Informant-Based Determinants of Symptom Attenuation in Structured Child Psychiatric Interviews

Informant-related determinants of item attenuation, that is, the drop-off in symptom endorsement rates at retest, were examined in an enriched community subsample of 245 parent–child pairs drawn from the National Institute of Mental Health Methods for Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders Study. Youngsters and their parents were interviewed with the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (Version 2.3; DISC-2.3) on two occasions with a mean test–retest interval of 12 days. Item attenuation rates were high for both informants, with adults failing to confirm 42% and children 58% of baseline responses at retest. Stepwise regressions revealed that item attenuation at DISC-P retest was higher for adult informants who were younger, and who reported on older and less impaired children. On the DISC-C, attenuation was higher for children who were less impaired, rated as doing worse in school, and who had a longer test–retest interval. These results are broadly consistent with past studies examining the determinants of attenuation and test–retest reliability and have implications for the design and use of structured diagnostic instruments.     

Diagnostic judgments as a function of client and therapist race

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the process of differential evaluation of clients as a function of client and therapist race. It was hypothesized that race of client and therapist would interact, influencing the judgments of client psychopathology, appropriateness for therapy, verbal facility, and likelihood of treatment success despite standardization of the clinical stimuli. Graduate students in clinical psychology and with varying levels of training (i.e., 1 to 5 years) were asked to rate videotaped interviews of clients in which race of the client and level of psychopathology (i.e., normal, neurotic, and psychotic) were systematically varied. There were significant differences in ratings as a function of race of client, race of therapist, and level of psychopathology observed. Black clients were not rated differently on degree of psychopathology but were rated as less verbally skilled and less appropriate for treatment but more likely to benefit from treatment than white clients. Contrary to expectations, white therapists tended to underrate the pathology of black clients. On the other hand, black therapists tended to overrate the pathology of white clients and made mixed judgments of black clients. The implications of these findings are discussed.This study was supported in part by NIMH Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Grant G12RR03206-2.     

Vertical jumping and signaled avoidance

This paper reports an experiment intended to demonstrate that the vertical jumping response can be learned using a signaled-avoidance technique. A photoelectric cell system was used to record the response. Twenty female rats, divided equally into two groups, were exposed to intertrial intervals of either 15 or 40 s. Subjects had to achieve three successive criteria of acquisition: 3, 5, and 10 consecutive avoidance responses. Results showed that both groups learned the avoidance response, requiring increasingly larger numbers of trials as the acquisition criteria increased. No significant effect of intertrial interval was observed.     

Parental and family risk factors for substance use in inner-city African-American children and adolescents

The purpose of this study was to develop and test a multidimensional model of parental and family influences on risk for substance use in inner-city African-American primary grade children and their adolescent siblings. The risk factors investigated were conceptually grouped into three broad domains of family influences and the respective indices computed: parental risk attributes, family risk attributes, and parenting styles. Parenting styles were captured as indicators of a latent construct, poor parenting. In study 1, we hypothesized that the parental and family risk variables would be mediated through parenting styles to predict intentions to use drugs, actual drug use, positive drug attitudes, and negative drug attitudes in a sample of 455 inner-city African-American families and their primary-grade children. In study 2, the substance use risk model was tested on a sample of 59 adolescent sibilings to determine whether the pattern of parental and family factors that contributed to early high-risk attitudes and behaviors in children would predict drug attitudes and behaviors in teen siblings. The results confirmed our expectations that parental and family risks were important predictors of childrens' negative drug attitudes and intentions to use drugs in the future and that positive parental and family characteristics would protect against future risk by enhancing negative drug attitudes. Also, substance use attitudes and behaviors in the teen siblings were predicted primarily by family risk characteristics. The family risk index also predicted frequency of use of hard drugs, but only when mediated through poor parenting. The implications of these results for future research are discussed.     

The comorbidity of ADHD in a community sample of children aged 6 through 16 years

Secondary analyses of the data from the Puerto Rico Child Psychiatry Epidemiologic Study were undertaken to provide information on the comorbidity patterns of ADHD. A high level of comorbidity was found among ADHD and other diagnostic categories, particularly the conduct/oppositional group. Comorbidity was associated with level of impairment and with service utilization.     

Indexical Reference and bodily causal diagrams in intentional action

In this paper, completed only months before his death, the author studies a number of concepts of importance for the analysis of intentional action. Four themes in particular are discussed: the intentionality of action, the practical syllogism, what the author terms the practical causality of practical thinking, and the proximate cause of action. (K. S.)     

Marital discord and psychiatric disorder in children and adolescents

The relationship between marital discord and any DISC-2.1/DSM-III-R child psychiatric diagnosis was explored. Interview data from a community sample of 90 parent/child pairs and a clinic sample of 37 parent/child pairs were analysed. The data were collected at Columbia University/the New York State Psychiatric Institute as part of the pilot project of a multi-site methodological study. Rates of marital discord and DISC diagnoses were found higher in the clinic sample than in the community sample. The association between marital discord and any diagnosis remained significant when other risk and protective factors were controlled. Policy implications and recommendations for future research strategies suggested by the current exploratory study were discussed.     

Acculturation and mental health: Current findings and recommendations for future research

Results of existing literature suggest that the relationship between acculturation and mental health is complex. Some studies have found a beneficial association between increased acculturation and mental health, whereas others have found a detrimental association or no relationship at all. We reviewed literature on acculturation and mental health in Hispanics/Latino Americans, Asians/Asian Americans, and other ethnic groups. Results indicate that greater acculturation is associated with increased substance use and abuse. Findings for other disorders and symptoms demonstrate considerable heterogeneity and potential reasons for this variation are provided. Acculturation involves a complex set of processes that appear to have differential impact on mental health outcomes. Critical issues in the measurement of acculturation are discussed, and recommendations for future research are offered.     

Aggressiveness and memory: subordinate crabs present higher memory ability than dominants after an agonistic experience

A relationship between aggressiveness and memory has been proposed in several studies with different animal species. Here, we study this possibility in the crab Chasmagnathus granulatus, using the context-signal memory model (CSM) that involves an association between the learning context and a visual danger stimulus. Each experiment consisted of an agonistic phase and a memory one. During the former, matched pairs of male crabs were staged in two 10-min encounters and the dominant or subordinate condition of each member of the dyad was determined. During the memory phase, crabs were trained to acquire CSM and tested 24 h later. Results showed that the agonistic encounter, staged 48 h before the acquisition of CSM, can modulate memory according to the dominance condition of the fighter; in such a way that memory retention of subordinates results higher than that of dominants. By contrast, when the memory phase preceded the agonist one, forthcoming dominants and subordinates did not differ in their memory ability. The memory modulation would not be linked to a dominance status but to a persistent dominance relationship fully reconstructed in each encounter between the same opponents. Therefore, the crab's CSM would not depend directly on predetermined intrinsic properties, but on the outcome of the fight, which would be determined in turn by the relative aggressiveness of the fighters. The finding that the agonistic episode modulates memory opens the possibility of using this episodic interference to probe the function of diverse phases of CSM.