitative changes in the task structure, an increased efficiency of performing individual task components, an increased efficiency of performing sequences of task components, or some combination of these mechanisms. We propose an extension to the existing theories by arguing that for many tasks, practice affects which information is processed. More specifically, we argue that people learn, over the course of practice, to separate task-relevant from task-redundant information, and to limit their processing to relevant aspects of the task. In three experiments, subjects verified alphabetic strings, such as M [4] R S T. Strings were correct if they followed the alphabet when the number of letters, given by the digit in parentheses, was skipped. Strings were constructed such that errors occurred only within the initial “letter–digit–letter” triplet. Analyses of subjects’ RTs for strings of varying lengths demonstrated that: (a) subjects were able to distinguish relevant from redundant task information, and to limit their processing to the relevant information, (b) the ability to reduce the amount of information that is processed takes time and develops gradually over the course of practice, and (c) the mechanism underlying this ability appears to be largely stimulus-independent in the sense that structural components of a task are ignored, rather than specific task information. The findings and their implications for general theories of skill acquisition are discussed.     

A dialogic perspective for family therapy: the contributions of Martin Buber and Gregory Bateson

This paper concerns the philosophies of Martin Buber and Gregory Bateson, and the application of their philosophies to family therapy. The relevance of Buber's philosophical concepts to a social constructionist perspective in family therapy is given particular attention. Central points of Buber's and Bateson's theoretical perspectives are reviewed and compared. Both thinkers believe that relationship is the primary ingredient in the world of the living, and both have a commitment to the concept that difference is the essential building block of the world of the living. Buber and Bateson, as philosophical anthropologists, are concerned with questions of how their ontologies or epistemologies can be applied to the domain of human interactions, including various healing relationships such as family therapy. This paper shows how their theoretical ideas fit into family therapy thinking and practices, particularly from a social constructionist perspective.     

The role of task rules and stimulus–response mappings in the task switching paradigm

Switch costs occur whenever participants are asked to switch between two or more task sets. In a typical task switching experiment, participants have to switch between two task sets composed of up to four different stimuli per task set. These 2 (task sets) x 4 (stimuli) contain only 8 different stimulus-response (S-R) mappings, and the question is why participants base their task performance on task sets instead of S-R mappings. The current experiments compared task performance based on task rules with performance based on single stimulus-response mappings. Participants were led to learn eight different S-R mappings with or without fore-knowledge about two underlying task sets. Without task set information no difference between shifts and repetitions occurred, whereas introducing task sets at the beginning led to significant switch costs. Most importantly, introducing task sets in the middle of the experiment also resulted in significant switch costs. Furthermore, introducing task rules at the beginning of the experiment lead to slower RTs when simple stimuli (Experiment 1) had to be processed. This detrimental effect disappeared with more complex stimuli (Experiment 2). Results will be discussed with respect to cognitive control.