Attention Biases to Threat Link Behavioral Inhibition to Social Withdrawal over Time in Very Young Children

Behaviorally inhibited children display a temperamental profile characterized by social withdrawal and anxious behaviors. Previous research, focused largely on adolescents, suggests that attention biases to threat may sustain high levels of behavioral inhibition (BI) over time, helping link early temperament to social outcomes. However, no prior studies examine the association between attention bias and BI before adolescence. The current study examined the interrelations among BI, attention biases to threat, and social withdrawal already manifest in early childhood. Children (N = 187, 83 Male, M _age  = 61.96 months) were characterized for BI in toddlerhood (24 & 36 months). At 5 years, they completed an attention bias task and concurrent social withdrawal was measured. As expected, BI in toddlerhood predicted high levels of social withdrawal in early childhood. However, this relation was moderated by attention bias. The BI-withdrawal association was only evident for children who displayed an attention bias toward threat. The data provide further support for models associating attention with socioemotional development and the later emergence of clinical anxiety.     

Improving the Transportability of CBT for Internalizing Disorders in Children

Research provides strong support for the efficacy and effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for the treatment of childhood internalizing disorders. Given evidence for limited dissemination and implementation of CBT outside of academic settings, efforts are underway to improve its transportability so that more children with mental health needs may benefit from treatment. Creative modifications to existing treatments aim to deliver CBT for anxiety disorders and depression in a more transportable format. Notable progress has been made within the areas of computerized CBT, camp-based CBT, school-based CBT, and CBT delivered through primary care settings. These approaches are discussed within the context of key elements of transportability that are particularly germane to the dissemination and implementation of child treatments.     

A Preliminary Test of a Brief Online Intervention for Enhancing Parental Reflective Function and the Role of Parental Depressive Symptoms

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Parental reflective functioning is a potential target for promoting sensitive caregiving behaviors, particularly for parents at higher risk for difficulties in...     

Advances in juvenile adjudicative competence: A 10-year update

This article provides a comprehensive review of juvenile adjudicative competence (AC) literature published between 2010 and 2019. Publications included in this article are peer-reviewed and disseminate original research or provide new commentary on forensic evaluation, policy, or theory. The review is organized in the following sequence: (i) factors associated with juvenile AC, (ii) evaluating juvenile AC (assessment tools and techniques, quality of evaluations, evaluation recommendations), (iii) remediation (remediation recommendations), (iv) systemic issues (inconsistency in statutes and court processes, defense attorneys' concerns about AC, age-related issues, developmental immaturity), and (v) special topics (special populations, international research). Systemic processes and variability in statutes have contributed to current concerns regarding reliability of juvenile AC evaluation and remediation. Clear and consistent standards must be developed to address these problems. Continued research is necessary to clarify how to accurately assess juvenile AC and appropriately remediate those adjudicated incompetent. Practice and policy implications as well as future directions for research are discussed.     

Object retrieval in the 1st year of life: learning effects of task exposure and box transparency

Before 12 months of age, infants have difficulties coordinating and sequencing their movements to retrieve an object concealed in a box. This study examined (a) whether young infants can discover effective retrieval solutions and consolidate movement coordination earlier if exposed regularly to such a task and (b) whether different environments, indexed by box transparency, would impact the rate of learning and time of discovery of these solutions. Infants (N=12) were presented with an object retrieval task every week from 6 1/2 months of age until they were able to retrieve the toy from the box using coordinated two-handed patterns for 3 weeks. To reach that criterion, infants tested with an opaque box took 2 1/2 months and infants tested with a semitransparent box took 1 1/2 months. Both groups outperformed age-matched controls who received a one-time exposure to the task. Repeated exposure to the task and vision of the toy significantly enhanced this process of solution discovery.     

Using a modified constant prompt-delay procedure to teach spelling to students with physical disabilities

Current research suggests that constant delay is an effective means of teaching students through near-errorless learning. The current study examined how procedures used in previous research may be modified so that constant delay can be implemented with students who have physical disabilities that prevent them from engaging in fluent academic responding. A multiple baseline design with probes was used to assess the effectiveness of a modified constant-delay procedure in teaching spelling to students with physical disabilities. This procedure was found to be effective for all 3 students.     

Cognitive and cognate-based treatments for bilingual aphasia: a case study

Two consecutive treatments were conducted to investigate skill learning and generalization within and across cognitive-linguistic domains in a 62-year-old Spanish-English bilingual man with severe non-fluent aphasia. Treatment 1 was a cognitive-based treatment that emphasized non-linguistic skills, such as visual scanning, categorization, and simple arithmetic. Treatment 2 was a lexically based treatment that trained cognates (cross-linguistic word pairs that are similar in meaning and form, such as rosa/rose) and non-cognates (cross-linguistic word pairs with shared meaning but different forms, such as mesa/table). Treatment 1 resulted in modest gains in both Spanish and English. Treatment 2 resulted in improved naming for non-cognates as well as cognates within each language. However, the generalization of gains from Spanish to English was apparent only for cognate stimuli.     

Sequencing, speech production, and selective effects of aging on phonological and morphological speech errors

To test age-linked predictions of node structure theory (NST) and other theories, young and older adults performed a task that elicited large numbers of phonological and morphological speech errors. Stimuli were visually presented words containing either /p/ or /b/, and participants changed the /p/ to /b/ or vice versa and produced the resulting word as quickly as possible. For example, the correct response was "bunk" for the stimulus PUNK, and "ripped" for RIBBED. Consistent with NST predictions, the elicited speech errors exhibited selective effects of aging. Some error types decreased with aging. For example, young adults produced more nonsequential substitution errors (as a percentage of total errors) than older adults (e.g., intended bills misproduced as "gills"). However, other error types remained constant or increased with aging. For example, older adults produced more omission errors than young adults, especially omissions involving inflectional endings (e.g. intended ripped misproduced as "np"). In addition, older adults exhibited special difficulties with 2 types of phonological and morphological sequencing processes.