Asset-Based,Sustainable Local Economic Development: Using Community Participation to Improve Quality of Life Across Rural,Small-Town,and Urban Communities

Applied Research in Quality of Life - We analyze survey data from 5,487 residents of 85 Texas communities, including rural communities, small towns, medium-sized cities, and the five largest urban...     

Factors Associated with Perceived Cognitive Problems in Children and Adolescents with Congenital Heart Disease

The objective of the present study was to assess demographic and disease-specific factors associated with perceived cognitive problems in children and adolescents with heart disease. 246 children with congenital heart disease ages 8–18 years and their parents completed the Cognitive Problems Scale of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory Cardiac Module. The 5-item Cognitive Problems Scale assesses school-related cognitive problems including attention and memory from the perspective of the child and parent. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted with demographic variables and disease-specific factors entered as independent variables and perceived cognitive problems as the dependent variable. Socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiac disease severity were significantly associated with parent proxy-reported cognitive problems (p < .05). None of the demographic or disease-specific variables were significantly associated with child self-reported cognitive problems. In conclusion, our data suggest that assessment of perceived cognitive problems in children and adolescents with greater disease severity and from lower SES homes may facilitate early identification of children who need formal evaluation and interventions to address cognitive impairments.     

Parental religiosity,abuse history and maintenance of beliefs taught in the family

Both anecdotal and empirical investigations have indicated that childhood sexual abuse may negatively impact one's religiosity as an adult. However, few studies have examined the impact of other forms of abuse on the development of religiosity. In the present study, 167 participants recruited from a Pacific Northwest university completed questionnaires measuring parental religiosity, as well as both physical and emotional abuse history, to assess the impact of these factors on the participants’ maintenance of beliefs taught in the family. Results demonstrated that report of abuse was negatively associated with belief maintenance. Alternatively, parental religiosity was positively associated with belief maintenance, and negatively associated with report of abuse. These findings are discussed in terms of social learning theory and the lifestyle behaviours of religious individuals.     

Do in-vivo behaviors predict early response in family-based treatment for anorexia nervosa?

The aim of the study is to explore whether identified parental and patient behaviors observed in the first few sessions of family-based treatment (FBT) predict early response (weight gain of 1.8 kg by session four) to treatment. Therapy film recordings from 21 adolescent participants recruited into the FBT arm of a multi-site randomized clinical trial were coded for the presence of behaviors (length of observed behavior divided by length of session recording) in the first, second and fourth sessions. Behaviors that differed between early responders and non-early responders on univariate analysis were entered into discriminant class analyses. Participants with fewer negative verbal behaviors in the first session and were away from table during the meal session less had the greatest rates of early response. Parents who made fewer critical statements and who did not repeatedly present food during the meal session had children who had the greatest rates of early response. In-vivo behaviors in early sessions of FBT may predict early response to FBT. Adaptations to address participant resistance and to decrease the numbers of critical comments made by parents while encouraging their children to eat might improve early response to FBT.     

The Influence of Authoritative Parenting During Adolescence on Depressive Symptoms in Young Adulthood: Examining the Mediating Roles of Self-Development and Peer Support

A diverse sample of 1,143 high school seniors and 182 students who were part of the same cohort but who left high school without graduating were interviewed during late adolescence (Time 1 [T1]) as well as 2 (Time 2 [T2]) and 4 years later (Time 3 [T3]). Perceived self-development, peer support, and prior levels of depressive symptoms (T2) were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between authoritative parenting during adolescence (T1) and depressive symptoms during young adulthood (T3). T2 sense of self as worthy and efficacious and depressive symptoms, but not peer support, fully mediated the effect of authoritative parenting on T3 depressive symptoms. The authors discuss the importance of parenting for healthy, emerging adult self-development and the continuing influence of parenting styles during adolescence on young adult depressive symptoms.     

Escaping the recent past: Which stimulus dimensions influence proactive interference?

Proactive interference occurs when information from the past disrupts current processing and is a major source of confusion and errors in short-term memory (STM; Wickens, Born, & Allen, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2:440–445, 1963). The present investigation examines potential boundary conditions for interference, testing the hypothesis that potential competitors must be similar along task-relevant dimensions to influence proactive interference effects. We manipulated both the type of task being completed (Experiments 1, 2, and 3) and dimensions of similarity irrelevant to the current task (Experiments 4 and 5) to determine how the recent presentation of a probe item would affect the speed with which participants could reject that item. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 contrasted STM judgments, which require temporal information, with semantic and perceptual judgments, for which temporal information is irrelevant. In Experiments 4 and 5, task-irrelevant information (perceptual similarity) was manipulated within the recent probes task. We found that interference from past items affected STM task performance but did not affect performance in semantic or perceptual judgment tasks. Conversely, similarity along a nominally irrelevant perceptual dimension did not affect the magnitude of interference in STM tasks. Results are consistent with the view that items in STM are represented by noisy codes consisting of multiple dimensions and that interference occurs when items are similar to each other and, thus, compete along the dimensions relevant to target selection.     

Changes in children’s perception-action tuning over short time scales: Bicycling across traffic-filled intersections in a virtual environment

This investigation examined short-term changes in child and adult cyclists’ gap decisions and movement timing in response to general and specific road-crossing experiences. Children (10- and 12-year-olds) and adults rode a bicycle through a virtual environment with 12 intersections. Participants faced continuous cross traffic and waited for gaps they judged were adequate for crossing. In the control condition, participants encountered randomly ordered gaps ranging from 1.5 to 5.0 s at all intersections. In the high-density condition, participants encountered high-density intersections sandwiched between sets of control intersections. These high-density intersections were designed to push participants toward taking tighter gaps. Participants in both conditions were more likely to accept 3.5-, 4.0-, 4.5-, and 5.0-s gaps at the last set of intersections than at the first set of intersections, whereas participants in the high-density condition were also more likely to accept very tight 3.0-s gaps at the last intersections than at the first intersections. Moreover, individuals in the high-density condition who waited less and took shorter gaps at the middle intersections were also more likely to take very tight 3.0-s gaps at the last intersections. The 10-year-olds in both conditions had more time to spare when they cleared the path of the oncoming car at the last intersections, whereas the 12-year-olds and adults showed no change in time to spare across intersections. The discussion focuses on linking short-term change in perceptual-motor functioning to longer term perceptual-motor development.     

Modality differences in timing and temporal memory throughout the lifespan

The perception of time is heavily influenced by attention and memory, both of which change over the lifespan. In the current study, children (8 yrs), young adults (18–25 yrs), and older adults (60–75 yrs) were tested on a duration bisection procedure using 3 and 6-s auditory and visual signals as anchor durations. During test, participants were exposed to a range of intermediate durations, and the task was to indicate whether test durations were closer to the “short” or “long” anchor. All groups reproduced the classic finding that “sounds are judged longer than lights”. This effect was greater for older adults and children than for young adults, but for different reasons. Replicating previous results, older adults made similar auditory judgments as young adults, but underestimated the duration of visual test stimuli. Children showed the opposite pattern, with similar visual judgments as young adults but overestimation of auditory stimuli. Psychometric functions were analyzed using the Sample Known Exactly-Mixed Memory quantitative model of the Scalar Timing Theory of interval timing. Results indicate that children show an auditory-specific deficit in reference memory for the anchors, rather than a general bias to overestimate time and that aged adults show an exaggerated tendency to judge visual stimuli as “short” due to a reduction in the availability of controlled attention.     

Severe pain predicts greater likelihood of subsequent suicide

Using data from the 1999 Large Health Survey of Veterans, Veterans Affairs' medical records, and the National Death Index (N = 260,254), the association between self-reported pain severity and suicide among veterans as examined, after accounting for demographic variables and psychiatric diagnoses. A Cox proportional hazards regression demonstrated that veterans with severe pain were more likely to die by suicide than patients experiencing none, mild, or moderate pain (HR: 1.33; 95% CI: 1.15, 1.54), after controlling for demographic and psychiatric characteristics. These results indicate that pain evaluations should be included in comprehensive suicide assessments and suicide prevention efforts.     

Depressive Symptoms and Life Satisfaction Among Emerging Adults: A Comparison of High School Dropouts and Graduates

Using three waves of data (1998, 2000, 2002) on 1,325 emerging adults, we examined depressive symptoms and life satisfaction among a diverse group of high school dropouts and graduates. Emerging adults who left school without graduating were significantly more depressed and reported lower life satisfaction than graduates at the time of their expected graduation (T1), but these differences were nonsignificant 4 years later (T3). Working within an ecological developmental framework (Bronfenbrenner 1977, 1986), we found that graduation status, household composition, family general and transition specific support, peer support, and adolescent attachment styles protected against adverse mental health consequences at T1. However, only parent and peer support and attachment predicted changes in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction from T1 to T3.