Social and Academic Impairment in Youth with ADHD, Predominately Inattentive Type and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo

Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) was originally identified as a construct that characterized the inattention problems of some children with attention deficit disorder (ADD). Research has indicated that using SCT symptoms to identify a subset of youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, predominately inattentive type (ADHD-IT) may elucidate distinct patterns of impairment and thereby improve the external validity of ADHD subtypes. The objective of the current study was to investigate whether youth with clinically-assessed ADHD-IT and high levels of SCT exhibit unique social and academic impairments. In a clinic-referred sample of youth (N?=?209; 23 % female) aged 6 to 17 years, participants who met criteria for three different groups were identified: ADHD, Combined Type (ADHD-CT; n?=?80), ADHD-IT with low SCT symptoms (n?=?74), and ADHD-IT with high SCT symptoms (n?=?55). These groups were compared on indicators of social and academic functioning while considering the effects of co-occurring internalizing and disruptive behavior disorders. Youth with ADHD-IT high in SCT exhibited uniquely elevated withdrawal, as well as low leadership and low peer-directed relational and overt aggression, which were not accounted for by co-occurring disorders. This high-SCT group was also the only group to have more homework problems than the ADHD-CT group, but only when other disruptive behavior disorders were absent. The distinctiveness of the high-SCT group, which was primarily evident in social as opposed to academic functioning, provides partial support for the external validity and clinical utility of SCT.     

Detecting Deception in Non‐Native English Speakers

The ability to accurately assess credibility is important in countless situations, including many in which individuals being assessed are not speaking their native language. There is reason to believe that native and non‐native speakers may behave differently when lying and that detectors may have a bias to believe non‐native speakers are lying. However, very little is known about detecting deception in non‐native speakers, and the few existing studies have not resulted in consistent findings. The current research compared the ability to detect lies and truths in native speakers with that in non‐native speakers and looked at differences in the cues displayed via the Psychologically Based Credibility Assessment Tool. Results from two samples with different demographic characteristics and backgrounds indicated that there was a bias to believe that non‐native speakers were lying. These results may have implications regarding the use of interpreters in settings where credibility is being assessed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors of Counseling Students' Decision to Pursue a Gerocounseling Specialization

The authors examined which variables predicted the likelihood of counseling students' decision to pursue a gerocounseling specialization by using logistic regression analysis. Results found that overall interest, perceived preparation, training willingness, and importance were predictive factors. Curriculum strategies on how to implement these variables into existing counselor education course work are discussed.     

Personality,coping, and school well-being: an investigation of high school students

With a growing interest in well-being as an outcome of schooling, there is an increased need for research on how to enable it in students’ academic lives. This study examined personality and coping strategies as predictors of students’ well-being outcomes at school using structural equation modelling. Students (N?=?328) completed measures of personality and coping strategies, and then approximately 6 months later reported on their satisfaction with school and subjective well-being. Results indicated that, along with personality and sociodemographics, productive coping strategies were associated with school satisfaction and subjective well-being 6 months later. The findings suggest that coping strategies used by adolescents to deal with the stresses of school have important consequences. Interventions to increase school students’ use of productive coping strategies may have meaningful impacts on their well-being.     

A psychometric comparison of anxiety-relevant attention measures

Background and Objectives: Preferential attention to threat, emotional response inhibition, and attentional control each purportedly play a key role in anxiety disorders. Divergent psychometric properties among attention measures may produce differential detection of anxiety-related associations and treatment-related changes. However, no studies have directly compared the psychometric properties of these attention measures in the same sample.

Design: Eighty-five young adults (M?=?19.41 years, SD?=?1.47, 48 Females) completed a cognitive task battery and a subset of 60 participants (M?=?19.42 years, SD?=?1.48, 33 Females) completed the task battery again approximately two weeks later.

Method: To assess preferential attention to threat, emotional response inhibition, and attentional control, the cognitive task battery included a dot-probe task, emotion and gender Stroop tasks, and a flanker task. Tasks varied in how attention was directed and if emotional stimuli were included. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were compared across measures.

Results: Within the same sample, internal consistency and reliability differed across attention measures. Explicit attention measures (emotional Stroop and flanker) exhibited stronger internal consistency and greater test-retest reliability compared to implicit measures (dot-probe and gender Stroop).

Conclusions: These results inform clinical research using attention measures to assess anxiety-related differences and treatment response.     

Punishment and the potential for negative reinforcement with histamine injection

The present study examined punishment of responding with histamine injection, and its potential to generate avoidance of punishment. Sprague–Dawley rats were trained under concurrent schedules in which responses on one lever (the punishment lever) produced food under a variable‐interval schedule, and under some conditions intermittent injections of histamine, which suppressed behavior. Responses on a second (avoidance) lever prevented histamine injections scheduled on the punishment lever. After stabilization of punished responding, a variable‐interval 15‐s schedule of cancellation of histamine (avoidance) was added for responding on the second/avoidance lever, without subsequent acquisition of responding on that lever. Progressive decreases in the length of the punishment variable‐interval schedule increased suppression on the punishment lever without increases in response rates on the avoidance lever. Exchanging contingencies on the levers ensured that response rates on the avoidance lever were sufficiently high to decrease the histamine injection frequency; nonetheless response rates on the avoidance lever decreased over subsequent sessions. Under no condition was responding maintained on the avoidance lever despite continued punishing effectiveness of histamine throughout. The present results suggest that avoidance conditioning is not a necessary condition for effective punishment, and confirm the importance of empirical rather than presumed categorization of behavioral effects of stimulus events.     

The Community Psychologist as Critical Friend: Promoting Critical Community Praxis

Community‐engaged researchers have a responsibility to community partners to get beyond the traditional researcher stance to take on the active role of critical friend. On the basis of my own community research experiences in the USA, in this article, I argue that there is added value in taking on the practice of critical friendship to encourage a higher degree of critical reflection and critical practice in our partners and in our work together. In the context of long‐term, trusting relationships with community partners, researchers can play the role of critical friend working together to shape critical community praxis on the basis of critical theorizing, critical reflection, and a shared commitment to working for social justice. Those trying to make a difference in communities are often isolated and can benefit from opportunities for dialogue with other community practitioners within a critical frame of reference. Although not without risks and challenges, stepping into this role allows us to put into sharper relief the gap between community practice that challenges injustice and practice that maintains it. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Socioeconomic status and executive function: developmental trajectories and mediation

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) predicts executive function (EF), but fundamental aspects of this relation remain unknown: the developmental course of the SES disparity, its continued sensitivity to SES changes during that course, and the features of childhood experience responsible for the SES–EF relation. Regarding course, early disparities would be expected to grow during development if caused by accumulating stressors at a given constant level of SES. Alternatively, they would narrow if schooling partly compensates for the effects of earlier deprivation, allowing lower‐SES children to ‘catch up’. The potential for later childhood SES change to affect EF is also unknown. Regarding mediating factors, previous analyses produced mixed answers, possibly due to correlation amongst candidate mediators. We address these issues with measures of SES, working memory and planning, along with multiple candidate mediators, from the NICHD Study of Early Childcare (n = 1009). Early family income‐to‐needs and maternal education predicted planning by first grade, and income‐to‐needs predicted working memory performance at 54 months. Effects of early SES remained consistent through middle childhood, indicating that the relation between early indicators of SES and EF emerges in childhood and persists without narrowing or widening across early and middle childhood. Changes in family income‐to‐needs were associated with significant changes in planning and trend‐level changes in working memory. Mediation analyses supported the role of early childhood home characteristics in explaining the association between SES and EF, while early childhood maternal sensitivity was specifically implicated in the association between maternal education and planning. Early emerging and persistent SES‐related differences in EF, partially explained by characteristics of the home and family environment, are thus a potential source of socioeconomic disparities in achievement and health across development.