Assessing Parenting Skills and Attitudes: A Review of the Psychometrics of Parenting Measures

There are many measures that assess parenting skills or practices, such as behavior, beliefs, coping mechanisms, reactions to stress, or discipline. However, little is known about the psychometric quality of these parenting measures. This information is essential for practitioners and researchers to aide in the selection of the most valid and reliable measures to assess parenting behavior or attitudes. This study examined the psychometric quality among parenting measures published from 1985 to 2009. After the initial search 164 measures were identified, but were reduced to 25 measures that supplied some degree of psychometric information, were published in the United States or Canada, and were in English. Measures were compared across numerous categories including respondent type, norming data, administration type, and ten psychometric variables such as internal consistency, content validity, and predictive validity. Out of the 25 measures, seven had no acceptable psychometric properties, seven had only 1–2 acceptable ratings on psychometric properties, six had between 3 and 4 acceptable psychometric ratings, none had between 5 and 6 acceptable ratings, and only five had strong psychometric properties in seven or more of the 10 categories. Likewise, only five measures provided and norming information and 14 measures provided scoring procedures. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Transformation of Adolescent Peer Relations in the Social Media Context: Part 2—Application to Peer Group Processes and Future Directions for Research

As social media use becomes increasingly widespread among adolescents, research in this area has accumulated rapidly. Researchers have shown a growing interest in the impact of social media on adolescents’ peer experiences, including the ways that the social media context shapes a variety of peer relations constructs. This paper represents Part 2 of a two-part theoretical review. In this review, we offer a new model for understanding the transformative role of social media in adolescents’ peer experiences, with the goal of stimulating future empirical work that is grounded in theory. The transformation framework suggests that the features of the social media context transform adolescents’ peer experiences by changing their frequency or immediacy, amplifying demands, altering their qualitative nature, and/or offering new opportunities for compensatory or novel behaviors. In the current paper, we consider the ways that social media may transform peer relations constructs that often occur at the group level. Our review focuses on three key constructs: peer victimization, peer status, and peer influence. We selectively review and highlight existing evidence for the transformation of these domains through social media. In addition, we discuss methodological considerations and key conceptual principles for future work. The current framework offers a new theoretical perspective through which peer relations researchers may consider adolescent social media use.     

A biopsychosocial model for treating infertility

With approximately one out of six married couples experiencing infertility, having a basic knowledge of infertility is important to marriage and family therapists. This paper presents important themes that infertile couples often struggle with and stresses the importance of having a biological, psychological, and social understanding of infertility. In addition, the paper suggests possible interventions that family therapists can use in helping infertile couples.     

The structure and function of selection, optimization, and compensation in middle adolescence: Theoretical and applied implications

Intentional self-regulation is a core facet of human functioning, involving people's modulation of their thoughts, attention, emotions, and behaviors to react to environmental demands and to influence their own development. Using data from Grades 8, 9, and 10 of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), the structure of intentional self-regulation, as indexed by a measure of selection (S), optimization (O), and compensation (C), or SOC, was assessed. Within-and-across-time links between SOC scores and indicators of PYD, and risk/problem behaviors were ascertained. A tripartite structure of intentional self-regulation was identified across all three grades, and SOC scores at all times positively covaried with PYD and negatively with risk/problem behaviors. Findings were strongest for overall SOC scores and for the components of “O” and “C.” We discuss the implications of these findings for youth development programs.     

A strategic assessment of deliberate self-harm

This paper describes how patients are interviewed in the context of a general hospital after they have been involved in an episode of self-harm. The interview schedule is structured upon the principles of brief therapy, and uses the 'neutral' approach of the Milan Team (Weakland 1974; Palazzoli et al. 1980). The schedule provides information for referring on and has proved to be 'therapeutic' in itself. The method of interviewing has been used in other hospital contexts with families where a member has been referred 'in a crisis' threatening, or indicating suicidal behaviour. It is suggested that the identification of who is involved systemically is of paramount importance, and that this may not involve 'the family' but significant others in the social network. The important systemic involvement of the general practitioner is recognized.     

Psychoanalytic patients in the U.S., CANADA,and Australia: I. DSM-III-R disorders,indications, previous treatment,medications, and length of treatment

To determine the demographics, DSM-III-R disorders diagnosed, indications used in recommending psychoanalysis, previous treatment histories, use of medication, and length of treatment in patients in psychoanalysis in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, a mail survey of practice was sent to every other active member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and every member of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. This supplemented an earlier survey sent to all Ontario psychoanalysts. The response rates were 40.1 % (n = 342) for the U.S., 67.2% (n = 117) for Canada, and 73.9% (n = 51) for Australia. Respondents supplied data on 1,718 patients. The employment rate for patients increases as analysis progresses (p < .0001). The mean number of concurrent categories of disorders (Axis I, Axis II, and Disorders First Evident in Childhood) per patient at the start of treatment is 5.01 (SD = 3.66; median = 4; mode = 3). There are no statistically significant differences across countries. Mood, anxiety, sexual dysfunction, and personality disorders are most common. American Psychiatric Association / American Psychoanalytic Association peer review criteria for indicating psychoanalysis are followed for 86.5% of patients. Over 80% of patients in all three countries had undergone previous treatments prior to analysis. In the U.S., 18.2% of analysands are on concurrent psychoactive medication; in Australia, 9.6%. The mean length of analyses conducted in the U.S. is 5.7 years, in Australia 6.6, and in Canada 4.8. Psychoanalytic patients in all three countries have similar rates of DSM-III-R psychopathology, and many indications of chronicity.     

A new group-training procedure for habituation demonstrates that presynaptic glutamate release contributes to long-term memory in Caenorhabditis elegans

In the experiments reported here we have developed a new group-training protocol for assessing long-term memory for habituation in Caenorhabditis elegans. We have replicated all of the major findings of the original single-worm protocol using the new protocol: (1) distributed training produced long-term retention of training, massed training did not; (2) distributed training at long interstimulus intervals (ISIs) produced long-term retention, short ISIs did not; and (3) long-term memory for distributed training is protein synthesis-dependent as it could be blocked by heat shock during the inter-block interval. In addition, we have shown that long-term memory for habituation is graded, depending on the number of blocks of stimuli in training. The inter-block interval must be >40 min for long-term retention of training to occur. Finally, we have tested long-term memory for habituation training in a strain of worms with a mutation in a vesicular glutamate transporter in the sensory neurons that transduce tap (eat-4). The results from these eat-4 worms indicate that glutamate release from the sensory neurons has an important role in the formation of long-term memory for habituation.     

Effects of Stimulant Medication Treatment on Mothers' and Children's Attributions for the Behavior of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Participants were 55 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were receiving ongoing treatment with stimulant medications and their mothers, and 31 children with ADHD who were beginning stimulant medication and their mothers. Mothers and children offered attributions for child behaviors that occurred when the child was medicated and not medicated. Mothers rated child compliance and prosocial behavior as more global and stable when the child was medicated and rated noncompliance, ADHD symptoms, and oppositional behavior as more externally caused, less global and stable, but more controllable by the child when the child was medicated. Children rated both their compliance and noncompliance as more controllable in the medicated condition. On a forced-choice measure, both mothers and children selected ability, effort, and task attributions for compliance more in the not-medicated condition, and pill-taking attributions more in the medicated condition. This was reversed for noncompliance, which was attributed more to effort, task, or ability in the medicated condition and more to not taking a pill in the not-medicated condition. The potential risks and benefits for parent–child interactions and children's self-perceptions of these medication-related differences in attributions are discussed.     

Reaction time and accuracy in individuals with aphasia during auditory vigilance tasks

Research indicates that attentional deficits exist in aphasic individuals. However, relatively little is known about auditory vigilance performance in individuals with aphasia. The current study explores reaction time (RT) and accuracy in 10 aphasic participants and 10 nonbrain-damaged controls during linguistic and nonlinguistic auditory vigilance tasks. Findings indicate that the aphasic group was less accurate during both tasks than the control group, but was not slower in their accurate responses. Further examination of the data revealed variability in the aphasic participants' RT contributing to the lower accuracy scores.