Psychosocial Adaptation and School Success of Italian,Portuguese and Albanian Students in Switzerland: Disentangling Migration Background,Acculturation and the School Context

The Swiss Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies (MIRIPS) study (n?=?1,488) examined the impact of migrant students’ acculturation strategies on their psychosocial adaptation and educational success. The study focused on the comparison of students with an Italian, Portuguese and Albanian migration background, because these three groups differ in their socioeconomic living conditions, educational resources and opportunities in Switzerland according to official statistics. With respect to acculturation strategies, the results partially confirm the integration hypothesis: immigrant students who are oriented towards the heritage culture and students who align with both the heritage culture and the majority culture (integration) and who are interested in their multicultural environment have a better psychosocial adaptation than students who align with no culture (marginalisation). In relation to educational success, a multicultural orientation and a combination of a minority and multicultural orientation turned out to be the strategies of the higher-performing students. Unexpectedly, the three groups of migrants examined in this study did not differ in their life satisfaction, an indicator for psychological adaptation or in their educational success in terms of educational aspirations and German reading skills. Rather than the migration background of the students, other demographic variables such as educational resources of the family as well as factors related to school quality (type of school, quality of social relationships, achievement expectancy of teachers, multicultural education at school) turned out to be crucial for psychosocial adaptation and educational success.     

Relationships between declarative pointing and theory of mind abilities in 3- to 4-year-olds

The current study explored the relationships between declarative pointing and theory of mind abilities in 30 children between 3 and 4 years of age. Measures used to examine theory of mind (ToM) included a parental questionnaire and the Scaling of Theory of Mind Tasks. Results showed a dissociation between expressive and informative pointing, which have been regarded as two subcategories of the declarative function. ToM abilities were significantly related to the production of informative pointing, but not to the production of expressive pointing. This distinction might be explained by special features associated with informative pointing, such as early signs of cooperation abilities. Our results might have key implications for psychologists, as they may help improve evaluation and intervention programs for the development of social skills in preschoolers.     

Hand preference for pointing gestures and bimanual manipulation around the vocabulary spurt period

This study investigated the development of hand preference for bimanual manipulative activities and pointing gestures in toddlers observed longitudinally over a 5-month period, in relation to language acquisition. The lexical spurt was found to be accompanied by an increase in the right-sided bias for pointing but not for manipulation. Moreover, results revealed a significant correlation between hand preference for imperative pointing gestures and manipulative activities in children who did not experience the lexical spurt during the observational period. By contrast, measures of handedness for declarative pointing were never correlated with those of handedness for manipulation. This study illustrates the complex relationship between handedness and language development and emphasizes the need to take the different functions of pointing gestures into account.     

Cytokines and memory across the mature life span of women

Increasing evidence suggests a role of the immune system in modulation of cognition, but details on affected memory systems are largely lacking. We therefore aimed to study the relation between selected cytokines and subsets of memory, and the impact of age in these relations. From a random population-based sample (the Betula Prospective Cohort Study), 298 women (age 45-90) were studied in terms of episodic recall and recognition, semantic fluency and knowledge, and prospective memory. Circulating cytokines of relevance for cognition and aging were measured with ELISA. Levels of interleukin (IL)-6 and sIL-2R were significantly and negatively associated with most cognitive variables, while the opposite was true for IL-1β. Age shared substantial variance with both cytokines and memory, and turned most correlations non-significant when controlled for together with education, BMI and presence of disease. Interactions between age and cytokines were further analyzed in multiple regressions. For IL-6, significant negative interactions with age were found for semantic fluency (p<0.05) and prospective memory (p<0.01), and for sIL-2R in predicting semantic knowledge (p<0.05), indicating an increased negative impact of these cytokines on memory with increasing age. In conclusion, the study indicates a relation between cytokines and memory that appears to be largely mediated by age, and supports the suggestion that cytokine dysregulation with higher age may interact with cognitive aging.     

Proprioceptive impairment and postural orientation control in Parkinson's disease

Impairment of postural control is a common consequence of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Increasing evidences demonstrate that the pathophysiology of postural disorders in PD includes deficits in proprioceptive processing and integration. However, the nature of these deficits has not been thoroughly examined. We propose to establish a link between proprioceptive impairments and postural deficits in PD using two different experimental approaches manipulating proprioceptive information. In the first one, the subjects stood on a platform that tilted slowly with oscillatory angular movements in the frontal or sagittal planes. The amplitude and frequency of these movements were kept below the semicircular canal perception threshold. Subjects were asked to maintain vertical body posture with and without vision. The orientations of body segments were analyzed. In the second one, the postural control was tested using the tendon-vibration method, which is known to generate illusory movement sensations and postural reactions. Vibrations were applied to ankle muscles. The subject’s whole-body motor responses were analyzed from center of pressure displacements.In the first experiment, the parkinsonian patients (PP) were unable to maintain the vertical trunk orientation without vision. Their performances with vision improved, without fully reaching the level of control subjects (CS). In the second experiment, the postural reactions of the PP were similar to those of the CS at the beginning of the perturbation and increased drastically at the end of the perturbation’s period as compared to those of CS and could induce fall.These results will bring new concepts to the sensorimotor postural control, to the physiopathology of posture, equilibrium and falls in PD and to the role of basal ganglia pathways in proprioception integration. Nevertheless, in order to assess precisely the role played by sensorimotor integration deficits in postural impairments in PD, further studies establishing the links between clinical features and abnormalities are now required.     

Age variation in the prevalence of DSM-IV disorders in cases of suicide of middle-aged and older persons in Sydney

Data concerning 127 persons aged 35 years or above who died by suicide (as determined in consecutive cases by a Sydney coroner) were analyzed. Psychological autopsy (PA) interviews were conducted in 52 cases, and details were compared with the 75 cases where data were available only from coroner's files (CF). Most characteristics of the two groups were similar, although more CF suicide victims were of Asian background and unable to speak English fluently. Consensus diagnoses were reached following detailed discussion about PA and CF cases. Logistic regression showed no significant difference between age-groups in the proportion diagnosed with major depression, which contrasts with the results of an earlier U.S. study.     

Intersubjectively oriented,time-limited psychotherapy with children: how does the therapist evaluate the therapeutic process and what are the therapist’s tasks?

Based on the therapist’s evaluations of three therapies, this research aims to study the therapeutic process in intersubjectively oriented, time-limited psychotherapy with children. A primary objective is to further develop the therapy method. The study comprises therapies with children 6–11 years of age, who had experienced difficult family situations. Each child received 12 therapy sessions. The number of therapy sessions with children and parents was agreed upon beforehand, and the therapeutic objectives were approved by the parents. Each of the therapy processes were evaluated by the therapist by answering three questions and filling in three forms after each therapy session. The forms were: The Feeling Word Checklist; an alliance form for the child; and a process form. The therapeutic alliance and the behaviour of the therapist during the therapy sessions are discussed on the basis of the total material. The following main tasks for the child therapist emerged: structuring the therapy sessions; following the child’s initiatives; participating and cooperating with the child; exploring the child’s expressions; and understanding and regulating emotions.     

Mood effects on emotion recognition

Mood affects memory and social judgments. However, findings are inconsistent with regard to how mood affects emotion recognition: For sad moods, general performance decrements in emotion recognition have been reported, as well as an emotion specific bias, such as better recognition of sad facial expressions compared to happy expressions (negative bias). Far less research has been conducted on the influence of happy moods on emotion recognition. We primed 93 participants with happy, sad, or neutral moods and had them perform an emotion recognition task. Results showed a negative bias for participants in sad moods and a positive bias for participants in happy moods. Sad and happy moods hampered the recognition of mood-incongruent expressions; the recognition of mood-congruent expressions was not affected by moods.     

Kandidaten in psychotherapeutischer Ausbildung

In the context of the discussion about a reform of psychotherapeutic training in Germany the question arises, which factors influence the decision of psychologists and physicians for a particular training. 343 candidates in psychodynamic, behavioural or psychoanalytic training were asked about their motives for the training, their professional objectives in general and their satisfaction with their choice of training. The candidates' decision for a particular training was associated with personal attitudes and professional goals, with the given information about psychotherapeutic treatment within their studies and with their field of study. For the most part, the respondents are not satisfied with the quality and quantity of information on psychotherapeutic treatment within their studies. Candidates in analytic training are altogether more satisfied with their choice of training and do not plan to start an additional psychotherapeutic training as often as candidates in behavioral training. The consequences of these results in particular for the medical and psychological curricula (a more balanced representation of psychotherapeutic methods) are discussed.