Making the most of information‐gathering interviews with children

Because child abuse victims are often the only available sources of information about their experiences, extensive efforts have been made to understand how to maximize their informativeness. There is now broad international consensus regarding optimal interview practices, and broad awareness that children's informativeness increases when interviewers conduct developmentally appropriate interviews with children. In this paper, we (1) summarize current understanding of how children remember, retrieve, and communicate information and (2) discuss ways in which children's memory and reporting can be fostered using techniques designed to help children recount past experiences such as the Cognitive Interview, the Narrative Elaboration Technique, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development‐Protocol. Communicative success clearly depends on how well children understand their role and how effectively interviewers take advantage of children's competencies and abilities to help them maximize their informativeness. Unfortunately, agreement regarding ways in which interviews should be conducted has not been paralleled by changes in the way interviews are actually conducted in the field and more attention thus needs to be paid to training and implementation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Common Genetic but Specific Environmental Influences for Aggressive and Deceitful Behaviors in Preadolescent Males

Although both aggressive (AGG) and deceitful behaviors (DEC) are symptoms of childhood conduct problems, few studies have examined common vs. specific etiological influences. Early intervention is encouraged for conduct problems and findings from genetically informative studies can suggest whether interventions should focus on conduct problems in general or groupings of conduct problems more specifically. Twin model-fitting analyses were conducted on same and different teacher ratings of AGG and DEC for 872 9-year old male twin pairs. Common genetic influences were found to underlie the susceptibility for both AGG and DEC. The same teacher ratings resulted in somewhat higher heritability estimates than different teacher ratings. Results also indicated stronger environmental effects for DEC as compared with AGG, with a significant shared environmental component for same teachers and a substantial non-shared environmental component for different teachers. Our data suggest that AGG and DEC share risk genes and environmental factors may differentiate these two types of conduct problems. Characterizing these specific environmental factors may be useful when developing interventions.     

A genetic factor explains most of the variation in the psychopathic personality

The psychopathic personality can be conceptualized as three interrelated dimensions, (a) an interpersonal style of glibness, grandiosity, and manipulation; (b) an affective disposition of callousness, lack of empathy, and unemotionality; and (c) a behavioral/lifestyle dimension of impulsivity, need for stimulation, and irresponsibility, underpinning a higher order construct, psychopathic personality. The authors used a self-report questionnaire (The Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory) to study the importance of genetic and environmental influences on psychopathic personality traits in a sample of 1,090 monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs, aged 16-17 years. Results showed a strong genetic influence behind the higher order "psychopathic personality" factor, underpinned by the three psychopathic personality dimensions. Over and above the effects to the higher order factor, significant unique genetic influences were also found in the callous/unemotional and in the impulsive/irresponsible dimension, but not in the grandiose/manipulative dimension. The authors propose that this latent psychopathic personality factor is a meaningful target for future etiological research.     

Sex and age-related anxiety in a community sample of Norwegian adolescents

The first aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of anxiety and DSM-related anxiety symptom-clusters among adolescents (13-19 years of age) in middle Norway. A second aim was to examine the developmental trajectories of anxiety symptoms for boys and girls during adolescence. In a cross-sectional study, 1,802 students in junior high schools and high schools in the Mid-Norway Health Region filled out a questionnaire (a response-rate of 77%) including the SCARED self-report form (Birmaher et al., 1997) during one school hour. In line with findings of previous studies, girls reported higher anxiety-levels than did boys. A large gender-specific increase in anxiety in 14-15-year-old girls was also found. Apart from this age-specific effect, the results indicated a general reduction in anxiety during adolescence for all symptom groups except generalized anxiety and school phobia. The high anxiety levels in girls aged 13 to 14 years implicate a need for caution by clinicians because such high anxiety levels may be mistaken for the existence of an anxiety disorder. The rapid increase in anxiety symptoms among girls in early adolescence may reflect a heightened sensitivity in this age group, and may have implications for when to implement secondary prevention programs.     

Effects on Episodic Memory of Stimulus Richness, Intention to Learn, and Extra-Study Repetition: Similar Profiles Across the Adult Life Span

The ability to benefit from various kinds of cognitive support in episodic memory was studied in a population-based sample of healthy adults aged 35–80 years (N = 1,000). The participants studied pictures of faces and names of 10-year-old children with instructions to remember the faces and the surnames. After study, an implicit name stem-completion test was administered, followed by face- and name-recognition tests. There was a negative age effect across all task variables. Across age, recognition was higher for faces than for names. An age-invariant positive effect of intention to learn was observed. Also, name completion and recognition performance showed a positive relationship across the adult life span. Overall, the results are in agreement with the views that (a) age-related episodic memory deficits are highly generalizable and (b) effects of cognitive support on memory are typically of equal size across the adult life span.     

Life Satisfaction in Persons with Late Effects of Polio

To assess satisfaction with life as a whole and with ten domains of life satisfaction in Swedish persons with late effects of polio, to describe the relationship with sex, age, marital status, use of mobility aids and self-perceived needs of instrumental support, and to compare the level of life satisfaction with a Swedish reference sample. A cross-sectional study of 160 persons with verified late effects of polio answered a postal questionnaire including the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LiSat-11). A majority were to some degree satisfied with life as a whole and with all the ten domains of life satisfaction. Satisfaction with life as whole was not related to any of the sociodemographic or disability related factors and these factors had few relations to the ten domains of life satisfaction. The respondents were significantly less satisfied with life as a whole and with vocation, leisure, sexual life, activities of daily living, and somatic and psychological health compared to the Swedish reference sample, but were significantly more satisfied with economy and contacts with friends. Men and women with late effects of polio, regardless of age, marital status or disability, can experience a reduced life satisfaction. This emphasises the need to identify potential gaps between these persons’ aspirations and achievements in life and carry out appropriate rehabilitation interventions to enhance their life satisfaction.