The “making” of teenage pregnancy

I will do two things in this paper. First, I examine the issue of construction in the social sciences by using “teenage pregnancy” as an example. Following Michel Foucault's genealogical studies, I show that new categories were constructed to study teenage pregnancies, but that the construction involved does not support an extreme theory of construction—a theory which allows of nothing like “reality”. Second, I study the interaction between the categories used in investigations of teenage pregnancies and those to whom such categories are applied, namely the young mothers themselves. The interaction illustrates what Ian Hacking has described as a “looping effect” characteristic of categories used to study people and their behaviour. I claim that with teenage pregnancy, the looping effect is much more complex than Hacking suggests.     

Aldactazide-induced consummatory and operant responding to sodium by rats.

The effects of intraperitoneal injections of Aldactazide-A on rats' consumption of water and saline solution (.51M NaCl) were tested in two experiments. During the treatment sessions, the rats showed a substantial increase in saline consumption and in lever pressing to a cue light to obtain the saline, as compared with their negligible intake before the injections and after the injections had been discontinued. The results indicate that both the drinkometer and operantbox measures are sensitive to the natroexigenic effects of Aldactazide.     

Differential cerebral involvement in perceiving Chinese characters: levels of processing approach

Three experiments were designed to determine the accuracy and latency with which right-handed Chinese university students (12 females and 12 males) recognized Chinese characters in the left and right visual half-fields (VHFs). The experiments varied in the "depth" of processing required. Experiment 1 was a lexical decision task in which the configuration of the stimulus (a real Chinese character or the mirror image of a real character) determined whether the grapheme was an actual character. Experiment 2 required phonological processing; i.e., subjects had to decide whether a character (or a foil) matched the sound of an orally presented Chinese character. Experiment 3 required semantic processing; i.e., subjects had to decide if a character (or a foil) belonged to a particular semantic category. In each experiment, single characters were presented unilaterally for 150 msec. There was a significant right VHF superiority for accuracy scores for Experiments 2 and 3 but not for Experiment 1. None of the experiments yielded significant visual asymmetries in reaction time. The results do not support previous claims of orthography-specific laterality, but instead show that laterality effects for morphemic stimuli vary with the orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing demands of the task.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Group CBT for Parents of ADHD Children

Improvements in parenting skills do not necessarily lead to improvements in child and parent outcomes for children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Cognitive factors such as parental cognitions and parenting self-efficacy may influence such outcomes. Clinical research on the effects of cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) on parental cognitions, parenting self-efficacy and mental health in Chinese parents of children with ADHD is lacking. This quasi-experimental study intended to assess the effects of a culturally attuned group CBT treatment on the mental health and quality of life of Chinese parents aged 26–58 years, with children with ADHD in Hong Kong. Participants in the experimental group received group CBT and standard treatment and their counterparts in the control group received standard treatment. Primary outcome variables of mental health and quality of life and process variables including parenting stress, parenting efficacy and dysfunctional attitudes were measured at baseline, post-treatment and 3-month follow-up. Data were analysed using 2?×?3 ANCOVAs, Cohen’s d statistics and multiple mediation analyses. Group by time interactions were found for most outcome variables. Effect size statistics indicated that group CBT had small to moderate effects on most outcome variables at post-treatment and follow-up assessments. The effect of CBT on mental health was mediated by the reduction in parenting stress and the effect of CBT on quality of life was mediated by the reductions in parenting stress and dysfunctional attitudes. Given its potential benefit, it is worth considering incorporating this group CBT programme into interventions for Chinese parents with ADHD children.