Longitudinal Links among Mother and Child Emotion Regulation,Maternal Emotion Socialization,and Child Anxiety

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Models of transdiagnostic family emotion processes recognize parents’ emotion-related characteristics and behaviors as key contributors to...     

Genetic Counseling for Fetal Abnormalities in a South African Community

Fetal abnormalities are congenital abnormalities identified prenatally. Women who have a fetal abnormality detected often have to make difficult decisions regarding continuation or termination of the pregnancy. The aims of this research project were: to investigate some of the factors that influenced the decision to terminate a pregnancy in which fetal abnormalities were diagnosed; and to determine the implications for genetic counseling practice in South Africa. The study was retrospective and file-based. A total of 171 women counseled for fetal abnormalities, between 2002 and 2006, were identified and relevant data were collected from their records. Altogether 116/170 (68.2%) women were offered termination of pregnancy, and 73/113 (65%) requested the procedure. Early gestation, gestation at the time termination was offered, and ethnicity of the patient, were significantly associated with a termination request. Black patients were less likely to request termination, but more likely to receive a late diagnosis than other patients. Genetic counselors need to adopt an advocacy and educational role to improve this situation. Furthermore, a better understanding of the cultural and ethnicity-related issues is required.     

Semantic predictability eliminates the transposed-letter effect

Semantic predictability facilitates word recognition during language processing. One possible explanation for this facilitation is that highly specific predictions generated online during language processing preactivate some features of upcoming words. To explore whether, how, and when these predictions affect visual word recognition, in the two experiments reported here we investigated the influence of semantic predictability on transposed-letter priming. In order to do so, a paradigm that combines self-paced word-by-word reading with masked priming was developed. Transposed-letter priming occurred in nonconstraining contexts but not in constraining contexts, indicating that readers use context to make predictions about both letter identity and position in upcoming words, and that these predictions have an early influence on visual word recognition.     

The impact of borderline personality pathology on mothers' responses to infant distress

This study sought to extend extant research on the association between borderline personality (BP) pathology and at-risk parenting by examining the dynamic nature of parenting in response to infant distress in mothers with and without clinically relevant levels of BP pathology. Findings revealed that mothers with clinically relevant levels of BP pathology were less likely than those without BP pathology to display positive affect in response to infant distress. There were no differences in the overall likelihood of insensitive parenting behaviors as a function of BP pathology, either in general or in response to infant distress. However, consistent with literature emphasizing the transactional nature of parent-child relationships, findings revealed that the likelihood of insensitive parenting behaviors among mothers with clinically relevant levels of BP pathology changed over time, increasing significantly as infant distress persisted for longer durations (a pattern not present for mothers without BP pathology). Moreover, maternal responses to infant distress were found to influence infant distress, with the likelihood of infant distress decreasing after maternal positive affect and increasing after maternal insensitive behaviors. The implications of findings for understanding the mechanisms of risk for children of mothers with BP pathology, as well as the transactional nature of mother-infant relationships in general, are discussed.     

Maternal BIS Sensitivity, Overprotective Parenting, and Children's Internalizing Behaviors

Although sensitivity to the Behavioral Inhibition System within Gray's (1970) reinforcement sensitivity theory relates to individuals' own depressive and anxious symptomatology, less is known about how parental BIS sensitivity relates to early indicators of internalizing problems in young children. Moreover, the extent to which this parental characteristic relates to parenting behavior, and children's internalizing problems above and beyond parenting, remains unknown. The current study assessed maternal BIS sensitivity, overprotective parenting, and toddlers' internalizing behaviors in a sample of 91 mothers while controlling for mothers' own internalizing symptomatology. Heightened BIS sensitivity related to both overprotective parenting and internalizing behaviors. Overprotective parenting partially mediated the relation between BIS sensitivity and children's internalizing behaviors, although BIS sensitivity maintained a marginal relation to internalizing behaviors. Maternal BIS sensitivity and toddler internalizing behaviors may represent a shared disposition towards inhibition that is somewhat accounted for by overprotective parenting.     

Primary Care Physicians’ Awareness, Experience and Opinions of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

The purpose of this study was to assess primary care physicians’ awareness, experience, opinions and preparedness to answer patients’ questions regarding direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing. An anonymous survey was mailed to 2,402 family and internal medicine providers in North Carolina. Of the 382 respondents, 38.7% (n = 148) were aware of and 15% (n = 59) felt prepared to answer questions about DTC genetic tests. Respondents aged 50 or older were more likely to be aware of DTC genetic testing than those less than 40 years old (OR = 2.42). Male providers were more likely to feel prepared to answer questions than female providers (OR = 2.65). Among respondents who reportedly were aware, family practitioners were more likely than internists (OR = 3.30) to think DTC testing was clinically useful, and 18.9% had patients ask questions or bring in test results. The small percent of physicians who were aware of DTC genetic testing or felt prepared to answer questions about it suggests that education of providers will be necessary if testing becomes more widespread.     

Conceptual accessibility and sentence production in a free word order language (Odawa)

The study reported here was conducted in the Algonquian language of Odawa (a.k.a. Ottawa), with the goal of gaining new insight into the ways that conceptual accessibility affects human sentence production. The linguistic characteristics of Odawa are quite different from those found in the languages most often examined by psycholinguists. The data obtained from the sentence production experiment reported here are thus relevant to production in a heretofore unexamined language. Moreover, the data inform broader theoretical issues, such as the extent to which sentence production can be considered as an incremental process, and the interaction of the various factors affecting conceptual accessibility. In addition, the study stands as evidence that experimental psycholinguistic research can and should be carried out in typologically diverse languages.     

Memory for traumatic events

This research compares memory for traumatic events with memory for non-traumatic versions of the same event. In Experiment 1, subjects watched an event depicted in slides while focusing and rehearsing the central detail of each slide. They were tested after a short or a longer retention interval (20 min or 2 weeks). Subjects who watched the traumatic version were better able to recall the central details that they had rehearsed, but were less well able to recognize the specific slides that they saw. Better recall for the traumatic group did not occur because the words used to describe the recalled details were inherently more memorable, as shown in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, subjects watched either a traumatic or non-traumatic version of a filmed event and about 6 months later they were asked to remember the essence of the film. Subjects who saw the traumatic version were better able to recall the essence of the film. A similar finding was obtained with a group of subjects from Experiment 1 who were also contacted about 6 months after their initial participation. These results suggest that some information (the essence, the theme) of a traumatic event might be relatively well retained in memory, while memory is impaired for many of the specific, and especially peripheral, details.