Parenting and Family Stress Treatment Outcomes in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): An Empirical Analysis in the MTA Study

Parenting and family stress treatment outcomes in the MTA study were examined. Male and female (579), 7–9-year-old children with combined type Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), were recruited at six sites around the United States and Canada, and randomly assigned to one of four groups: intensive, multi-faceted behavior therapy program alone (Beh); carefully titrated and monitored medication management strategy alone (MedMgt); a well-integrated combination of the two (Comb); or a community comparison group (CC). Treatment occurred over 14 months, and assessments were taken at baseline, 3, 9, and 14 months. Parenting behavior and family stress were assessed using parent-report and child-report inventories. Results showed that Beh alone, MedMgt alone, and Comb produced significantly greater decreases in a parent-rated measure of negative parenting, Negative/Ineffective Discipline, than did standard community treatment. The three MTA treatments did not differ significantly from each other on this domain. No differences were noted among the four groups on positive parenting or on family stress variables. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical and empirically documented importance of negative parenting in the symptoms, comorbidities and long-term outcomes of ADHD.     

Transfer-appropriate processing (TAP)

Transfer-appropriate processing (TAP), as applied to implicit memory, has tended to emphasize general forms of processing (e.g., perceptual or conceptual processing). In the present studies, the TAP principle was employed in a more specific manner in order to more precisely assess the relations between the processing engaged during first exposure and that engaged during second exposure to items. Thirteen experiments used a two-phase, cross-task design in which participants engaged in different combinations of seven specific intentional tasks between Phase 1 and Phase 2. Maximum repetition priming was found when tasks were the same in Phases 1 and 2. When Phase 1 and Phase 2 tasks differed, there were lesser, or no, repetition priming effects, depending on the particular combination of tasks. The results demonstrate the importance of the specific intentional processes engaged during repetition priming and the potential heuristic value of TAP, as a principle and methodology, for exploring the organization of memory and related process models.     

Commentary: A Patient's Perspective on Predictive Testing for Alzheimer Disease

Commentary

Commentary: A Patient's Perspective on Predictive Testing for Alzheimer Disease     

Remembering Alexandra Symonds

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

A short duration group treatment of smoking behavior by stimulus saturation

Two saturation procedures of different lengths were administered to Ss who desired to quit smoking. Ss chain-smoked for either 20 hr (group E₁) or 10 hr (E₂). Total abstinence was the main dependent measure. Both groups experienced relatively equal success on a short-term basis. Long-term abstinence was noted for group E₁ only. Sixty per cent of the E₁ Ss were not smoking 4 months after treatment.     

Explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activity in childhood obesity

This study investigated differences in the explicit and implicit attitudes towards food and physical activities between children with obesity (n=38) and a matched control group (n=38). The implicit attitude was assessed using the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; J. Exp. Psychol. (50) (2003) 77), a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT; J. Personality Social Psychol. (74) (1999) 1464). It was expected that both groups would report a positive explicit attitude towards healthy food and intense physical activities, and a negative explicit attitude towards unhealthy food and sedentary activities. Of particular interest was the hypothesis that children with obesity would have a more positive implicit attitude towards unhealthy food and sedentary activities than the control group. Results revealed no differences between groups in the explicit attitude towards food and physical activity. Children and adolescents with obesity had a more pronounced positive implicit attitude towards food in general. The relevance of these findings in terms of prevention, treatment and further research is discussed.     

Infants' understanding of object-directed action

When and in what ways do infants recognize humans as intentional actors? An important aspect of this larger question concerns when infants recognize specific human actions (e.g. a reach) as object-directed (i.e. as acting toward goal-objects). In two studies using a visual habituation technique, 12-month-old infants were tested to assess their recognition that an adult's reach is directed toward its target object. Infants in the experimental condition were habituated to a display in which an actor reached over a wall-like barrier with an arcing arm movement, to pick up a ball. After habituation infants saw two test displays, for which the barrier was removed. In the direct test event the actor reached directly for the ball, the arm tracing a visually new path, but the action consistent with attempting to reach for the object as directly as possible. In the indirect test event the actor traced the old path, reaching over in an arc, even though the wall was no longer present. This arm movement was identical to that in habituation but no longer displayed a reach going directly to its object. In a control condition infants saw the same movements but in a situation with no goal-object. In the experimental conditions, with a goal object present, infants looked longer at the indirect test event in comparison to the direct test event. In the control conditions infants looked equally at both indirect and direct test events. We conclude that sensitivity to human object-directed action is established by 12-month-olds and compare these results to recent findings by [Gergely, G., Nadasdy, Z., Csibra, G., & Biro S. (1995). Taking the intentional stance at 12 months of age. Cognition, 56, 165-193] and [Woodward, A. (1998). Infants selectively encode the goal object of an actor's reach. Cognition, 69, 1-34].     

Testing comprehension abilities in users of British Sign Language following CVA

Recent imaging (e.g., MacSweeney et al., 2002) and lesion (Hickok, Love-Geffen, & Klima, 2002) studies suggest that sign language comprehension depends primarily on left hemisphere structures. However, this may not be true of all aspects of comprehension. For example, there is evidence that the processing of topographic space in sign may be vulnerable to right hemisphere damage (e.g., Hickok, Say, Bellugi, & Klima, 1996), and the influence of iconicity on comprehension has yet to be explored. In this study, comprehension testing was conducted with 15 signers with unilateral brain damage, and with elderly Deaf controls. Four tests were administered: a test of iconic and non-iconic noun comprehension, a test of verb and sentence comprehension, a test of locative sentence comprehension, and a test of classifier comprehension. All tests were administered in British Sign Language (BSL), a language that has only recently been explored with lesioned signers (see Atkinson, Marshall, Thacker, & Woll, 2004; Marshall, Atkinson, Thacker, Woll, & Smulevitch, 2004; Marshall, Atkinson, Woll, & Thacker, in press). People with left hemisphere damage were impaired relative to controls on all tests. Those with right hemisphere damage performed well in the first two tests, but were impaired on locative sentences and classifiers. Neither group showed any effect of iconicity. The results shed further light on the laterality of sign language comprehension.