A Note on Stability in Force Applied to Control a Repetitive Task With the Legs

The forces applied to pedals during cycling were collected every 40 ms from approximately 29,000 movement repetitions. Intra-cycle mean values of force and its variability were significantly correlated, supporting Schmidt–s impulse variability theory of within-movement activities of the legs. In addition, as mean forces approached peak values, coefficients of variation decreased. From averages taken minute by minute, intra-cycle forces were seen to rise or fall in concert, implying that the pattern as a whole constituted a significant neuromuscular unit of control.     

Toddlers’ joint engagement experience facilitates preschoolers’ acquisition of theory of mind

Forty‐two children participated in a longitudinal study that investigated the relationship between their joint engagement experience when toddlers and their development of theory of mind when preschoolers. Controlling for language comprehension at 30 months, higher preschool false belief scores were associated with more time in coordinated joint engagement earlier (18–21 mo, β= .34) and in symbol‐infused joint engagement later (27–30 mo, β= .35) in toddlerhood. Findings suggest that the early foundation of theory of mind development is laid as toddlers attend to both social‐emotional and symbolic aspects of shared events.     

Personality and gender differences in global perspective

Men's and women's personalities appear to differ in several respects. Social role theories of development assume gender differences result primarily from perceived gender roles, gender socialization and sociostructural power differentials. As a consequence, social role theorists expect gender differences in personality to be smaller in cultures with more gender egalitarianism. Several large cross‐cultural studies have generated sufficient data for evaluating these global personality predictions. Empirically, evidence suggests gender differences in most aspects of personality—Big Five traits, Dark Triad traits, self‐esteem, subjective well‐being, depression and values—are conspicuously larger in cultures with more egalitarian gender roles, gender socialization and sociopolitical gender equity. Similar patterns are evident when examining objectively measured attributes such as tested cognitive abilities and physical traits such as height and blood pressure. Social role theory appears inadequate for explaining some of the observed cultural variations in men's and women's personalities. Evolutionary theories regarding ecologically‐evoked gender differences are described that may prove more useful in explaining global variation in human personality.     

Possible Selves in Adolescence: Development and Validation of a Scale for their Assessment

Possible selves (PSs) have a significant role in adolescents' development. For this reason, it is of great importance to have adequate measures to operationalize them. The aim of this work is to present the construction and validation of a scale to assess PSs at the end of high school in multiple domains. Participants were adolescents (n = 320) of both sexes (female = 51.3%) from high-schools in Buenos Aires City, Argentina (age, M = 14.9, SD = 1.5). The scale was developed based on a literature review and a previous qualitative study. Expert judges' assessment revealed that it has good content validity. The scale's structure was studied with exploratory factor analysis and a 5-factor structure with theoretical meaning was found. Spearman's correlations between current and future self-perceptions show evidence of convergent validity. Mann-Whitney U test shows that the scale can discriminate by sex and age. The scale shows adequate to very good internal consistency. These results show that the scale has adequate psychometric properties to assess PSs in Argentine adolescents. The advantages of this scale relative to existing measures of PSs are discussed. Scale development allows us to know more about how adolescents think they will be during a significant life transition such as the end of high school. This is particularly important for planning interventions that focus on motivation and behavior regulation.     

Out of sight,out of mind: racial retrieval cues increase the accessibility of social justice concepts

Photographs provide critical retrieval cues for personal remembering, but few studies have considered this phenomenon at the collective level. In this research, we examined the psychological consequences of visual attention to the presence (or absence) of racially charged retrieval cues within American racial segregation photographs. We hypothesised that attention to racial retrieval cues embedded in historical photographs would increase social justice concept accessibility. In Study 1, we recorded gaze patterns with an eye-tracker among participants viewing images that contained racial retrieval cues or were digitally manipulated to remove them. In Study 2, we manipulated participants’ gaze behaviour by either directing visual attention toward racial retrieval cues, away from racial retrieval cues, or directing attention within photographs where racial retrieval cues were missing. Across Studies 1 and 2, visual attention to racial retrieval cues in photographs documenting historical segregation predicted social justice concept accessibility.     

Service Delivery Outcomes in ASD: Role of Parent Education,Empowerment, and Professional Partnerships

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) utilize a greater number of healthcare services compared to children with other developmental disabilities. Despite this, children with ASD remain at high risk for unmet service needs, which are compounded by differences in socioeconomic status (SES). Both empowerment and parent-professional partnership play a role in service outcomes and may be especially important in understanding these service disparities. Our goal was to better understand the contributions of these variables to service disparities in families of children with ASD. Two-hundred forty-nine parents of children with ASD between the ages of 3 and 20 participated in this online survey. Results support previous research highlighting high levels of unmet needs that are exacerbated by differences in parent education, a common indicator of SES. Empowerment and parent-professional partnership also predicted service delivery outcomes. While high quality partnership predicted greater service adequacy, empowerment was inversely related to services. Furthermore, an interaction found that highly empowered families experiencing poor quality partnerships reported worse service delivery outcomes, while empowerment was not a factor in services for families experiencing high quality partnerships. Parent-professional partnership partially mediated the relationship between parent education and service delivery outcomes. As such, increasing parent-professional partnerships through family-centered care and professional training may help to reduce education-related service disparities and improve satisfaction with care for families and children with ASD.     

Using Web-Based Instruction,Brief Workshops,and Remote Consultation to Teach Community-Based Providers a Parent-Mediated Intervention

Parent-mediated interventions for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are highly under-utilized in community settings. A challenge to the dissemination of these programs is that provider training protocols must teach both the intervention techniques, and the parent coaching strategies. The current study assesses the feasibility an innovative multimodal training protocol to teach community-based intervention providers Project ImPACT (Improving Parents as Communication Teachers). A total of 30 providers (90% female; 76% Caucasian, 13.3% Multiracial/Other, 3.3% Hispanic/Latino, and 3.3% Asian/Pacific Islander) participated in Phase 1, and 15 of these participants (80% female; 60% Caucasian, 33.3% multiracial, and 6.6% Hispanic/Latino) participated in Phase 2. In Phase 1, providers completed questionnaires and videotaped interactions before and after a web-based tutorial and interactive workshop focused on intervention techniques. In Phase 2, providers completed questionnaires and videotaped interactions before and after a second interactive workshop focused on parent coaching. Results from Phase 1 indicate that the addition of the workshop resulted in higher ratings of training satisfaction (p?<?.01), training adequacy (p?<?.01), and self-efficacy (p?<?.01) of the intervention techniques. Results from Phase 2 indicate the addition of the second workshop resulted in greater training adequacy of the parent coaching strategies, p?<?.01. These results suggest that use of this training protocol is a feasible way to increase access to high quality training in evidence-based intervention for providers working with children with ASD in the community; however, larger scale community-based trials of the training protocol are an important next step.