A controlled trial of the treatment of nocturnal enuresis in residential homes for children

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the practicability and efficacy of treating enuretic children in residential Children's Homes by means of the enuresis alarm. A control group design was employed with 19 and 20 subjects in the treatment and control groups respectively. Eighteen of the nineteen treatment group children achieved initial arrest of enuresis in a mean of 11.9 weeks of treatment (range 5–28 weeks). Over the initial 12-week period, the treatment group showed a statistically significant reduction in mean wetting frequency, both over time and in comparison with the control group. After a follow-up period of at least 20 months. 17 of the 19 children were known to be dry. The results of an independent evaluation are reported, and it is concluded that alarm treatment is as effective and practicable in Children's Homes as it is in family situations.     

Personality,husband-wife similarity,and Holland's occupational types

The present investigation had two purposes. The first was to investigate the generalizability of the theorized personality characteristics of men within Holland's occupational types to groups of men typed by their actual vocations instead of their vocational interests. The second purpose was to investigate the extent to which the wives of men in each of the occupational groups were similar to their husbands in terms of personality characteristics. Multiple discriminant analysis of the groups' 16PF scores resulted in significant overall groups differentiation and in two significant discriminant functions labeled tender-mindedness and self-confidence. The second finding was that Social and Enterprising men were significantly similar to their wives on personality dimensions consistent with the defining characteristics of the respective Holland groups. Implications of the present results and suggestions for future research are presented.     

Imitative Behavior as a Function of Success-Failure and Racial-Socioeconomic Factors1

This study examined whether success-failure experiences, race, and social class are related to the likelihood that young children will engage in imitative behavior. Black subjects imitated significantly more than white subjects on a pre-experimental measure of imitation. Analysis of a difference score between pre- and post-experimental measures of imitation indicated that prior success was associated with less imitation than failure or a neutral condition. In addition, a white model was imitated significantly more than a black model in both the failure and the success conditions, with little difference between models in the neutral condition. No significant difference was found between the nondeprived and deprived groups. The results were discussed in terms of an outer-directedness hypothesis.     

A comparison of the predictive validity of typical and maximal personality measures

Most personality tests are based on concepts assessing typical performance, and tests of this sort have not been generally successful in predicting criterion behaviors with useful levels of efficiency. Ability tests, which call for maximal performance, have been much more successful as predictors of criterion outcomes. Following a model derived from ability tests, predictors requiring separate typical and maximal self-reports of emotional expressivity were compared to measures of typical and maximal emotional expression in the laboratory. For angry expression, self-reports of maximal expressivity tended to outpredict self-reports of typical expressivity for both typical and maximal laboratory measures of angry expression. Although similar trends were observed for elation, the advantage of maximal self-report measures over typical self-report measures was negligible. Results were discussed in terms of both experimental and clinical implications.     

Can a Pacifist Have a Conversation with Augustine? A Response to Alain Epp Weaver

Christians have historically differed as to whether the wrongness of an act is to be located in the objective character of the act or in the intention of the agent. By blurring this distinction, Alain Epp Weaver fails to see the real principle of consistency that unites Augustine's analyses of warfare and lying. Likewise, by not appreciating the fact that Augustine analyzes the wrongness of the act in terms of intention whereas Yoder analyzes its wrongness in terms of its objective character, Weaver proposes a conversation between two figures who lack the framework of shared assumptions that makes engagement in conversation possible.     

Optimizing Engagement in Behavioral Parent Training: Progress Toward a Technology-Enhanced Treatment Model

Low-income families are more likely to have a child with an early-onset Behavior Disorder (BD); yet, socioeconomic strain challenges engagement in Behavioral Parent Training (BPT). This study follows a promising pilot to further examine the potential to cost-effectively improve low-income families’ engagement in and the efficiency of BPT. Low-income families were randomized to (a) Helping the Noncompliant Child (HNC; McMahon & Forehand, 2003), a weekly, mastery-based BPT program that includes both the parent and child or (b) Technology-Enhanced HNC (TE-HNC), which includes all of the standard HNC components plus a parent mobile application and therapist web portal that provide between-session monitoring, modeling, and coaching of parent skill use with the goal of improved engagement in the context of financial strain. Relative to HNC, TE-HNC families had greater homework compliance and mid-week call participation. TE-HNC completers also required fewer weeks to achieve skill mastery and, in turn, to complete treatment than those in HNC without compromising parent satisfaction with treatment; yet, session attendance and completion were not different between groups. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.     

Adverse caregiving in early life: The trauma and deprivation distinction in young children

Knowledge and understanding about the impact of cumulative adverse experiences on the health and wellbeing of children, adolescents, and adults has rapidly expanded over the past 30 years. Despite the invaluable attention and support this proliferation has drawn to the importance of early childhood experiences, we believe that it is time to move beyond broad indices of risk and toward more specific and individualized understanding of how risk exposures are linked to clinical outcomes in young children. Within infant and early childhood mental health, there is a need for greater specificity in linking adverse caregiving experiences in early life to psychopathology in children. We highlight a framework distinguishing experiences of trauma from experiences of deprivation and use the examples of posttraumatic stress disorder and reactive attachment disorder to demonstrate how greater specificity in our understanding of early adverse caregiving can lead to more accurate and targeted diagnosis and treatment for young children. Both researchers and clinicians benefit from an approach to gain a greater appreciation of the links between specific types of experiences and outcomes in the children that we serve.