An outcome evaluation of the implementation of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in Hong Kong

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) with a sample of Chinese parents of children with early onset conduct-related problems in Hong Kong. The participants consisted of 91 parents whose children attended maternal and child health centers and child assessment centers for service, and were between three to seven years old. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (TP) and a waitlist control group (WL). There was no significant difference in pre-intervention measures between the two groups. However, at post intervention, participants in the TP group reported significantly lower levels of child behavior problems, lower dysfunctional parenting styles, and higher parent sense of competence, compared to the WL group. Implications of these findings for the use of Triple P with families of Chinese descent are discussed.     

A randomized trial of individual tutoring for elementary school children with reading and behavior difficulties

Children in Grades K-5, selected for reading and behavior problems, received individual tutoring in a program which aimed to detail a hierarchy of reading skills, locate the point on the hierarchy at which each child should work, and provide enthusiastic social reinforcement for successes. Children were randomly assigned to higher or lower frequency tutoring (one 45-min. session every 1.6 days vs every 8.3 days). The higher frequency group progressed significantly faster in reading than the lower frequency group. Both groups progressed much faster during the time of the intervention than they had before tutoring. Before tutoring, both groups had progressed at about 0.5 grade per year; during tutoring, the higher frequency group progressed at 1.5 grade per year and the lower frequency group at 1.1 grade per year. The subsets of children with verbal ability scores one or two standard deviations below the population mean, as assessed on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, still progressed at average rates of 1.2 grade per year during tutoring. The amount of work students accomplished on a sounding and blending drill predicted reading progress. The intervention cost an average of 1,156 dollars per student per year.     

Hostile attributional tendencies in maltreated children

The hostile attributional tendencies of maltreated children in elementary school across key relationship figures (i.e., parents, teachers, and peers), the relation between children's hostile attributional tendencies and the frequency and severity of maltreatment, and the role of children's hostile attributions of their parents in mediating the relation between maltreatment and children's hostile attributions of unfamiliar peers were examined. The sample consisted of 44 maltreated and 56 nonmaltreated children (females = 51) of mixed ethnicity. Subjects were administered a 20-item measure of attributional processes. The results indicated that relative to nonmaltreated children, physically abused boys were more likely to attribute hostile intentions to a variety of relationship figures, including their parents, an unfamiliar teacher, their best friend, and unfamiliar peers. A positive relation was also found between the frequency of physical abuse and hostile attributional tendencies among males. Finally, support was found for the role of children's hostile attributions of their mothers in mediating the relation between physical abuse and children's hostile attributions of unfamiliar peers. The results support a link between physical abuse and hostile attributional tendencies in children in early elementary school.     

Temporal integration of speech prosody is shaped by language experience: an fMRI study

Differences in hemispheric functions underlying speech perception may be related to the size of temporal integration windows over which prosodic features (e.g., pitch) span in the speech signal. Chinese tone and intonation, both signaled by variations in pitch contours, span over shorter (local) and longer (global) temporal domains, respectively. This cross-linguistic (Chinese and English) study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to show that pitch contours associated with tones are processed in the left hemisphere by Chinese listeners only, whereas pitch contours associated with intonation are processed predominantly in the right hemisphere. These findings argue against the view that all aspects of speech prosody are lateralized to the right hemisphere, and promote the idea that varying-sized temporal integration windows reflect a neurobiological adaptation to meet the 'prosodic needs' of a particular language.     

Different rates of forgetting following study versus test trials

Two experiments investigated recall following two study conditions, (1) repeated test: a study trial followed by multiple recall trials, and (2) repeated study: multiple study trials with no tests. At a retention interval of 5 minutes, repeated study produced a higher level of recall than repeated test. When the retention interval was extended, forgetting was much more rapid in the study condition, with the repeated test manipulation leading to higher recall at an interval of 7 days. We conclude that study and test trials have different effects upon memory, with study trials promoting memory acquisition, and test trials enhancing the retrieval process itself, which protects against subsequent forgetting.     

Scoring reliability on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III)

Nineteen psychologists and 19 graduate students scored two Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition patient protocols. Mean IQs and indexes were similar across groups, but the ranges for Verbal IQ (VIQ), Performance IQ (PIQ), and Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) on one protocol were 25, 22, and 11 points, respectively. For both protocols taken together, percentages of agreement with the "actual" IQs for psychologists were only 26.3 for VIQ, 36.8 for PIQ, and 42.1 for FSIQ. For students, percentages were 15.8 for VIQ, 23.7 for PIQ, and 31.6 for FSIQ. The percentages of FSIQs that fell within +/- 1 standard error of measurement of the actual IQs were 89.5 for psychologists and 76.3 for students. Scoring error also had a negative impact on index scores. Both groups were confident about their scoring accuracy.     

Topiramate in the preventive treatment of episodic migraine: a combined analysis from pilot,double-blind,placebo-controlled trials

The safety and efficacy of medications for preventive treatment of migraine is the subject of current concern and investigation in health care. Two single-center, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies were conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of topiramate for migraine prophylaxis. Seventy patients with a diagnosis of migraine were randomly assigned to topiramate-treated and placebo groups. The studies consisted of a 4-week baseline phase, a 6-8 week titration, and 8-12 weeks of maintenance. Topiramate was titrated from an initial dose of 25 mg/day to a target dose of 100 mg BID. The primary efficacy measure, the mean 28-day migraine frequency, was lower in topiramate-treated patients than in the placebo group (3.2 versus 3.8, P=.001). Similarly, topiramate treatment resulted in a significantly greater mean reduction in migraine frequency than did placebo (1.55 versus 0.47, P=.001) and a significantly higher responder rate (35.3% versus 8.3%, P=.008). Paresthesia was the most common side effect reported with topiramate treatment. Other topiramate-associated adverse events included altered taste, memory impairment, diarrhea, and appetite suppression/weight loss. The rates of discontinuation were similar for the topiramate group (n=10) and the placebo group (n=8). These results suggest that topiramate is effective and well tolerated in the preventive treatment of migraine headaches.     

Pavlov and the foundation of behavior therapy

The foundation, achievements, and proliferation of behavior therapy have largely been fueled by the movement's foundation in behavioral principles and theories. Although behavioral accounts of the genesis and treatment of psychopathology differ in the extent to which they emphasize classical or operant conditioning, the mediation of cognitive factors, and the role of biological variables, Pavlov's discovery of conditioning principles was essential to the founding of behavior therapy in the 1950s, and continues to be central to modern behavior therapy. Pavlov's reliance on a physiological model of the nervous system, sensible in the context of an early science of neurology, has had an implication for behavior therapists interested in the study of personality types. However, Pavlov's major legacy to behavior therapy was his discovery of "experimental neuroses," shown by his students Eroféeva and Shenger-Krestovnikova, to be produced and eliminated through the principles of conditioning and counter-conditioning. This discovery laid the foundation for the first empirically-validated behavior therapy procedure, systematic desensitization, pioneered by Wolpe. The Pavlovian origins of behavior therapy are analyzed in this paper, and the relevance of conditioning principles to modern behavior therapy is demonstrated. It is shown that Pavlovian conditioning represents far more than a systematic basic learning paradigm. It is also an essential theoretical foundation for the theory and practice of behavior therapy.     

There is more to anger coping than "in" or "out"

There is growing dissatisfaction with a dichotomized "anger-in" versus "anger-out" view of anger coping. Three studies using student and community adultsamples revealed a broader understanding of the nature of anger coping styles and led to the development of the new Behavioral Anger Response Questionnaire (BARQ). The BARQ is empirically derived and factorially validated and has good psychometrics. Results suggest that dichotomizing anger responses as "in" versus "out" is too coarse and that a 6-factor model may be more appropriate. The 6 factors identified here are Direct Anger-Out, Assertion, Support-Seeking, Diffusion, Avoidance, and Rumination. Women reported use of a wider range of anger coping styles, especially more social support-seeking and more use of anger diffusion strategies than men.