Developmental changes of parental-reported sleep disturbance symptoms in children with attention deficit disorder

The primary goal of this retrospective study was to assess parental report of current sleep disorders in school-aged attention deficit disorder (ADD) children, as well as recalled sleep problems from when the children were infants (0–12 months) and toddlers (1–3 years). Results of a sleep questionnaire completed by mothers of 48 ADD children and a comparison group of 30 patients with school problems indicate that ADD children were perceived to have significantly more sleep problems and that these problems had onset in infancy. Specific items in the questionnaire which were increased included latency to sleep onset of more than 30 min at least 3 nights per week, fatigue upon awakening, and recall of nightmares. Pediatric clinicians should be alert to possible sleep disorders in children suspected of attention disorders and should consider sleep hygiene measures as a component of treatment.     

TEACHING MENTALLY RETARDED ADULTS TO TIME-MANAGE IN A VOCATIONAL SETTING

Three retarded adults who had minimal ability to tell time were trained to “time-manage.” Each was given a card with clock face representations on which the hands of the clock were drawn, representing each trainee's assigned lunch and break times. Instruction was given before work to perform each of the required behaviors when the “real” clock matched the clock faces. Praise was given following correct responses, and reprimands, instruction, and, in some instances, delay or omission of the scheduled activity followed incorrect responses. Pre-instruction and instructional feedback were then sequentially withdrawn. Results indicated that the package consisting of pre-instruction, instructional feedback, and picture cues was effective in producing independent time management responding. When the first two components were withdrawn, two trainees maintained high levels of correct responding. Correct responding decreased for one trainee when pre-instruction was withdrawn. Reintroduction and subsequent withdrawal of the components resulted in maintenance by this trainee. Little improvement in time-telling ability resulted.     

TEACHING JOB INDEPENDENCE AND FLEXIBILITY TO MENTALLY RETARDED STUDENTS THROUGH THE USE OF A SELF-CONTROL PACKAGE

We examined mentally retarded individuals' use of picture cues and self-monitoring to initiate a series of tasks of varying type and order. Four severely to moderately retarded high school students participating in a vocational training program were trained to use a picture-cue system. The system consisted of photographs of vocational tasks that were inserted in the assigned order in a photoalbum sheet; self-management was accomplished by marking off each photo after its corresponding task was completed. Students were assigned seven tasks from a pool of 13 each day. Results indicated that the students quickly learned to use the picture-cue system to change tasks throughout their workday without trainer prompts and that performance was maintained as trainer feedback and presence were decreased. At the end of the study, two students who were exposed to novel photographs were able to initiate independently after only minimal training, suggesting that the use of the picture-cue system had become a generalized skill.     

Group‐level effects of forgiveness: Group cohesiveness and collective action in social dilemmas

Forgiveness research has predominately focused on individual/relational outcomes such as well‐being and closeness. Less research has examined group outcomes such as cohesiveness or collective action. Forgiveness studies have also emphasized the victim's or transgressor's perspective, neglecting the effects of forgiveness on ingroup members who have neither given nor received forgiveness. We theorize that forgiveness promotes collective action among ingroup members through group cohesiveness and that transgressors' apologetic reactions impact this process. In a laboratory experiment, 229 students (175 females) were led to believe they were in a social dilemma with three others. Some participants witnessed group members forgive an apologetic, obstinate, or neutral defector, whereas others witnessed an unforgiving response. Forgiveness of apologetic and neutral defectors increased later cooperation among ingroup members. This effect was generally mediated by group cohesiveness. Our findings suggest that forgiveness can impact cooperation on a group level, providing a path to successful resolutions to collective action problems. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Effects of Helper Intention on Gratitude and Indebtedness

Gratitude and indebtedness have often been equated in psychology. Emerging research, however, suggests that these emotions are experienced differently and occur in response to different situations (Gray, Emmons, & Morrison, 2001). The current set of experiments investigated the effects of helper intention on grateful and indebted reactions to a favor. Study 1 utilized scenario methodology to present participants with a favor that was given with benevolent or ulterior motives. Participants felt significantly more grateful when the helper had benevolent intentions. Reactions of indebtedness did not vary as a function of helper intention. In Study 2, participants recalled favors that had been done for them for either unselfish or selfish reasons. Participants reported significantly more gratitude for the favor when they were instructed to recall an unselfish favor. Levels of indebtedness were not affected by helper intention. Study 3 provided participants with an ambiguous favor scenario to better assess individuals' natural reactions to receiving help, and replicated the results of Study 1. Together, these three experiments provide support for differences between grateful and indebted emotions.

Family Conflicts,Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms,and Suicidal Ideation of Chinese Adolescents in Hong Kong

Applied Research in Quality of Life - The present study examined the relationship between parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent suicidal ideation in Hong Kong, China. Depression and...     

Finding Hope as a “Tempting Girl” in China: Sex Work,Indentured Mobility,and Cosmopolitan Individuals

This article chronicles the experiences which lead some female migrant workers in Dongguan, China, to deliberately transition from factory work to sex work. Their decisions are guided by indentured mobility as well as bounded rational choice. This article presents ethnographic data from 45 streetwalkers in Dongguan who navigated highly competitive and risky urban environments involving pimps, police, and gang members. The Chinese government hukou system puts them at an additional disadvantage. Still, life as a streetwalker became their path to economic freedom, removing them from the abject poverty of the factory sweatshop and into an individualized life in urban China.     

Relative Income and Marital Happiness Among Urban Chinese Women: The Moderating Role of Personal Commitment

Compared with the rich knowledge in the West, studies of the impact of wives’ relative income on marital quality during the fast socioeconomic change period in urban China have surprisingly fallen far behind. This study attempted to examine the impact of relative income on marital happiness among urban Chinese women. Using an urban Beijing sample of 763 married women, this study found that a woman married to a husband with lower income tended to be less happy with her marriage, but this effect will be countered if there is more love in the sense of a genuine concern about the well-being of the partner and a willing to make sacrifice for him. The results were interpreted from theoretical verification and possible mechanisms linking personal commitment and marital happiness.     

Morphemic ambiguity resolution in Chinese: Activation of the subordinate meaning with a prior dominant-biased context

In the present study, we examined how morphemic ambiguity is resolved using the visual-world paradigm. Participants were presented with Chinese bimorphemic words containing an ambiguous morpheme (analogous to the suffix -er in teacher and taller) and performed a visual search task. Their eye-movement patterns during target detection showed that (1) without a prior context, the dominant meaning of an ambiguous morpheme was more available than the subordinate one; (2) with a dominant-biased prior context, the subordinate meaning was still activated; and (3) a subordinate-biased prior context could inhibit the dominant interpretation. Therefore, both the frequency of the intended meaning and the prior contextual biases play a role in morphemic ambiguity resolution. The results are discussed with reference to models of ambiguity resolution and recent proposals of the graded nature of morphological effects.     

Altered lateralization of dorsal language tracts in 6‐week‐old infants at risk for autism

Altered structural connectivity has been identified as a possible biomarker of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk in the developing brain. Core features of ASD include impaired social communication and early language delay. Thus, examining white matter tracts associated with language may lend further insight into early signs of ASD risk and the mechanisms that underlie language impairments associated with the disorder. Evidence of altered structural connectivity has previously been detected in 6‐month‐old infants at high familial risk for developing ASD. However, as language processing begins in utero, differences in structural connectivity between language regions may be present in the early infant brain shortly after birth. Here we investigated key white matter pathways of the dorsal language network in 6‐week‐old infants at high (HR) and low (LR) risk for ASD to identify atypicalities in structural connectivity that may predict altered developmental trajectories prior to overt language delays and the onset of ASD symptomatology. Compared to HR infants, LR infants showed higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF); in contrast, in the right SLF, HR infants showed higher FA than LR infants. Additionally, HR infants showed more rightward lateralization of the SLF. Across both groups, measures of FA and lateralization of these pathways at 6 weeks of age were related to later language development at 18 months of age as well as ASD symptomatology at 36 months of age. These findings indicate that early differences in the structure of language pathways may provide an early predictor of future language development and ASD risk.