Diagnostic and Assessment Findings: A Bridge to Academic Planning for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Increasing numbers of children diagnosed and treated for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has impacted both neuropsychologists and educators. Though both play key evaluative and treatment roles, there is no available method or process in place enabling the translation of the neuropsychological report recommendations into a format educational teams can easily use, leading to a gap between neuropsychological recommendations and educational planning. In the following, we review the areas evaluated by a neuropsychologist when assessing a child with an ASD, discuss the domains targeted by educational teams when designing an educational plan, and then present a process that has met with some success creating a "bridge" between the diagnostic/assessment process and the subsequent academic planning. Though presented in the context of ASD, the process described can be used by neuropsychologists for various populations to facilitate partnerships with educators that result in improved care for the child.     

Health-Related Quality of Life in Women with Eating Disorders: Association with Subjective and Objective Binge Eating

This study examined health-related quality of life (QOL) and its association with different forms of binge eating in 53 women with eating disorders. Participants had enrolled in treatment for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or other eating disorders not otherwise specified and completed measures of QOL, eating-related psychopathology, and mood disturbance. Eating- and mood-related psychopathology, and to a lesser extent, mental-component QOL scores, were severely impaired in this sample relative to population norms. QOL was significantly and independently predicted by subjective bulimic episodes and compensatory behaviors, including food avoidance, laxative abuse, and self-induced vomiting, accounting for 32% of the variance. Subjective bulimic episodes and food avoidance also independently predicted the physical-component QOL, accounting for 27% of the variance. These findings suggest that subjective bulimic episodes may be independently associated with impairment in QOL and may require specific attention as targets of treatment.     

Bilingualism in infancy: first steps in perception and comprehension

Many children grow up in bilingual families and acquire two first languages. Emerging research is advancing the view that the capacity to acquire language can be applied equally to two languages as to one but that bilingual and monolingual acquisition nonetheless differ in some nontrivial ways. To probe the first steps toward acquisition, researchers recently have begun to use experimental methods to study preverbal bilingual infants. We review the literature in this growing field, focusing on how infants growing up bilingual use surface acoustic information to separate, categorize and begin to learn their two languages. These new data invite the expansion of standard linguistic theories to account for how a single architecture can support the acquisition of two languages simultaneously.     

What's the subject? Brexit and politics as articulation

This paper focuses on the moment of Brexit and its political aftermath in order to challenge dominant academic and popular conceptions of the political subject as singular and coherent. Instead, we suggest that there is an urgent political and analytical need for a view of the subject as multiple, contradictory, and dialogic. As interdisciplinary scholars working on the borders of policy studies and cultural studies, we think this is a critical site for transdisciplinary conversations about such conceptions of the subject. In the political field, such subjects are selectively and unevenly addressed and mobilized by political projects—such as Vote Leave—that invite them to recognize themselves as part of an imagined collective identity. In the twin disturbances of the European Union referendum and the 2017 general election, we suggest that it is possible to see that other voicings, other identifications, and other projects remain possible. Specific political mobilizations are neither singular nor stable.     

Once More Unto the Breach: Type B Physicalism,Phenomenal Concepts,and the Epistemic Gap

Type B, or a posteriori, physicalism is the view that phenomenal-physical identity statements can be necessarily true, even though they cannot be known a priori—and that the key to understanding their status is to understand the special features of our phenomenal concepts, those concepts of our experiential states acquired through introspection. This view was once regarded as a promising response to anti-physicalist arguments that maintain that an epistemic gap between phenomenal and physical concepts entails that phenomenal and physical properties are distinct. More recently, however, many physicalists have lost confidence in the view, and have proposed less promising defences of physicalism—or have become outright sceptical about its prospects. I argue here that these physicalists have underestimated the resources of Type B physicalism and are thereby retreating too quickly—or fighting battles that have already been won.     

Evaluating Supervision Models in Functional Family Therapy: Does Adding Observation Enhance Outcomes?

This study examined the effects of observation‐based supervision Building Outcomes with Observation‐Based Supervision of Therapy (BOOST therapists = 26, families = 105), versus supervision as usual (SAU therapists = 21, families = 59) on (a) youth externalizing behavior problems and (b) the moderating effects of changes in family functioning on youth externalizing behaviors for adolescents receiving Functional Family Therapy (FFT). Exploratory analyses examined the impact of supervision conditions on youth internalizing problems. In 8 community agencies, experienced FFT therapists (M = 1.4 years) received either BOOST or SAU supervision in a quasi‐experimental design. Male (59%) or female (41%) adolescents were referred for the treatment of behavior problems (e.g., delinquency, substance use). Clients were Hispanic (62%), African American (19%), Non‐Hispanic White (12%), or Other (7%) ethnic/racial origins. Therapists (female, 77%) were Hispanic 45%, African American (19%), White Non‐Hispanic (30%), or other (4%) ethnic/racial backgrounds. Analyses controlled for the presence or absence of clinically elevated symptoms on outcome variables. Clinical outcomes were measured at baseline, 5 months, and 12 months after treatment initiation. Clients with externalizing behavior above clinical thresholds had significantly greater reductions in problem behaviors in the BOOST versus the SAU conditions. Clients below thresholds did not respond differentially to conditions. Supervisors in BOOST had more experience with the FFT model; as such, the observed results may be a result of supervisor experience. The BOOST supervision was associated with improved outcomes on problem behaviors that were above clinical thresholds. The findings demonstrate the importance of addressing client case mix in implementation studies in natural environments.     

Interpretation bias and social anxiety: does interpretation bias mediate the relationship between trait social anxiety and state anxiety responses?

Two studies aimed to examine whether high socially anxious individuals are more likely to negatively interpret ambiguous social scenarios and facial expressions compared to low socially anxious individuals. We also examined whether interpretation bias serves as a mediator of the relationship between trait social anxiety and state anxiety responses, in particular current state anxiety, bodily sensations, and perceived probability and cost of negative evaluation pertaining to a speech task. Study 1 used ambiguous social scenarios and Study 2 used ambiguous facial expressions as stimuli to objectively assess interpretation bias. Undergraduate students with high and low social anxiety completed measures of state anxiety responses at three time points: baseline, after the interpretation bias task, and after the preparation for an impromptu speech. Results showed that high socially anxious individuals were more likely to endorse threat interpretations for ambiguous social scenarios and to interpret ambiguous faces as negative than low socially anxious individuals. Furthermore, negative interpretations mediated the relationship between trait social anxiety and perceived probability of negative evaluation pertaining to the speech task in Study 1 but not Study 2. The present studies provide new insight into the role of interpretation bias in social anxiety.     

SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND ETHICS: A RESPONSE TO MICHAEL J. REISS

The respondent agrees with Michael Reiss's general diagnosis of the rudderless state of ethics in our modern society, but not with all of his account of its causes or possible solutions. Scripture has always been limited in terms of direct moral commands, and secular ethics has, since Aristotle at least, been influential in directing Christian understanding of the “good life.” Ethics must be based in biology, but evolutionary biology can tell us more readily what is, than guide us into “what ought” to be. Christian teaching classically emphasized moral formation, grounded in the understanding that we are creatures of a good Creator. We have our being as gift, and human life flourishes when oriented to the Good.     

Church-based health behavior programs: Using social cognitive theory to formulate interventions for at-risk populations

Epidemiological analyses conclude that the major contributors to all-cause premature mortality and morbidity are smoking, alcohol abuse, inappropriate diet, and a sedentary lifestyle. Efforts to modify these health behaviors in populations with community and worksite interventions, although initially promising, have had difficulty in sustaining health-behavior changes. More intensive, theoretically based interventions targeted to at-risk groups and delivered in smaller social units, such as churches and other religious organizations, have been recommended. An intervention based on social cognitive theory that entails integrating self-regulatory procedures with social and environmental supports in rural churches serving people from lower socioeconomic groups is described in detail.