An Evaluation of Two Types of Cognitive Intervention in the Management of Chronic Tinnitus

Abstract

Fifty-four subjects with chronic distressing tinnitus were randomly allocated to one of four experimental treatment conditions: (1) attention control and imagery training (AC1); (2) cognitive restructuring (CR); (3) combined attention control and imagery training plus cognitive restructuring (ACI + CR); and (4) a waiting list control (WLC). Significant overall improvements were found on measures of distress associated with tinnitus, and on a number of other measures of cognition and coping strategies. These improvements were maintained at the six-month follow-up. Relative to the WLC, the three treatment conditions (combined) were associated with improvements in tinnitus-related distress, reductions in tinnitus-related dysfunctional cognitions and an increase in the frequency of use of coping strategies. There was a significant effect in favour of the ACI group compared to the CR group on the measure of irrational beliefs. The analyses also revealed that the combined treatment condition (ACI + CR) showed significantly greater improvement on a measure of psychological distress and achieved a higher clinical response rate compared to the two single treatments. There were significant improvements from pretreatment to follow-up on some measures, although the mean scores revealed that some of the gains had been lost at this stage on the main measure of tinnitus-related distress. There were no significant group X time effects for any of the dependent variables at the six-month follow-up. The results were interpreted as supporting the practice of combining the two cognitive approaches.     

Parental Depression and Economic Disadvantage: The Role of Parenting in Associations with Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

This study examined the effects of parental depression symptoms, economic disadvantage, and parenting behaviors in 180 children and adolescents of depressed parents (ages 9–15 years-old). Analyses revealed that while parental depression symptoms, economic disadvantage, and disrupted parenting behaviors were related to children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms, disrupted parenting (e.g., intrusive, neglectful parenting) accounted for the association of parental depressive symptoms and economic disadvantage with children’s symptoms. This study provides evidence that disrupted parenting may be a common or shared process through which both parental depression and economic disadvantage are associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.     

Recidivism and dependency in a psychiatric population: An investigation with kelly's dependency grid

Over the years there have been varied attempts to explain or predict recidivism, which is a phenomenon whereby psychiatric patients are hospitalized repeatedly. Recent efforts to predict relapse have used specific symptoms (Harris, Bergman, & Bachrach, 1986), diagnoses (Kastrup, 1987; Lally, 1989), postdischarge treatment compliance (Caton, Koh, Fleiss, Barrow, & Goldstein, 1985), and the level of emotional expression in the family environment (Doane, Goldstein, Miklowitz, & Falloon, 1986) as relapse predictors. Despite progress, many unanswered questions remain. The present study examined recidivism from the perspective of personal construct psychology (Kelly, 1955). The Dependency Grid was administered to 33 first-admission patients, 39 recidivists, and 26 controls. As hypothesized, recidivists identified the smallest social network and the fewest people on whom they believed they actually could rely in a crisis. In contrast, patients experiencing their first admission offered an extensive array of individuals to whom they felt they could turn in a crisis. Controls reported the greatest number of social resources potentially available to them, but then selectively chose a sample of them as individuals on whom they would be comfortable relying. Results are discussed in terms of support for Kelly's personal construct theory.     

Solutions to the Research-Practice Gap in Domestic Violence: A Modified Delphi Study With Domestic Violence Coalition Leaders

The gap between research and practice in domestic violence (DV) has the potential to hinder advancements in both areas. This study used modified Delphi methodology to seek potential solutions for integrating DV research and practice. Expert panel members were representatives of DV coalitions who hold primary responsibility for determining the content of the training program and materials provided by coalitions to service providers. Through three rounds of questionnaires, potential solutions were identified in six areas: access to research, the practical application of research, DV coalitions' needs and usage of research, perceptions of research and researchers, researcher-practitioner collaborations, and the goals of DV. The findings of the study are integrated into recommendations for researchers and DV organizations.     

Software Description Form

Abstract

Data for analyzing disagreement can be obtained by asking the parties concerned to make short lists of simple statements expressing their own opinions on the topic in dispute. These short lists are combined into a collective list, and the parties are asked to compare each statement in it with every other one in turn, and rate horn far the two agree or disagree. Such tables of ratings, called logical equivalence matrixes (LEMs) can be analyzed by a computer program applying principal coordinate analysis. The results measure both the total amount of disagreement and the relative amounts over the separate issues found to be involved. Repertory grids were found to be unsuitable for the purpose except within narrow limits. The technique is illustrated by analysis of a dispute concerning legalizing abortion.     

Visual object agnosia without prosopagnosia or alexia: Evidence for hierarchical theories of visual recognition

Abstract

A single case study is presented of a patient, Mr. W, with a selective deficit in recognizing pictures and real objects, linked to impaired stored visual knowledge about objects. Despite this, Mr. W maintained a preserved ability both to read aloud printed words and to recognize famous faces, when compared with age-matched control subjects. In addition, his access to semantic information from words was superior to that from pictures. The data provide evidence that visual agnosia can occur without alexia or prosopagnosia, contrary to recent proposals (Farah 1990, 1991). This finding is consistent with a hierarchical model of visual object recognition in which agnosia can reflect impaired stored knowledge of objects without accompanying perceptual deficits. The selective recognition deficit for objects further indicates that stored knowledge concerning different classes of visual stimuli (common objects, faces, and words) is separately represented in the brain.     

Speech‐evoked auditory brainstem responses reflect familial and cognitive influences

Cortical function and related cognitive, language, and communication skills are genetically influenced. The auditory brainstem response to speech is linked to language skill, reading ability, cognitive skills, and speech‐in‐noise perception; however, the impact of shared genetic and environmental factors on the response has not been investigated. We assessed auditory brainstem responses to speech presented in quiet and background noise from (1) 23 pairs of same sex, same learning diagnosis siblings (Siblings), (2) 23 unrelated children matched on age, sex, IQ, and reading ability to one of the siblings (Reading‐Matched), and (3) 22 pairs of unrelated children matched on age and sex but not on reading ability to the same sibling (Age/Sex‐Matched). By quantifying response similarity as the intersubject response‐to‐response correlation for sibling pairs, reading‐matched pairs, and age‐ and sex‐matched pairs, we found that siblings had more similar responses than age‐ and sex‐matched pairs and reading‐matched pairs. Similarity of responses between siblings was as high as the similarity of responses collected from an individual over the course of the recording session. Responses from unrelated children matched on reading were more similar than responses from unrelated children matched only on age and sex, supporting previous data linking variations in auditory brainstem activity with variations in reading ability. These results suggest that auditory brainstem function can be influenced by siblingship and auditory‐based communication skills such as reading, motivating the use of speech‐evoked auditory brainstem responses for assessing risk of reading and communication impairments in family members.     

Assigning Integration: A Framework for Intellectual,Personal, and Professional Development in Seminary Courses

This article explores assignments as a core teaching practice essential to integrating the cognitive, personal, and professional identities of seminary students. These core practices emerge in seminary curricula where there is a strong focus on the teaching of canonical texts and a goal of achieving textual mastery. We propose that carefully chosen and constructive assignments achieve the kind of integration necessary for building content knowledge and the professional, spiritual, and religious identities of our students. While the difference between the educational goals of clergy‐training in a seminary and training graduate students in the academy can be sharp, we argue here for ways to make that contrast both productive and generative.     

Perceptual specialization and configural face processing in infancy

Adults’ face processing expertise includes sensitivity to second-order configural information (spatial relations among features such as distance between eyes). Prior research indicates that infants process this information in female faces. In the current experiments, 9-month-olds discriminated spacing changes in upright human male and monkey faces but not in inverted faces. However, they failed to process matching changes in upright house stimuli. A similar pattern of performance was exhibited by 5-month-olds. Thus, 5- and 9-month-olds exhibited specialization by processing configural information in upright primate faces but not in houses or inverted faces. This finding suggests that, even early in life, infants treat faces in a special manner by responding to changes in configural information more readily in faces than in non-face stimuli. However, previously reported differences in infants’ processing of human versus monkey faces at 9 months of age (but not at younger ages), which have been associated with perceptual narrowing, were not evident in the current study. Thus, perceptual narrowing is not absolute in the sense of loss of the ability to process information from other species’ faces at older ages.