Do hotter temperatures increase the incidence of self-harm hospitalisations?

A relationship between air temperature and the incidence of suicide has been established in a number of previous studies. Interestingly, the relationship between geographical variation in temperature and suicide incidence has generally been found to be negative, while the relationship between temporal variation in temperature and suicide incidence has generally been found to be positive. It is less clear, however, how temperature relates to the incidence of self-harm. This topic is of particular importance given the presence of ongoing global warming. This study investigated the relationship between temperature and the incidence of self-harm resulting in hospitalisation in New Zealand. Self-harm hospitalisations by date and district for 1993–2009 were obtained from the Ministry of Health. Meteorological data was obtained from NIWA. Generalised linear mixed models were used to estimate the effects of three different components of variation in temperature: geographical, seasonal and irregular. Irregular (random) daily variation in temperature had a modest positive relationship with the incidence of acts of self-harm resulting in hospitalisation, with about 0.7% extra incidents for every 1 °C increase in temperature. However, there was no strong evidence for a positive effect of either seasonal or geographical variation in temperature. We conclude that temperature does appear to bear some relation to the incidence of self-harm, with irregular daily variation in temperature having a positive effect. However, inconsistencies in the effects of different components of variation in temperature make it challenging to accurately predict how global warming will influence the incidence of self-harm.     

Assessing Children’s Implicit Attitudes Using the Affect Misattribution Procedure

In the current research, we examined whether the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) could be successfully adapted as an implicit measure of children’s attitudes. We tested this possibility in 3 studies with 5- to 10-year-old children. In Study 1, we found evidence that children misattribute affect elicited by attitudinally positive (e.g., cute animals) and negative (e.g., aggressive animals) primes to neutral stimuli (inkblots). In Study 2, we found that, as expected, children’s responses following flower and insect primes were moderated by gender. Girls (but not boys) were more likely to judge inkblots as pleasant when they followed flower primes. Children in Study 3 showed predicted affect misattribution following happy-face compared with sad-face primes. In addition, children’s responses on this child-friendly AMP predicted their self-reported empathy: The greater children’s spontaneous misattribution of affect following happy and sad primes, the more children reported feeling the joy and pain of others. These studies provide evidence that the AMP can be adapted as an implicit measure of children’s attitudes, and the results of Study 3 offer novel insight into individual differences in children’s affective responses to the emotional expressions of others.     

Unexpected Social Benefits of Alcoholics Anonymous for Older Women

The authors interviewed older women in Alcoholics Anonymous to explore the participants' most beneficial and meaningful experiences in the program. Findings suggested that these women obtained unexpected social benefits from their participation. These benefits are examined through the framework of Carstensen's ( 1993 ) socioemotional selectivity theory.     

Early and Late Life Exposure to Trauma and Biopsychosocial Well-Being in Centenarians

Few studies have investigated the proximal versus distal influence of traumatic life events (TLE) on biopsychosocial resources of very old adults. The Developmental Adaptation Model was used to test TLE experienced before and after the age of 60 on outcomes of centenarians’ physical disability, perceived health impairments, depressive symptoms, and social support. Cross-sectional data were collected from 154 community-dwelling centenarians. Results indicated that TLE in the latter half of life were positively associated with health impairments and depressive symptoms. The present results emphasize the importance of a process-oriented approach to resilience that allows flexibility in successful coping across the lifespan.     

Clinical Application of the Couple Adaptation to Traumatic Stress (CATS) Model: A Pragmatic Framework for Working With Traumatized Couples

ABSTRACT

The authors attempt to apply knowledge of traumatization to clinical practice with couple dyads. Elaborating on the Couple Adaptation to Traumatic Stress (CATS) Model (Nelson Goff & Smith, 2005), the authors have worked to bridge the gap between a general understanding of trauma's impact on the couple relationship and couples' treatment. This article facilitates the application of the CATS Model to clinical work with couples impacted by trauma. Incorporating Herman's (1997) traumatic process with the original CATS Model, the authors created a more specific, clinically useful framework for clinicians. The goal of the current article is to provide clinicians with a pragmatic illustration articulating a clinical framework for understanding and treating posttraumaumitc symptoms and processes within the couple relationship. The main implication is that clinicians will be able to conduct effectively guided systemic therapy with distressed couples necessary to generate progress in the treatment of symptomatology and couple functioning of trauma survivors and their partners.     

Yearning and Its Measurement in Complicated Grief

Persistent intense yearning for the deceased is a core clinical feature of complicated grief (CG) that distinguishes it from other mental disorders that develop following loss. The Yearning in Situations of Loss Scale (YSL) is a recently developed assessment of yearning. To assess the psychometric properties of the YSL in those with CG, we administered the YSL, Inventory of Complicated Grief, and Quick Inventory of Depression Symptomatology to 303 treatment-seeking bereaved adults with CG. Our results suggest the YSL is a reliable assessment with acceptable convergent and discriminant validity as a measure of yearning in those with CG.     

A Case for Christianizing the Christian Church

In this article I argue that the work of evangelism must take place both within the church and outside the church. The evidence of decline in the church – particularly in the West–is not matched by the vibrancy of the church in the global South. In both regions however there is a demonstrable lack of depth in the quality of Christian discipleship. It was this issue which I sought to address in my work in the Uniting Church in Australia by addressing the need for catechetical programmes targeting young people in the “migrant” churches of our denomination. Before long it became clear that there was a desire from the whole church – both adults and young people ‐ to explore their faith and practice more deeply. The task is to “evangelize the baptized” (Arias), which prioritizes evangelization and catechesis. Evangelism is how the church with its good news of God's reign attracts people out there in the society by word and example. Evangelization takes place within the church and is the initial stage by which persons are led step by step to a first commitment to the Christian life of faith.     

The moment‐to‐moment pitch dynamics of child‐directed speech shape toddlers’ attention and learning

Young children have an overall preference for child‐directed speech (CDS) over adult‐directed speech (ADS), and its structural features are thought to facilitate language learning. Many studies have supported these findings, but less is known about processing of CDS at short, sub‐second timescales. How do the moment‐to‐moment dynamics of CDS influence young children's attention and learning? In Study 1, we used hierarchical clustering to characterize patterns of pitch variability in a natural CDS corpus, which uncovered four main word‐level contour shapes: ‘fall’, ‘rise’, ‘hill’, and ‘valley’. In Study 2, we adapted a measure from adult attention research—pupil size synchrony—to quantify real‐time attention to speech across participants, and found that toddlers showed higher synchrony to the dynamics of CDS than to ADS. Importantly, there were consistent differences in toddlers’ attention when listening to the four word‐level contour types. In Study 3, we found that pupil size synchrony during exposure to novel words predicted toddlers’ learning at test. This suggests that the dynamics of pitch in CDS not only shape toddlers’ attention but guide their learning of new words. By revealing a physiological response to the real‐time dynamics of CDS, this investigation yields a new sub‐second framework for understanding young children's engagement with one of the most important signals in their environment.     

Constrained Choice: Children's and Adults’ Attribution of Choice to a Humanoid Robot

Young children, like adults, understand that human agents can flexibly choose different actions in different contexts, and they evaluate these agents based on such choices. However, little is known about children's tendencies to attribute the capacity to choose to robots, despite increased contact with robotic agents. In this paper, we compare 5- to 7-year-old children's and adults’ attributions of free choice to a robot and to a human child by using a series of tasks measuring agency attribution, action prediction, and choice attribution. In morally neutral scenarios, children ascribed similar levels of free choice to the robot and the human, while adults were more likely to ascribe free choice to the human. For morally relevant scenarios, however, both age groups considered the robot's actions to be more constrained than the human's actions. These findings demonstrate that children and adults hold a nuanced understanding of free choice that is sensitive to both the agent type and constraints within a given scenario.     

Effective remote staff training of objective session notes

Session notes are a required component of documenting behavior analytic sessions. The direct training of writing objective session notes is important to the success of direct line staff completing adequate documentation and meeting requirements set forth by agencies, certification boards, and insurance funders. However, in‐person training is not always immediately available due to contextual restrictions. This study evaluated the effectiveness of implementing the teaching interaction procedure when training staff remotely to objectively document client progress within session notes. Three Registered Behavior Technicians? (RBT®s) were trained via telehealth to complete session notes objectively. Results showed that all 3 participants met the mastery criterion during probes measuring the objective documentation of home‐based behavior analytic sessions. These findings suggest that a training package, such as the teaching interaction procedure, can be effectively implemented remotely when conducting staff training.