The Changing Age of Individuals Seeking Presymptomatic Genetic Testing for Huntington Disease

Huntington disease (HD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Presymptomatic genetic testing allows at-risk individuals to clarify their risk status. Understanding the characteristics and motivations of individuals seeking HD presymptomatic genetic testing better equips genetic counselors and other healthcare professionals to provide comprehensive and personalized care. The aims of this study were to (1) determine whether the average age when individuals seek presymptomatic HD genetic testing has decreased over time, (2) assess motivations for seeking testing, (3) explore whether there is a relationship between age and motivations, and (4) explore genetic counselors’ perceptions of the shift in age. Data from the US HD testing centers (N?=?4) were analyzed. A small but statistically significant decrease in age of individuals seeking presymptomatic testing was observed (p?=?0.045). HD community members (N?=?77) were surveyed regarding presymptomatic testing motivations. Younger individuals were more likely than older individuals to cite “To learn whether or not you would develop HD” and “To make choices about further education or a career” compared to older individuals (p?<?0.05). Conversely, older individuals more frequently cited “To give children a better idea of their risk” (p?<?0.002). Sixteen percent of genetic counselors surveyed (6/37) perceived a change in age of testing. All of these respondents had provided HD testing for ten or more years and anecdotally believed the age at testing has decreased over time. Study results help providers personalize counseling based on patient’s age and serve as a starting point for more research into the relationship between age at testing and motivations for testing.     

Mentally walking through doorways causes forgetting: The location updating effect and imagination

Researchers have documented an intriguing phenomenon whereby simply walking through a doorway causes forgetting (the location updating effect). The Event Horizon Model is the most commonly cited theory to explain these data. Importantly, this model explains the effect without invoking the importance or reliance upon perceptual information (i.e., seeing oneself pass through the doorway). This generates the intriguing hypothesis that the effect may be demonstrated in participants who simply imagine walking through a doorway. Across two experiments, we explicitly test this hypothesis. Participants familiarised themselves with both real (Experiment 1) and virtual (Experiment 2) environments which served as the setting for their mental walk. They were then provided with an image to remember and were instructed to imagine themselves walking through the previously presented space. In both experiments, when the mental walk required participants to pass through a doorway, more forgetting occurred, consistent with the predictions laid out in the Event Horizon Model.     

The Treatment of Oedipal Disgust: When One Person’s Sexual Delight Is Another’s Disgust

Sexual disgust has been conceptualized in terms of drive theory and preoedipal dynamics. Sexual disgust can also be conceptualized from a relational perspective that draws on oedipal psychodynamics as well as recent research on disgust as a form of embodied moral cognition. From a subjective viewpoint, sexual disgust is self-affirming, as it preserves the purity, sanctity, and desirability of the self in the face of polluting sexual contact. Yet from an other-centered viewpoint, sexual disgust precludes empathic recognition when it shames the object of sexual disgust and rationalizes its mistreatment. This dialectic of assertion (i.e., refusal to submit to something sexually disgusting) and recognition (i.e., affirmation as an object of sexual desire) plays out in adult romantic relationships when one partner’s sexual delight is the other partner’s sexual disgust.     

The Role of ADHD and Negative Emotional Lability in Predicting Changes in Parenting Daily Hassles

The present study examined the extent to which children’s negative emotional lability (measured via ecological momentary assessment—EMA) and ADHD diagnostic status predicted changes in the frequency of daily parenting hassles and the stress resulting from daily hassles at one-week follow-up when controlling for baseline parenting hassles. Parents of 84 children 8–12 years-old (47 with ADHD, 37 without ADHD) completed a measure of parenting daily hassles at baseline and follow-up and participated in EMA assessment protocol ratings of their child’s mood (3-times daily) for one week. Analyses of covariance indicated that parents of children with ADHD reported significantly greater frequency of daily parenting hassles and intensity of parenting stress resulting from daily hassles than parents of children without ADHD at baseline and follow-up. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that children’s negative emotional lability was a significant predictor of the intensity of parenting stress resulting from daily hassles, but not the frequency of daily parenting hassles. There was also an interaction of ADHD diagnostic status and greater EMA-derived negative emotional lability in the prediction of the frequency of daily parenting hassles due to children’s challenging behaviors. Specifically, greater negative emotional lability predicted more frequent daily parenting hassles due to children’s challenging behaviors among parents of children without ADHD but not among parents of children with ADHD. Overall, this study suggests that children’s negative emotional lability is a significant predictor of aspects of daily parenting hassles across parents of children with and without ADHD.     

A Review of Behavioral Interventions for Anxiety‐Related Behaviors in Lower‐Functioning Individuals with Autism

Anxiety is highly prevalent in persons with autism and affects individuals with higher‐functioning autism (HFA) and lower‐functioning autism (LFA). Although there is emerging support for the efficacy of cognitive‐behavioral therapy (CBT) in treating anxiety in autism, these findings are largely based on HFA samples. Moreover, CBT may be inappropriate for individuals with LFA who may struggle to grasp the cognitive components of the therapy because of their more limited verbal abilities. Behavior analytic interventions may be better suited to treat anxiety in this population; however, the quantity and quality of the extant literature have yet to be reviewed. Toward this end, the extant behavioral intervention literature was reviewed. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were evaluated against quality indicators for within‐subject design research. Next, the efficacy of each treatment component was assessed using established criteria for defining empirically supported therapies. Results revealed behavioral interventions to be efficacious, with desensitization and reinforcement emerging as efficacious treatment components, while prompting, modeling, and antianxiety stimuli were established as possibly efficacious. However, given that some of the quality indicators were not met, these results should be interpreted with some caution. Additional research is needed to form a more conclusive evidence base for the treatment of anxiety in individuals with LFA. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On Staying Grounded and Avoiding Quixotic Dead Ends

The 15 articles in this special issue on The Representation of Concepts illustrate the rich variety of theoretical positions and supporting research that characterize the area. Although much agreement exists among contributors, much disagreement exists as well, especially about the roles of grounding and abstraction in conceptual processing. I first review theoretical approaches raised in these articles that I believe are Quixotic dead ends, namely, approaches that are principled and inspired but likely to fail. In the process, I review various theories of amodal symbols, their distortions of grounded theories, and fallacies in the evidence used to support them. Incorporating further contributions across articles, I then sketch a theoretical approach that I believe is likely to be successful, which includes grounding, abstraction, flexibility, explaining classic conceptual phenomena, and making contact with real-world situations. This account further proposes that (1) a key element of grounding is neural reuse, (2) abstraction takes the forms of multimodal compression, distilled abstraction, and distributed linguistic representation (but not amodal symbols), and (3) flexible context-dependent representations are a hallmark of conceptual processing.     

The client,the therapist and the paranormal: a response to the special edition on psychotherapy and the paranormal

Abstract

In this paper, I provide a published paper response to the papers in this special edition on the paranormal and psychotherapy articulated largely from my career as a parapsychologist. In the introduction I note the definitional differences between advocates and counter-advocates in terms of what might be ‘paranormal’, although I argue ultimately that definitional differences aside, the therapist’s relationship with the client’s unusual experiences is critical, taking a phenomenological stance which is echoed by at least two of the papers in the special edition. In broad review, the papers make a variety of welcome contributions; historical individually and small sample phenomenological and also more metaphorically in terms of articulations of the haunting nature of collective and intergenerational trauma in the social and cultural sphere. I review the papers from a parapsychological perspective, considering the evidence drawn from parapsychological studies where it supports or adds to the topics of each paper. In concluding this response, it seems clear that therapists often work from first principles when relating to clients’ anomalous experiences, and that the papers of the special edition each offer practising therapists some important evidential and practical insights into working with client presentations of ostensibly paranormal and anomalous experiences.     

The capacity to tell a joke: Reflections from work with Asperger children

The capacity to tell a joke is a highly complex interpersonal event that depends upon the maturation of certain developmental achievements which are absent or stunted in children with Asperger's Syndrome. These include the ability to know another's mind, a sense of interpersonal timing and, most notably, a capacity for abstract thinking. The author discusses Freud's ( 1905 ) notion of joke‐work, which is akin to dream‐work, both of which are pathways to forming mental representations. Freud considered joke‐work as a mental activity that operated on the verbal level and the author examines the preverbal dimensions that are rooted in the earliest mother/infant interactions. An extended case discussion of the psychoanalytic treatment of an Asperger boy is offered to illustrate these points and to demonstrate the activity of joke‐work as a means of building mental representations.     

A Creation Narrative for the Psychometric Society and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Psychometrika</Emphasis>: In the Beginning There Was Paul Horst

A review is provided for the creation of the Psychometric Society in 1935, and the establishment of its journal, Psychometrika, in 1936. This document is part of the 80th anniversary celebration for Psychometrika’s founding, held during the annual meeting of the Psychometric Society in July of 2016 in Asheville, NC.