125 years of perceptual-motor skill research

This article celebrates the contribution that the American Journal of Psychology (AJP) has made to the area of perceptual-motor skill over its 125-year history. We highlight the articles published in AJP and trace the technical and theoretical developments that stem from this groundbreaking work. Included in our overview are AJP articles on the excitability of the motor system, motor learning, adaptation to visual rearrangement, the ecological approach to perception and action, and the measurement of human handedness. We conclude by identifying a number of areas associated with perceptual-motor skill where AJP continues to make an important contribution.     

The Relationship Between Phonological Memory,Phonological Sensitivity,and Incidental Word Learning

This study investigated the cognitive abilities needed to succeed at incidental word learning, specifically by examining the role of phonological memory and phonological sensitivity in novel word learning by 4-year-olds who were typically developing. Forty 4-year-olds were administered a test of nonword repetition (to investigate phonological memory), rhyming and phoneme alliteration tasks (to investigate phonological sensitivity), and an incidental word learning task (via a computer-based presentation of a cartoon story). A multiple regression analysis revealed that nonword repetition scores did not contribute significantly to incidental word learning. Phonological sensitivity scores were significant predictors of incidental word learning. These findings provide support for a model of lexical acquisition in which phonological knowledge plays an important role.     

The Role of Parental Distress in Moderating the Influence of Child Neglect on Maladjustment

Despite pervasive evidence of the harmful impact of neglect on children’s adjustment, individual differences in adaptation persist. This study examines parental distress as a contextual factor that may moderate the relation between neglect and child adjustment, while considering the specificity of the relation between neglect and internalizing versus externalizing problems. In a sample of 66 children (33 with a documented child protective services history of neglect prior to age six), neglect predicted internalizing, and to a lesser extent externalizing, problems as rated by teachers at age seven. Parental distress moderated the relation between neglect and internalizing, but not externalizing, problems. Specifically, higher levels of neglect predicted more internalizing problems only among children of distressed parents. These findings indicate that parent-level variables are important to consider in evaluating the consequences of neglect, and point to the importance of considering contextual factors when identifying those children most at risk following neglect.     

Emotion Recognition and Traumatic Brain Injury: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to impairments in emotion recognition that can present considerable challenges to social communication and the maintenance of...     

A national examination of poverty and interactive caregiving practices among parents of young children

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Interactive caregiving practices can be protective for the development of the brain in early childhood, particularly for children experiencing poverty. There...     

Development of the dog executive function scale (DEFS) for adult dogs

Animal Cognition - Executive functions (EFs) are cognitive processes that are used to effortfully self-regulate behaviour and might be important for dogs’ success in working and pet roles....     

Interpretation and Expectation in Childhood Anxiety Disorders: Age Effects and Social Specificity

Theory and treatment for childhood anxiety disorders typically implicates children’s negative cognitions, yet little is known about the characteristics of thinking styles of clinically anxious children. In particular, it is unclear whether differences in thinking styles between children with anxiety disorders and non-anxious children vary as a function of child age, whether particular cognitive distortions are associated with childhood anxiety disorders at different child ages, and whether cognitive content is disorder-specific. The current study addressed these questions among 120 7–12 year old children (53% female) who met diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, other anxiety disorder, or who were not currently anxious. Contrary to expectations, threat interpretation was not inflated amongst anxious compared to non-anxious children at any age, although older (10–12 year old) anxious children did differ from non-anxious children on measures of perceived coping. The notion of cognitive-content specificity was not supported across the age-range. The findings challenge current treatment models of childhood anxiety, and suggest that a focus on changing anxious children’s cognitions is not warranted in mid-childhood, and in late childhood cognitive approaches may be better focussed on promoting children’s perceptions of control rather than challenging threat interpretations.     

Barriers to Addressing Substance Abuse in Domestic Violence Court

Substance abuse commonly co-occurs with intimate partner violence among both perpetrators and survivors. Specialized courts that focus on intimate partner violence provide a unique opportunity to address both problems simultaneously, but research has yet to identify whether this happens. In this qualitative study of a domestic violence court in a large midwestern metropolitan area, key informants were interviewed to understand how the Court treats substance abuse. Results indicate that substance abuse typically is not identified among perpetrators or survivors going through the Court unless it is mentioned in a police report. Barriers to such identification are the organization of the Court, bounded definition of actors’ roles in the Court, limited resources, and negative attitudes towards survivors. These results suggest that specialized courts that attend to only one problem may overlook the possibility of addressing issues that commonly co-occur.     

Observing a client's grieving process: bringing logical positivism into qualitative grief counselling research

This positional paper originates from our need as researcher/practitioners to establish a meaningful epistemological framework for research into bereaved people's journey through loss and grief over time. We describe how the field of grief research has a long and established biological basis, in keeping with a positivist epistemology. However, there has been a diminution of the influence of logical positivism in twenty-first-century counselling research. We argue that in grief counselling research, naturalistic observation of the grieving process within a logical positivist paradigm, remains a valid and valuable construct. We posit an observational protocol for the grief counselling process which minimises the intrusion of research method into the therapeutic process. We offer this as a means of conducting qualitative research within a bereavement counselling service. Further, we suggest that the development of an observational protocol for a client's grieving process has potential implications for developing good practice in grief work.