Ethnic background, therapeutic alliance, and treatment retention in functional family therapy with adolescents who abuse substances

In this study, the authors examined the role of balance between adolescent-therapist and parent-therapist alliances in the retention of functional family therapy clients. Therapeutic alliances of mothers, fathers, and adolescents were assessed from videotapes of the 1st treatment session for 43 Hispanic and 43 Anglo families. Hispanic families who dropped out before completing the requisite number of sessions were found to have greater imbalance in alliance (parent-adolescent) than those who did complete therapy. However, this finding was not replicated with Anglo families. Results are interpreted in terms of previous research on family-level balanced alliance effects.     

A 1-year follow-up of an experimental study of a self-management arthritis programme with an added exercise component of clients with osteoarthritis of the knee

The aim was to assess the self-efficacy and health outcomes of an adopted Arthritis Self-Management Programme (ASMP) among osteoarthritic knee sufferers in Hong Kong at 1 year. An experimental study with 95 participants assigned randomly to the intervention (n=45) or control group (n=50). Seventy-seven (81.1%) participants joined at least one out of three follow-ups in the 12 month period. Participants in the intervention group received a 6-week ASMP with an added exercise component in two general clinics. Outcome measures included arthritis self-efficacy (ASE) and health outcomes including pain and fatigue rating, self-rated health, daily activities limitation and number of unplanned arthritis-related medical consultations. Mean change (12 months minus baseline) and the effect size of the outcome measures were calculated by Mann-Whitney U test and nQuery Advisor 4.0. At 12 months, there were significant reductions of current pain (p=0.0001), pain at night (p=0.001), pain during walking (p=0.01) and number of unplanned arthritis-related medical consultations (p=0.03) and a significant increase in ASE for pain (p=0.01) and other symptoms (p=0.02) and self-rated health (p=0.04) among the intervention group but not for the control group. However, there were similarities in outcome measures of pain while switching from a sitting to a standing position, fatigue rating and physical functional limitation (p=0.15; p=0.22 and p=0.91, respectively) for both groups. Our findings add to the evidence that the modified arthritis empowering programme improved perception of control of osteoarthritis and three health outcomes after 12 months of treatment.     

The Argumentative Structure of Persuasive Definitions

In this paper we present an analysis of persuasive definition based on argumentation schemes. Using the medieval notion of differentia and the traditional approach to topics, we explain the persuasiveness of emotive terms in persuasive definitions by applying the argumentation schemes for argument from classification and argument from values. Persuasive definitions, we hold, are persuasive because their goal is to modify the emotive meaning denotation of a persuasive term in a way that contains an implicit argument from values. However, our theory is different from Stevenson’s, a positivistic view that sees emotive meaning as subjective, and defines it as a behavioral effect. Our proposal is to treat the persuasiveness produced by the use of emotive words and persuasive definitions as due to implicit arguments that an interlocutor may not be aware of. We use congruence theory to provide the linguistic framework for connecting a term with the function it is supposed to play in a text. Our account allows us to distinguish between conflicts of values and conflicts of classifications.

Decisions About Testing and Termination of Pregnancy for Different Fetal Conditions: A Qualitative Study of European White and Pakistani Mothers of Affected Children

The aim of this study is to explore reasons for and against prenatal testing and termination for a range of conditions in women from two different ethnic backgrounds. A total of 19 Pakistani and European women in West Yorkshire, UK, who either had a child with a genetic condition or had terminated a pregnancy for one, completed a questionnaire about their attitudes regarding prenatal testing and termination for 30 different fetal conditions and were interviewed about their reasons for their responses. There were more similarities than differences between the Pakistani and European white women. The most important factor in most women’s decisions about termination of pregnancy was their perception of the quality of the life of a child with the genetic condition, in particular, whether the child would be “suffering.” This was described as either physical suffering, as a result of medical treatment, or as emotional suffering, as a result of psychological and/or social factors. These findings highlight the need for detailed information about the potential quality of life for the child and the child’s family to enable parents to make informed choices, particularly the extent to which the child is likely to suffer, the nature of such potential “suffering” and the extent to which the child could lead a “normal” life. The findings also challenge stereotypes about cultural differences in attitudes about termination of pregnancy.     

Differences in the cognitive demands of word order,plural, and subject-verb agreement constructions

The syntactic devices of subject-verb-object word order, regular plurals, and subject-verb agreement differ in age of acquisition and susceptibility to error within language-disordered populations. In the present article, the performance of adults on a grammaticality judgment task is used to explore whether such differences are related to working memory (both in terms of an externally imposed load and individual differences in capacity) and phonological ability. The results show that word order, the earliest acquired and most resilient device, is not affected by load, memory span, or phonological ability. Plurals are affected marginally by load and significantly by phonological ability. Agreement, the last acquired and least resilient device, is affected by load, memory span, and phonological ability. Thus, consistent with a processing-based explanation, later acquired and less resilient devices have higher working memory and phonological demands.     

Evidence that judgments of learning are causally related to study choice

Three experiments investigated whether study choice was directly related to judgments of learning (JOLs) by examining people’s choices in cases in which JOLs were dissociated from recall. In Experiment 1, items were given either three repetitions or one repetition on Trial 1. Items given three repetitions received one on Trial 2, and those given one repetition received three on Trial 2—equating performance at the end of Trial 2, but yielding different immediate Trial 2 JOLs. Study choice followed the “illusory” JOLs. A delayed JOL condition in Experiment 2 did not show this JOL bias and neither did study choice. Finally, using a paradigm (Koriat & Bjork, 2005) in which similar JOLs are given to forward and backward associative pairs, despite much worse performance on the backward pairs, study choice again followed the mistaken JOLs. We concluded that JOLs—what people believe they know—directly influence people’s study choices.     

Feature cues in probability learning: Data base information and judgment

Judgments of probabilistic events are often based partly on some information about past similar events. This study investigates the impact of summarized historical data termed a feature cue on performance in a cue probability learning task. Judges (n = 64) made 150 predictions of a criterion variable (Y_e) from a single cue variable (X). The feature cue variable (Z) provided judges with the “average past criterion” for the cue value on trial i, i.e., the conditional mean . Availability of the feature cue was varied with an AB-BA transfer design. Results demonstrate that the presence of the feature cue greatly imporved prediction achievement and accuracy. Under certain conditions, consistency and cue weighting were also improved by the feature cue aid. Although the feature cue value itself was not used as a prediction, it served as an anchor, around which judgments were dispersed. Implications for decision making with data base information are discussed.