Functional analysis and generalized treatment of disruptive behavior during dental exams

Patient disruption during dental visits can impede treatment and may result in invasive approaches to care. The current study evaluated the efficacy of graduated exposure with and without extinction to decrease disruption during dental treatment for 4 young men with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Modified functional analyses confirmed that disruption was maintained by escape from dental demands for all four young men. Initial treatment consisted of graduated exposure, whereby exam steps were initially removed and then gradually reintroduced as disruption remained low; throughout this phase, disruption resulted in a break from the exam. During the subsequent treatment phase, graduated exposure procedures continued and extinction for disruption was added. Graduated exposure alone did not result in sufficient treatment effects; however, the addition of extinction resulted in greater reductions in disruption and increases in exam completion for all 4 young men, and treatment effects generalized to a dental clinic setting.     

Safe to sleep: Community-based caregiver training

Annually, thousands of infant deaths are classified as sudden unexpected infant deaths (SUIDs). In an effort to reduce the risk of SUIDs, the American Academy of Pediatrics has made a number of recommendations to educate caregivers, childcare providers, and healthcare professionals on safe infant sleep practices. The purpose of the current study was to extend the literature on safe infant sleep practices by teaching caregivers to arrange safe infant sleep environments using a mannequin and common infant items. We partnered with community-based agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral skills training delivered in a single training session as part of the ongoing pre- or postnatal care these agencies provided. Following training, all participants demonstrated a substantial change in responding and returned favorable social validity ratings. We discuss these outcomes in light of previous studies, limitations, and future directions.     

An Ethic of Refusal: Simone Weil and the Choice of the Lesser ‘Lesser Evil’

In “On the Abolition of All Political Parties,” Simone Weil poses the hypothetical predicament of a person who is intent on solving highly complex mathematical problems but is flogged every time the answer he arrives at is an even number. The person will oscillate between his genuine desire for the truth and the painful cries of his body. “[I]nevitably,” Weil writes, “he will make many mistakes—even if he happens to be very intelligent, very brave and deeply attached to the truth.” She then asks: “What should he do?” Weil’s answer may surprise many readers, even though she claims it is “simple.” If possible, “he must run away” from those who wield the whip. It would have been best, she avers, had he avoided these associations in the first place. Elsewhere in her writings, Weil openly endorses the argument for the lesser evil, justifying active, potentially violent, resistance instead of a pacifist ethic of refusal. This essay analyses the tension between Weil’s ethic of “running away” and her acceptance of the lesser evil.     

Age Effects of Frames of Reference in Self-Reports of Health,Well-Being,Fatigue and Pain

Self-reports of health and well-being are central for population monitoring, so it is paramount that they are measured accurately. The goal of this study was to examine the impact of age on the use of the comparison standards or frames of reference (FoRs) in self-reports of health, life-satisfaction, fatigue, and pain, and to determine if the age-health outcome associations were affected by age differences in FoRs. Respondents (n = 2000) selected from the U.S. general population self-rated their life-satisfaction and health outcomes. Following this, they were asked to indicate if they used any comparisons (FoRs) when making their rating and the direction of these comparisons (upward, lateral or downward). Analyses examined (a) whether age groups differed in the type and direction of FoRs, and (b) whether age patterns in health, life-satisfaction, fatigue, and pain were altered when FoRs were statistically controlled. Compared to middle-aged and older people, younger respondents were more likely to compare themselves with other people when self-rating their health and life-satisfaction. They were also more likely to use a hypothetical situation when evaluating their pain and fatigue. Younger participants used lateral comparisons less often and downward comparisons more often than middle-aged and older participants. When these age differences in FoRs were statistically controlled, the observed age patterns in self-reported health outcomes were somewhat reduced. The results show that people of different ages use different FoRs when self-reporting their life-satisfaction and health outcomes.

     

The impact of socioeconomic status on teenage mothers and children who received early intervention

To determine the early school age effects of an intervention program for low SES, black teenage mothers and their term and preterm infants, a subsample of 61 mother-child dyads was assessed when the children were 5 to 8 years of age. The mothers and children were videotaped in a storytelling interaction together and then interviewed and tested. The child interviews included the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the Wide Range Achievement Test, and the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test. The maternal interviews included a demographic questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, the Parenting Stress Index, and the Vocabulary subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Analyses of variance yielded no intervention effects and no effects of prematurity on any of the child or mother measures. Correlation analysis, however, yielded a number of significant relations between socioeconomic status and child and maternal outcome measures. These findings suggest that the effects of intervention may be short-term for this population, and that low socioeconomic status (SES) may override the effects of early intervention and prematurity by the time children reach school age.     

Glucose attenuation of paradoxical sleep deficits in old rats.

Glucose administration enhances memory in several amnestic populations, including old humans and rodents. The present experiment demonstrates that glucose also enhances measures of sleep in old rats. Three-hour day-time sleep EEGs were assessed in 3- and 24-month-old rats. The animals received injections of saline or glucose (100, 500, and 1000 mg/kg) on different days in a counter-balanced order. At doses of 100 and 500 mg/kg, glucose augmented the duration of paradoxical sleep bouts and total paradoxical sleep time in old, but not young, rats. Within 2 weeks after the sleep tests, measures of several brain neurotransmitter functions were obtained. Glucose was more effective in enhancing paradoxical sleep in those individual aged rats with high levels of hippocampal choline acetyltransferase and occipital cortex serotonin concentrations than in aged rats with lower levels on these neurochemical measures. The findings suggest that glucose attenuates selective age-related sleep deficits in old rats. More generally, these results add to a growing body of evidence indicating that moderate doses of peripheral glucose can influence a variety of CNS measures.     

Spontaneous head positions in infants during the first 9 postnatal months

The developmental organization of spontaneous head positioning over the first 9 postnatal months of life was investigated in a study of 35 infants. Head positions assumed by infants while at rest were recorded at 11 observation period: at 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks of age, and every 4 weeks thereafter until the infant was 36 weeks old. Results indicated an overall tendency toward a head-right position, which was strongest during the neonatal period, but declined with age. The head-right position bias was qualified by familial handedness.     

Facial expressivity to acute pain in cocaine-exposed toddlers

Expressive emotion regulation in response to stress following inoculation was examined in 30 18-month-olds. Fourteen were exposed to cocaine in utero and 16 were drug-free. Findings indicated that the cocaine-exposed group displayed fewer discrete negative expressions of distress and anger and more sadness in response to acute pain. These results suggest that cocaine exposure may exert an influence on the expression of emotion into the second year of life. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Do Unilateral Right and Left Face Contractions Induce Positive and Negative Emotions? A Further Test of Schiff and Lamon's (1989) Hypothesis

Schiff and Lamon (1989) proposed that unilateral face contractions induce positive or negative changes in emotion depending on the side of contraction; support for this proposal, however, has been mixed. In a new test, 40 right-handed and 38 left-handed men performed four alternating face contractions (LRLR or RLRL) and, after each one, completed a different version of the Depression Adjective Checklist (Lubin, 1994). A repeated-measures ANCOVA failed to reveal any significant effect of side of face contraction or handedness on direction of emotion change. Instead, regardless of side of contraction, the subjects' negative emotional state increased significantly across the four contractions with the degree of change being significantly related to the subjects' reported level of difficulty in holding the contraction irrespective of whether the more difficult side was the left or the right.