Residential and community treatment services utilized by a sample of youth with severe emotional disturbances

Analyzed case records to determine the costs and service usage patterns for a group of 25 youth randomly selected from the case load of a regional mental health agency. Study participants had extensive histories of publicly supported psychiatric hospitalizations. An average of 36.2 contacts per youth (905 total contacts) with human services providers were documented. Approximately 2 out of every 5 contacts resulted in out-of-home placements. The estimated cost of providing services to the 25 youth exceeded 3 million dollars. The types and costs of treatment services provided to study participants are discussed.     

Prediction of early social and academic adjustment of children from the inner city

Investigated predictors of five measures of early school adjustment for an ethnically diverse cohort of 683 inner-city kindergartners and first graders. Data from 2 consecutive years were collected from teachers, school records, and children. A multiple-regression preduction model significantly explained children's competence behavior, problem behavior, reading achievement, mathematics achievement, and school absences. Prior adjustment and sociodemographic factors explained a majority of the variance in adjustment. Perceived quality of parent involvement was signifcantly related (in the expected direction) to all five outcomes. Exposure to life events was significantly associated in the expected direction with competence behavior, problem behavior, and school absences but not with reading and mathematics achievement. Together, parent involvement and life-event variables explained as much as 12% of the variance in adjustment independent of sociodemographic and prior adjustment factors. The role of family and school factors in the adjustment of children at risk is discussed [corrected].     

Parenting stress among families of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Prior research has shown that parenting stress levels can be quite high among families of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study investigated the degree to which such stress was related not only to the child's ADHD, but also to various other child, parent, and family-environment circumstances. Multimethod assessments were conducted on 104 clinic-referred children with ADHD. Data collected from these subjects were entered into hierarchical multiple-regression analyses, utilizing the Parenting Stress Index as the criterion. The results showed that child and parent characteristics accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in overall parenting stress. The child's oppositional-defiant behavior and maternal psychopathology were especially potent predictors. The severity of the child's ADHD, the child's health status, and maternal health status also emerged as significant predictors. These findings are discussed in terms of their impact upon the clinical management of children with ADHD.The authors are grateful to Mary Maher and Paula Nevins for their assistance in collecting and coding the data. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Kenneth Fletcher for his helpful comments regarding the statistical analyses.     

A short-term longitudinal study of the early development of self-regulation

A short-term longitudinal study was conducted to determine whether self-regulation at 4 years could be predicted from child and maternal measures obtained when the children were age 24 months. The subjects were 69 children and their mothers drawn from the general community. Criterion behaviors assessed at 4 years were those suggestive of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Of the 24-month child measures, maternal ratings of the child's impulsivity and attention span, plus an objective measure of delay ability, were the most effective predictors. Maternal negativity, as assessed in mother-child interaction, predicted the criterion behaviors, even after the child's behavior as an elicitor of maternal behavior was controlled. Maternal child-rearing attitudes on the dimensions of warmth and aggravation were also effective predictors, even after controlling for the child's emotionality as a possible determinant of maternal attitudes. It is argued that the results with the maternal attitude measures provide support for the hypothesis that maternal behavior is a contributor to the development of self-regulation.This research was supported by a State of Ohio Academic Challenge Grant to the Bowling Green State University Clinical Psychology Program, and by a Basic Grant awarded to the first author by the Bowling Green State University Faculty Research Committee. The authors are grateful to Eric Dubow, Douglas Ullman, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and criticisms on previous versions of this article.     

Narrative discourse after closed head injury in children and adolescents.

This study examined narrative discourse in 20 children and adolescents at least 1 year after sustaining a head injury. Narratives were analyzed along the dimensions of language structure, information structure, and flow of information. Severity of impaired consciousness was associated with a significant reduction in the amount of language and information. The most important finding which emerged was the disruption in information structure. This pattern confirms the impression of disorganized discourse in severely injured children. Explanations for the disruption in information structure are explored in terms of the role of vocabulary, memory, and localization of lesion according to magnetic resonance imaging. In view of recent evidence that frontal lobe damage is associated with discourse formulation deficits in adults and is the most common site of focal lesion in closed head injury, we examined discourse patterns in individual patients with frontal lobe lesions. Preliminary data from our single-case studies suggest discourse patterns similar to those reported for adults with frontal lobe injuries.     

Consonant-vowel lateralization in dyslexic children: deficit or compensatory development?

Two studies with the same subjects examined dyslexic children's puzzling superiority in forced left ear (LE) dichotic recall with consonant-vowel (CV) combinations. Thirty dysphonemic dyslexics were compared to 30 age-matched and 30 younger reading-matched normal readers. The children were tested in directed attention dichotic listening and in pseudoword decoding, word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, arithmetic, and general intelligence (IQ). Failure to replicate the LE effect in the first experiment or in free-recall trials suggests its probable origin in aberrant attention/arousal rather than in deviant verbal lateralization. Experiment two replicated the superior LE effect in comparison to both control groups but also found the dyslexics poorer at the right ear (RE). Laterality coefficients confirmed that the dyslexics were more weakly lateralized. Corrections for stimulus dominance revealed that the uncorrected scores (1) concealed the extreme difficulty of the task and (2) obscured floor effects in the LE performance of the normals. Correlations suggest cautiously that CV lateralization may be associated inversely with reading comprehension and word decoding in the dyslexics and normal readers. The results provide mild support for the hypothesis that weak attentional lateralization for CVs in dyslexia may result from the precocious development of posterior right hemisphere attentional systems in compensation for presumed posterior left hemisphere lesions. No support was found for the competing hypothesis that such weak lateralization may be a component of the dyslexics' primary, correlated, or secondary deficit symptomatology.     

Educational level and the word frequency effect: a lexical decision investigation.

It is known that speed and accuracy in recognizing words are constrained by the frequency of occurrence of these words ("frequency effect"). This study examines the relationship between educational level and the word frequency effect. We postulated that individual exposure to words that are rated lower in frequency tables should be greater among subjects with higher education and therefore hypothesized that the magnitude of the frequency effect should not be as marked within such a population as among subjects with a lesser educational level. A total of 40 neurologically healthy adults, half with an average of 18 years of formal education and the other half with an average of 11 years, participated in a lexical decision experiment. Results confirmed our hypothesis; that is, significant frequency effects on reaction times were obtained in both groups but this effect was of greater magnitude for the less educated as opposed to the more educated subgroup. The significance of this finding is discussed by reference to current models of word recognition.     

Effects of aging on the diurnal pattern of water intake in rats.

This study was undertaken to confirm previous findings that Long-Evans rats exhibit age-related changes in the diurnal/nocturnal distribution of water intake and to examine the circadian pattern of these age-related changes. Twenty-one aged and 10 young pathogen-free rats were continuously monitored for water consumption over 12:12 h light/dark cycles. ANOVA, profile analysis, and cosinor analysis each demonstrated that aged rats differed from young rats. The age-related changes in circadian pattern can be described as a blunted rhythm (decreased amplitude) and an altered timing of peak activity (advanced acrophase). These differences, however, were only apparent in a subset of aged rats with the remaining aged rats exhibiting a circadian pattern indistinguishable from that of the young group.     

Effects of protein malnutrition and the administration of cortisol on the reflexologic development in rats.

The use of neurological tests in various states of undernutrition has confirmed the presence of delays in reflex ontogeny. Glucocorticoid administration in conditions of normal nutrition produces diminished growth and alterations in brain development similar to those observed in malnutrition, but there is not enough evidence about its effect on reflex development. In addition, some facts lead us to think that the use of permissive doses of these hormones during gestation could alleviate some of the effects of protein malnutrition on the development of pups. In the present study the ages at which certain reflexes appeared in the offspring of Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) fed a 20% (N) or 10% (M) protein diet from a week before conception to the end of lactation were observed. Each dietary group was subdivided into two: mothers receiving a daily injection during gestation either of a 0.9% NaCl (S) solution or of a 0.5 mg/100 g weight hydrocortisone acetate (C) solution. Results showed that the NS group of pups generally presented earlier ages of appearance of the variables under study than the remaining groups. Pups of the NC group presented delays in the age of appearance of reflexes. Finally, protein malnutrition delayed the appearance of reflexes and this effect seemed to be attenuated by treatment with hydrocortisone. Thus, hydrocortisone administration in protein malnutrition conditions seems to be beneficial although the results are harmful when administered under normal nutritional conditions.     

Behavioral response of altricial and precocial rodent fetuses to acute umbilical cord compression.

Norway rat fetuses (Rattus norvegicus) exhibit a stereotypic behavioral response when the umbilical cord is experimentally compressed with a vascular clamp. In this study, the development of the fetal behavioral response to cord compression was compared in altricial and precocial rodents, which differ markedly in neural and motor maturity at the time of birth. Both altricial and precocial species showed some form of behavioral response to umbilical cord compression. Fetuses of two altricial species, Norway rats and Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus), expressed hyperactivity in response to cord compression throughout the last third of gestation. In contrast, precocial cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) and spiny mice (Acomys cahirinus) did not respond to cord compression until relatively late in gestation. Thus, altricial and precocial species do not express the cord compression response during comparable periods of neural development: precocial species are much more mature at the earliest expression of this behavior than altricial species. These findings are consistent with the interpretation that the cord compression response is a behavioral adaptation that can promote survival of the fetus in utero.