Inviting perspective transformation: Sexual history awareness for professional formation

How do we deal with our own sexuality as teachers and as learners in the classroom? As a seminary professor in a mainline Christian context, I find that discussing sexuality increases student discomfort levels by threatening to raise questions about the connections between morality, behavior, and bodies of those in the room – questions we have been culturally trained to avoid. In order to decrease discomfort, many instructors approach sexuality only as content‐based subject matter. Particularly for ministry students, this approach can be a disservice to their discernment process and preparation for future ministry contexts, especially for those in turmoil regarding sexuality‐related issues. By explicitly engaging how personal experience and cultural contexts shape our sexuality, pedagogical models can promote critical self‐reflection and seek perspective transformation, not values change, as a resource for professional sexual ethics training in ministry.     

Responsibility Allocation and Human Rights

How does morality allocate responsibility for what it requires? I am concerned here with one fundamental part of this question, namely, how morality determines responsibility when multiple agents are capable of contributing to or completing a moral task, and special relationships capable of generating duties with respect to the task are non-existent, insufficient as a moral response, or partly indeterminate. On one view, responsibility falls to the agents who can bear it with the least burden. I show why this is initially attractive and mistaken. Instead, I defend an equity-based approach that accommodates the intuitions that both support and trouble the least-cost principle. One upshot is that sometimes we ought prefer a distribution of responsibility that is more expensive and less local than needed to complete the task. I illustrate the practical significance of the argument in terms of the human rights of refugees.     

Behavioral and neural correlates of disrupted orienting attention in posttraumatic stress disorder

Prior work has revealed that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with altered (a) attentional performance and (b) resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in brain networks linked to attention. Here, we sought to characterize and link these behavioral and brain-based alterations in the context of Posner and Peterson’s tripartite model of attention. Male military veterans with PTSD (N = 49; all deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan) and healthy age-and-gender-matched community controls (N = 26) completed the Attention Network Task. A subset of these individuals (36 PTSD and 21 controls) also underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess rsFC. The behavioral measures revealed that the PTSD group was impaired at disengaging spatial attention, relative to the control group. FMRI measures further revealed that, relative to the control group, the PTSD group exhibited greater rsFC between the salience network and (a) the default mode network, (b) the dorsal attention network, and (c) the ventral attention network. Moreover, problems with disengaging spatial attention increased the rsFC between the networks above in the control group, but not in the PTSD group. The present findings link PTSD to both altered orienting of spatial attention and altered relationships between spatial orienting and functional connectivity involving the salience network. Interventions that target orienting and disengaging spatial attention may be a new avenue for PTSD research.     

Short-term memory predictions across the lifespan: monitoring span before and after conducting a task

Our objective was to explore metamemory in short-term memory across the lifespan. Five age groups participated in this study: 3 groups of children (4–13 years old), and younger and older adults. We used a three-phase task: prediction–span–postdiction. For prediction and postdiction phases, participants reported with a Yes/No response if they could recall in order a series of images. For the span task, they had to actually recall such series. From 4 years old, children have some ability to monitor their short-term memory and are able to adjust their prediction after experiencing the task. However, accuracy still improves significantly until adolescence. Although the older adults had a lower span, they were as accurate as young adults in their evaluation, suggesting that metamemory is unimpaired for short-term memory tasks in older adults.

Highlights:

?We investigate metamemory for short-term memory tasks across the lifespan.

?We find younger children cannot accurately predict their span length.

?Older adults are accurate in predicting their span length.

?People’s metamemory accuracy was related to their short-term memory span.     

Coaching Paraprofessionals to Promote Engagement and Social Interactions During Small Group Activities

Paraprofessionals need adequate training and supports to assist young children with autism spectrum disorders to engage in appropriate social interactions during small group activities with their peers. In this study, we used in situ coaching and brief post-session feedback to improve the use of environmental arrangement, prompting, and praise by three paraprofessionals working in inclusive classrooms. Results suggested the brief coaching intervention was effective for improving target behaviors. In addition, generalized use of behaviors and child outcomes were positive. In situ feedback is a promising practice for improving use of evidence-based practices by non-certified personnel in early childhood settings.     

A Psycho-Educational Intervention for People with a Family History of Depression: Pilot Results

We developed and pilot-tested the first online psycho-educational intervention that specifically targets people with a family history of depression (‘LINKS’). LINKS provides genetic risk information and evidence-rated information on preventive strategies for depression and incorporates a risk assessment tool and several videos using professional actors. LINKS was pilot-tested in the general practitioner (GP) setting. The patient sample included people with a family history of at least one first-degree relative (FDR) with major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar disorder (BD). Patients attending participating GP practices were invited to enroll in the study by letter from their GP. Patients who self-identified as having at least one first-degree relative (FDR) with MDD or BD were eligible. Patients completed questionnaires, pre-post viewing LINKS, with measures assessing satisfaction, relevance, emotional impact and perceived improvement of understanding. Six GP practices participated, and 24 patients completed both questionnaires. Of these, all reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied with LINKS, and 74 % reported that LINKS met their expectations, and 21 % that it exceeded their expectations. LINKS was judged highly acceptable by this sample of GP attendees, and results indicate that an assessment of its effectiveness in a larger controlled trial is warranted.