Mothers' attachment style, their mental health, and their children's emotional vulnerabilities: a 7-year study of children with congenital heart disease

The long-term contribution of mothers' attachment insecurities to their own and their children's psychological functioning was examined in a 7-year prospective longitudinal study of children with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). Sixty-three mothers of newborns with CHD participated in a three-wave study, beginning with the CHD diagnosis (T1), then 1 year later (T2), and again 7 years later (T3). At T1, the mothers reported on their attachment style and mental health. At T2, the mental health measure was administered again, along with a marital satisfaction scale. At T3, participants completed these two measures again, and their children reported on their self-concept and completed the Children's Apperception Test. Maternal avoidant attachment at T1 was the best predictor of deterioration in the mothers' mental health and marital satisfaction over the 7-year period, especially in a subgroup whose children had severe CHD. In addition, mothers' attachment insecurities (both anxiety and avoidance) at the beginning of the study were associated with their children's emotional problems and poor self-image 7 years later.     

Theory and Practice: Ernest Becker: a vital resource for counselling psychology

In this article we highlight the work of Ernest Becker for counselling psychology professionals and provide a brief overview of Becker's contributions. Several important themes from his writings relevant to counselling psychology are reviewed, including: the uniqueness of man, socialization and self-esteem, culture and heroism, the relativity of heroism, the fear of death, and the dynamics of evil. We also discuss some of the implications of Becker's work for counselling psychology and counselling psychology professionals, including: providing an integrative perspective on human behaviour and development, implications for multicultural counselling, understanding the hero system, the centrality of death in life, and helping people make meaning. We consider Ernest Becker's work a vital resource for counselling psychology.     

Segregation accuracy in item‐method directed forgetting across multiple tests

Two experiments examined recall across tests following item‐method directed‐forgetting instructions and the varying of presentation duration of items at study. For both immediate testing (Experiment 1) and delayed testing (Experiment 2), accurate recall of remember instruction items (R‐items) exceeded the accurate recall of forget instruction items (F‐items). However, some F‐items from study were inaccurately recalled as R‐items and R‐items from study as F‐items. Inaccurate recall persisted across tests for both immediate and delayed recall and increased across tests for immediate recall. We view the R‐item advantage in accurate recall as consistent with the account they receive more rehearsal at study than do F‐items. We view inaccurate recall as reflecting the bias to report items retrieved on an immediate test lacking instructional tags as F‐items. On delayed tests, items retrieved lacking instructional tags are first assessed against a criterion point on a memory‐strength continuum and those with strength above the criterion reported as R‐items and those below the criterion as F‐items.     

Recent research on children’s testimony about experienced and witnessed events

Research on memory development has increasingly moved out of the laboratory and into the real world. Whereas early researchers asked whether confusion and susceptibility to suggestion made children unreliable witnesses, furthermore, contemporary researchers are addressing a much broader range of questions about children’s memory, focusing not only on children’s frailties but also on their competencies. In this review, we emphasize work on factors that promote the retrieval and accurate recounting of experienced or witnessed events and the implications of these findings for forensic interview practices. Research shows that children are capable of providing accurate information about their experiences, although their ability to convey the information is affected not only by the qualities of their memories, but also by the types of retrieval mechanisms employed and the quality of the communication between them and their interlocutors. We thus discuss several characteristics of to-be-remembered events that affect memory and are relevant to children’s recall in applied settings; retrieval conditions and their effects on the amount and accuracy of the information that children report; and research on investigative interviews conducted in forensic contexts. Because many of the variables that influence memory are age-related, developmental changes in children’s ability to accurately report, and recount their experiences are highlighted.     

Primed picture naming within and across languages: An ERP investigation

In two experiments, while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded, participants named picture targets that were preceded by masked word primes that corresponded either to the name of the picture target or to an unrelated picture name. Experiment 1 showed significant priming effects in the ERP waveforms, free from articulator artifact, starting as early as 200 msec post target onset. Possible loci of these priming effects were proposed within the framework of generic interactive activation models of word recognition and picture naming. These were grouped into three main components: object-specific structural representations, amodal semantic representations, and word-specific phonological and articulatory representations. Experiment 2 provided an initial test of the possible role of each of these components by comparing within-language repetition priming with priming from translation equivalents in bilingual participants. The early and widespread effects of noncognate translation primes in L1 on picture naming in L2 point to object-specific and amodal semantic representations as the principal loci of priming effects obtained with masked word primes and picture targets.     

Assessing choice-making and preference in adults with profound mental retardation across community and center-based settings

We examined choice and preference in four adults with profound mental retardation within the context of a community-based and center-based location. Prior to the preference analysis, an independent selecting response was empirically assessed and validated for each adult. Results of the preference analysis showed that in the community site there was a higher cumulative frequency of choice-making responses towards beverages for all participants, and an indication of beverage preference for two of the four participants. Conversely, in the center-based setting, there were fewer responses made towards the beverages, and no indication of preference for any of the four adults. These results remained consistent during maintenance checks at 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks post-intervention.     

Teacher Training: Effects of Directed Rehearsal on the Teaching Skills of Physical Education Majors

Directed rehearsal was used to improve the teaching skills of six preservice elementary physical education teachers during a teaching practicum. The teaching skills lesson introduction, lesson closure, task presentation, and general and specific subject-matter feedback were assessed using a multiple baseline design across behaviors for each teacher. Social validity, in the form of the acceptability of directed rehearsal as a teacher training intervention, was also assessed using a questionnaire. Directed rehearsal was effective in improving the teaching skills of the teachers to either 100% correct implementation or, in the case of subject-matter feedback, to an established rate. In addition, the intervention was acceptable to the teachers and the practicum instructor. These results extend both the error correction and the research on teacher education literatures.     

Improving Migrant Students' Spelling of English and Spanish Words with Error Correction

We examined the effects of error correction on spelling accuracy of culturally and linguistically diverse students enrolled in summer Migrant Education. In an error correction strategy, students spelled a word, viewed a correct model, and corrected specific errors. In a traditional strategy, students wrote words three times each while viewing a correct model. Words were presented in Spanish or English. Results showed that students with and without learning disabilities, whose primary language was English, correctly spelled more English words in the error correction condition than the traditional. Students whose primary language was Spanish correctly spelled Spanish words equally well in both conditions, possibly because of the phonetic nature of the Spanish language.