Culturally-Modified Recruitment Strategies for Latino Families in Clinical Child Research: A Critical First Step

The goals of the current study were to develop and employ culturally-modified recruitment strategies utilizing flexibility and creativity to combat practical and cultural barriers to Latino participation in clinical child research, as well as to quantitatively examine individual and cultural factors related to the different recruitment strategies. In total, 45 Latino parents were successfully recruited and primarily included married mothers of Mexican origin with varied socioeconomic backgrounds. To address the first study goal, an initial culturally-modified recruitment strategy (i.e., postcard strategy, n = 23) was developed to combat both practical and cultural barriers; an augmented strategy (i.e., face-to-face strategy, n = 22) was later employed to further combat potential barriers. Unfortunately, neither strategy resulted in the desired sample size of 150 parents. To examine the second study goal, an exploratory, quantitative examination of individual and cultural factors related to the different strategies was conducted. In general, results suggested that there were differences in the demographics of the parents who responded to the different recruitment strategies, such that those recruited through the face-to-face strategy were more educated, more acculturated, and spoke more English than those recruited through the postcard strategy. Much needed future directions are discussed.     

Parent Perspectives on Community Mental Health Services for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The community mental health (CMH) system provides treatment for behavioral and psychiatric problems in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Although parent stakeholder perspectives are important to improving care, these perspectives have not been systematically examined for this population in the CMH sector. Twenty-one semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with parents of children with ASD who received services in CMH clinics. Themes related to child clinical histories, service access and experiences with the CMH system revealed a specific trajectory of service need identification, obtaining a diagnosis, and experience with services. Each trajectory stage was marked by high parent stress. Results provide information about the characteristics of children with ASD served in community mental health clinics and direction for targeted improvement efforts.     

Biological relevance of acoustic signal affects discrimination performance in a songbird

The fee-bee song of the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) is a two-note, tonal song that can be sung at different absolute pitches within an individual. However, these two notes are produced at a consistent relative pitch. Moreover, dominant birds more reliably produce songs with this species-typical interval, compared to subordinate birds. Therefore, we asked whether presenting the species-typical relative pitch interval would aid chickadees in solving pitch interval discriminations. We found that species-typical relative pitch intervals selectively facilitated discrimination performance using synthetic sine-wave stimuli. Using shifted fee-bee song notes from recordings of naturally produced songs, birds learned the discrimination in fewer trials overall compared to synthetic stimuli. These results may reflect greater generalization among stimuli that occur outside species-typical production parameters. In addition, although sex differences in performance are rarely observed in acoustic discriminations in chickadees, female chickadees performed more accurately compared to males.     

Explaining the relation between thin ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction among college women: the roles of social comparison and body surveillance

Sociocultural models of disordered eating lack comprehensive explanations as to how thin ideal internalization leads to body dissatisfaction. This study examined two social psychological theories as explanations of this relation, namely social comparison and objectification theories, in a sample of 265 women attending a Southeastern university. Social comparison (both general and appearance-related) and body surveillance (the indicator of objectification) were tested as mediators of the relation between thin ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction using bootstrapping analyses. Results indicated that body surveillance was a significant specific mediator of this relation; however, neither operationalization of social comparison emerged as such. Results serve to elaborate upon the sociocultural model of disordered eating by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the processes by which thin ideal internalization manifests itself in body dissatisfaction. The current findings also highlight the importance of targeting body surveillance in clinical settings.     

Firearms Matter: The Moderating Role of Firearm Storage in the Association Between Current Suicidal Ideation and Likelihood of Future Suicide Attempts Among United States Military Personnel

The relationship between firearm ownership and suicide is well documented. This study hypothesized that how soldiers store their firearms would moderate the relationship between suicidal ideation and the self-reported likelihood of engaging in a future suicide attempt, and that this relationship would be explained by fearlessness about death. There were 432 military personnel (91.3% men, 74.2% White, M_age = 27.60) who endorsed current ownership of a private firearm and who were recruited from a military base in the southeastern United States (94.5% National Guard). Firearm storage moderated the relationship between suicidal ideation and the self-reported likelihood of engaging in a future suicide attempt, but this relationship was not explained by fearlessness about death. Individuals who reported keeping their firearms loaded and stored in an unsecure location exhibited higher mean levels of fearlessness about death. Findings highlight the need for research examining contributors to suicide risk in the context of firearm storage, and provide support for suicide prevention efforts involving restricting means.     

Evidence for the Syndrome of Nonverbal Learning Disabilities in Children with Brain Tumors

This study examined the predicted utility of the Nonverbal Learning Disabilities syndrome (NLD) (Rourke, 1995) for characterizing neurocognitive and psychosocial outcomes in 123 children with brain tumors. Children with brain tumors were found to be at high risk of having a specific academic deficit, particularly in arithmetic. Children with arithmetic deficit evidenced a higher rate of impairment on nonverbal tasks than on verbal tasks, whereas children with reading deficit evidenced a higher rate of impairment on verbal tasks than on nonverbal tasks. However, significant differences between children with arithmetic and reading deficits were not found for all of the component features of the NLD syndrome, and arithmetic deficit was not related to treatment with irradiation.     

Profiles of Everyday Executive Function in Acquired and Developmental Disorders

The current study focused on the early development of inhibitory control in 5- to 7-year-old children attending kindergarten in two Eastern-European countries, Romania and Russia. These two countries share many aspects of child-rearing and educational practices, previously documented to influence the development of inhibitory control. Using the Lurian-based developmental approach offered by the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment battery, the study aimed to contribute to cross-cultural developmental neuropsychology by exploring (a) early interrelationships between subcomponents of inhibitory control (response suppression and attention control) and generative fluency (verbal and figural) in these two cultures, as well as (b) the predictive value of external factors (culture and maternal education) and individual differences (age, gender, nonverbal intelligence, trait anxiety) on inhibitory control and fluency outcomes in children from both countries. First, findings in both culture samples suggest that even at this young age, the construct of inhibitory control cannot be considered a unitary entity. Second, differences in maternal education were not predictive of either inhibitory control or fluency scores. However, children’s attention control performance varied as a function of culture, and the direction of these cultural effects differed by whether the target outcome involved performance accuracy versus efficiency as an output. Findings also confirmed the previously documented intensive developmental improvement in preschoolers’ inhibitory control during this period, influencing measures of response suppression and particularly attention control. Finally, the results further stress the importance of individual differences effects in trait anxiety on attention control efficiency across cultures.     

Brief report: Relationship between performance testing and parent report of attention and executive functioning profiles in children following perinatal arterial ischemic stroke

Children with perinatal arterial ischemic stroke (PAIS) have increased rates of attention and executive functioning (EF) weaknesses. Research in other pediatric disorders has documented poor consistency between parent report of these skills and performance-based measures. We compared these data sources in children with PAIS. Forty full-term (≥37 weeks) children ages 3–16 (median = 7.2 years; 58% male) with PAIS completed neuropsychological testing and composite scores were created for seven attention and EF domains (Processing Speed; Attention; Working Memory; Verbal Retrieval; Inhibitory Control; Flexibility/Shifting; Planning). Parents completed “real-world” functioning questionnaires (ADHD Rating Scale-IV, BRIEF). Correlational analysis were used to compare parent and performance measures. Correlations between ADHD Rating Scale-IV scores and the performance-based Attention and Inhibition composite scores were nonsignificant. Significant negative correlations were found between the BRIEF GEC and performance-based Verbal Retrieval and Processing Speed composites, but remaining GEC/composite comparisons were nonsignificant. Analyses between parent report BRIEF index scores and the corresponding performance-based domain identified one significant negative correlation between the BRIEF Working Memory Index and the Working Memory composite score. While children with PAIS demonstrate difficulties in attention and EF on both parent report and performance measures, little significance was found in comparisons of these two types of measures. There may be several explanations for this dissociation: measures assessing different aspects of the same underlying construct; performance-based measures lacking ecological validity; and parents underestimating/underreporting their child’s deficits. Thus, multiple sources of informant and performance data are necessary to make more accurate conclusions about functioning in these domains.