Expanding Treatment Options for Children With Selective Mutism: Rationale,Principles, and Procedures for an Intensive Group Behavioral Treatment

Children with selective mutism (SM) experience significant challenges in a variety of social situations, leading to difficulties with academics, peers, and family functioning. Despite the extensive evidence base for cognitive-behavioral interventions for youth anxiety, the literature has seen relatively limited advancement in specialized treatment methods for SM. In addition, geographic disparities in SM treatment expertise and the roughly 6-month duration of some of the supported SM treatment protocols can further restrict the accessibility and acceptability of quality SM care. Intensive group behavioral treatment (IGBT) for SM was developed to expand the portfolio of evidence-based SM treatment options by offering brief, but high-dose, expert SM intervention in a group format for youth ages 3–10 years that can be completed in 1 week. In this article, we outline IGBT for SM program, which has already received initial support in a waitlist-controlled trial. Our presentation is organized around the five main components of the treatment model: (1) individual “lead-in” sessions, (2) camp (i.e., all-day group sessions for children held in a simulated classroom setting, with an emphasis on graduated exposures and structured reinforcement), (3) parent training, (4) school outreach, and (5) booster treatment, as needed. We conclude with a discussion of clinical considerations and future directions for further IGBT refinement and evaluation.     

Expectation of outgroup behaviour: can you trust the outgroup?

Outgroups are usually viewed with suspicion and expected to discriminate against the ingroup. The present study demonstrated that ingroup members attributed past discriminatory behaviour committed by individuals of unknown group membership more to outgroup members than to either ingroup members or members of a neutral group. In contrast, past egalitarian behaviour was attributed less to outgroup members than to members of a neutral group. Ingroup members also expected more discrimination from a future outgroup allocator than from a future neutral group allocator. Finally, the study showed that ingroup members' own behaviour in allocating money became more biased in favour of ingroup members vis-á-vis outgroup members when the future allocator was from an outgroup rather than from a neutral group and when they had witnessed the discriminatory behaviour of an allocator in the past.     

Blind justice: Fairness to groups and the do-no-harm principle

People are reluctant to harm some people in order to help others, even when the harm is less than the forgone help (the harm resulting from not acting). The present studies use hypothetical scenarios to argue that these judgments go against what the subjects themselves would take to be the best overall outcome. When the outcomes in question are income gains and losses for two groups of farmers, subjects judge the harm they would not impose through their action to be smaller than the harm they would impose through inaction. Some subjects refuse to reduce cure rates for one group of AIDS patients in order to increase cure rates more for another group, even when group membership was unknowable to anyone, so that, from each patient's point of view, the change would increase the probability of cure. Likewise, they resisted a vaccine that reduced overall mortality in one group but increased deaths from side effects in another group, even when, again, group membership was unknowable. Some people apply a do-no-harm principle to groups without apparent understanding of how such a principle might be justified in terms of its consequences. The capacity for such judgments makes them vulnerable to learning principles that have no justification at all.     

Parental Involvement and Adolescents’ Academic Achievement: Latent Profiles of Mother and Father Warmth as a Moderating Influence

Parental involvement in their adolescents’ education plays an important role in promoting their children's academic outcomes. Yet, more research is needed to examine the relationship between parenting practices and parental warmth as well as to consider the potential joint contribution of warmth from both fathers and mothers. Thus, the primary purpose of the current study is to examine the extent to which patterns of parental warmth across fathers and mothers moderate the association between parental involvement and adolescents’ grade point average (GPA) and school engagement behaviors. Latent profile analysis was conducted to identify disparate profiles of fathers’ and mothers’ warmth within a nationally representative sample of 2,306 youths (51% male; mean age = 15.31 years, SD = 1.50; 77% non-Hispanic White) residing in opposite-sex, two-parent families from Wave I and II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Latent-class enumeration processes support a five-profile solution characterized by differences in levels of parental warmth and congruency across parents: (a) Congruent High Warmth, (b) Congruent Moderate Warmth, (c) Congruent Low Warmth, (d) Incongruent High Mother/Low Father Warmth, and (e) Incongruent Low Father/Lower Mother Warmth. Subsequent multiple linear regression analyses reveal a moderating effect for Congruent Low Warmth on the relationship between parental involvement and adolescents’ GPA. Ultimately, the results show that variation in parental warmth exists across fathers and mothers with differing impact on adolescents’ outcomes. Excluding one parent without considering the joint effects of both parents will not produce an accurate and precise understanding of parenting in research or practice.     

Evaluating preference for and reinforcing efficacy of fruits and vegetables compared with salty and sweet foods

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder are often more selective in their food preferences than their typically developing peers. Additionally, many preferred food selections have minimal nutritional value. We evaluated the preference for, and reinforcing efficacy of, fruits and vegetables compared with salty and sweet foods, which are often used as edible reinforcers. Multiple-stimulus preference assessments were conducted to identify preferred foods, and reinforcer assessments were conducted to determine the reinforcing efficacy of more preferred foods. Fruits and vegetables were sometimes preferred over salty or sweet foods and often functioned as reinforcers. Future research should incorporate fruits and vegetables into preference assessments when identifying putative reinforcers.     

The mediating role of locus of control between social resource stability and psychological well-being

Past research has shown that social resources and locus of control are strongly linked to well-being, but most research has focused on the amount rather than the stability of those resources. The goal of this study was to investigate the mediating role that locus of control had on the relationship between social resource stability and psychological well-being. All three studies measured social resources and well-being through online surveys (Studies 1 and 2 through SONA, and Study 3 through Mechanical Turk). Study 1 (n = 298 college students) demonstrated that social resource stability predicted lower psychological distress, while controlling for social resource amount. Study 2 (n = 300 college students) revealed that social resource stability predicted higher subjective well-being, while controlling for social resource amount, and that locus of control mediated the association. Study 3 (n = 346 working adults) replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 using a nonacademic sample and alternative measures of well-being.     

Examining generalization of motorist yielding at an adjacent crosswalk with variations of the gateway sign configuration

The gateway sign configuration has been effective at increasing motorist yielding and reducing speeds at crosswalks. A gateway configuration uses in-street signs at a crosswalk on each edge of the roadway and on each lane line. Although this intervention is effective at increasing motorist yielding at uncontrolled crosswalks, the limits of the intervention have yet to be tested. The present study examined if 1) the effects of the gateway intervention on one crosswalk would generalize to an untreated adjacent crosswalk, and 2) if the effects of an offset configuration of signs which partially treated each crosswalk could maximize the effects of that generalization. Experiment 1 showed that less yielding occurred at the untreated crosswalk than at the treated crosswalk, though yielding was higher than baseline. In Experiment 2, results showed that an offset gateway configuration could produce comparable levels of yielding at both crosswalks.     

The effects of mood and retrieval cues on semantic memory and metacognition

We investigated whether the previously established effect of mood on episodic memory generalizes to semantic memory and whether mood affects metacognitive judgments associated with the retrieval of semantic information. Sixty-eight participants were induced into a happy or sad mood by viewing and describing IAPS images. Following mood induction, participants saw a total of 200 general knowledge trivia items (50 open-ended and 50 multiple-choice after each of two mood inductions) and were asked to provide a metacognitive judgment about their knowledge for each item before providing a response. A sample trivia item is: Author – – To kill a mockingbird. Results indicate that mood affects the retrieval of semantic information, but only when the participant believes they possess the requested semantic information; furthermore, this effect depends upon the presence of retrieval cues. In addition, we found that mood does not affect the likelihood of different metacognitive judgments associated with the retrieval of semantic information, but that, in some cases, having retrieval cues increases accuracy of these metacognitive judgments. Our results suggest that semantic retrieval processes are minimally susceptible to the influence of affective state but does not preclude the possibility that affective state may influence encoding of semantic information.     

Sexual Identification in the United States at the Intersections of Gender,Race/Ethnicity,Immigration, and Education

Sex Roles - Sexual identification is shaped by social processes that vary across multiple axes of marginalization and social position—including gender, race/ethnicity, immigration status, and...     

Relative effects of breastfeeding intention and practice on maternal responsiveness

Our objective was to examine the differential effects of antenatal breastfeeding intention (BI) and breastfeeding practice (BP) on maternal postnatal responsiveness. We conducted a secondary analysis of longitudinal data from a subsample of 962 mother–infant dyads from a U.K.-based birth cohort study the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Exposures were BI and BPs measured at 32 weeks of gestation and 18 months’ postpartum. The outcome was maternal responsiveness assessed at 12 months’ postpartum. We used logistic regression analyses unadjusted and adjusted for confounders. Intention to breastfeed was associated with increased odds of postnatal maternal responsiveness independent of BP, adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 2.34, 95% CI [1.42, 3.86]. There was no evidence that BP was an independent predictor of maternal responsiveness, OR = 0.93, 95% CI [0.55, 1.57]. Life-course epidemiology analyses demonstrated that maternal responsiveness is most positive when both BI and BP are present. This is the first population-based study to provide evidence that BI during pregnancy is more strongly associated with maternal postnatal responsiveness than is BP. Further research is needed to understand the determinants of BI in pregnancy and its relationships with maternal responsiveness.