Online Story Comprehension among Children with ADHD: Which Core Deficits are Involved?

Children with ADHD have difficulty understanding causal connections and goal plans within stories. This study examined mediators of group differences in story narrations between children ages 7-9 with and without ADHD, including as potential mediators both the core deficits of ADHD (i.e., inattention, disinhibition, planning/working memory) as well measures of phonological processing and verbal skills. Forty-nine children with ADHD and 67 non-referred children narrated a wordless book and completed tasks assessing the core deficits of ADHD, phonological processing, and verbal skills. Results revealed that, although no shorter than those of non-referred children, the narratives of children with ADHD contained fewer elements relating to the story's causal structure and goal plan. Deficits in sustained attention accounted for the most variance in these differences. Results have implications for understanding and ameliorating the academic problems experienced by children with ADHD.     

Culture and the physical environment. Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances

Westerners' perceptions tend to focus on salient foreground objects, whereas Asians are more inclined to focus on contexts. We hypothesized that such culturally specific patterns of attention may be afforded by the perceptual environment of each culture. In order to test this hypothesis, we randomly sampled pictures of scenes from small, medium, and large cities in Japan and the United States. Using both subjective and objective measures, Study 1 demonstrated that Japanese scenes were more ambiguous and contained more elements than American scenes. Japanese scenes thus may encourage perception of the context more than American scenes. In Study 2, pictures of locations in cities were presented as primes, and participants' subsequent patterns of attention were measured. Both Japanese and American participants primed with Japanese scenes attended more to contextual information than did those primed with American scenes. These results provide evidence that culturally characteristic environments may afford distinctive patterns of perception.     

Examination stress as an ecological inducer of cortisol and psychological responses to stress in undergraduate students

The purpose of the present study was to investigate basic methodological issues related to the usage of an examination stress protocol in studies of psychoneuroendocrinology. In the present study, 57 undergraduate students served as participants. All subjects provided salivary samples and completed psychological inventories during a low examination stress period and again during a high examination stress period. Salivary samples were analyzed for cortisol. Three major findings were observed. First, the examination stress protocol proved to be an effective trigger of elevations in both psychological measures of stress and in cortisol levels. Second, sex differences were observed in cortisol levels, such that males showed an elevation in cortisol during the high examination stress session whereas females did not. Finally, no significant correlations were observed between elevations in psychological measures of stress and elevations in cortisol levels. These findings suggest that the examination stress protocol used in the present study effectively elevated both psychological stress and cortisol levels. Furthermore, these findings suggest that there are biological differences in how males and females respond to stress. Finally, no evidence was found to suggest a relationship between psychological and hormonal levels of stress. Together, these findings suggest the need to better define and consider the implications of both the specific measures of stress being used and individual differences in the subject samples in psychoendocrine studies.     

Oppositional defiant disorder toward adults and oppositional defiant disorder toward peers: initial evidence for two separate constructs

Confirmatory factor analysis of 25 items on the Child and Adolescent Disruptive Behavior Inventory (CADBI, Version 2.3; G. L. Burns, T. K. Taylor, & J. C. Rusby, 2001) was conducted on teacher ratings of 824 kindergarten children and replicated on 534 children. Model fit was improved when correcting for 2 method effects: (a) adjacent items and (b) identical behaviors (e.g., argues with adults, argues with peers). The results show that the 25 items loaded on 3 distinct but correlated factors: Hyperactivity, Oppositional to Adults, and Oppositional to Peers. These more refined constructs from the CADBI may be useful for practitioners in identifying children who are at risk and for helping define appropriate contexts in which to intervene. The CADBI and analytic procedures also may contribute to future psychoeducational research on the development of problem behavior.     

Development of demographic norms for four new WAIS-III/WMS-III indexes

Following the publication of the third edition Wechsler scales (i.e., WAIS-III and WMS-III), demographically corrected norms were made available in the form of a computerized scoring program (i.e., WAIS-III/WMS-III/WIAT-II Scoring Assistant). These norms correct for age, gender, ethnicity, and education. Since then, four new indexes have been developed: the WAIS-III General Ability Index, the WMS-III Delayed Memory Index, and the two alternate Immediate and Delayed Memory Indexes. The purpose of this study was to develop demographically corrected norms for the four new indexes using the standardization sample and education oversample from the WAIS-III and WMS-III. These norms were developed using the same methodology as the demographically corrected norms made available in the WAIS-III/WMS-III/WIAT-II Scoring Assistant.     

Cognitive-behavioral therapy of insomnia: A clinical case series study of patients with co-morbid disorders and using hypnotic medications

Cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) has demonstrated considerable efficacy within randomized clinical trials and case-series designs. This case-series study in a community sleep medicine clinic assessed the effectiveness of an eight-session CBTi protocol chronic insomnia patients who were allowed to continue their use of hypnotics (intent-to-treat n = 48), administered by a clinical psychology doctoral student receiving training and supervision in CBTi by a behavioral sleep medicine certified clinician. Outcome measures included daily sleep diaries, self-report measures on insomnia severity, dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep, daytime sleepiness, as well as medication usage. Patients showed significant improvements in sleep onset latency, wake time after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, insomnia severity, and dysfunctional sleep beliefs from pre- to post-treatment. No changes were seen in daytime sleepiness - patients were not excessively sleepy either before or after treatment. Use of sleep medication declined significantly from 87.5% pre-treatment to 54% post-treatment, despite no active efforts to encourage patients to withdraw. Results demonstrate that a CBTi conducted in a community sleep medicine clinic with patients not required to discontinue sleep-related medications can have similar effects as therapy delivered among those not on medication.     

Suicide schemas in non-affective psychosis: An empirical investigation

Suicide is the leading cause of premature death among individuals experiencing psychosis. The risk of suicide is proposed to increase with a greater potential for activation of suicide related schemas. Empirical representations of suicide schemas were compared between individuals experiencing non-affective psychosis, with and without a history of suicidal behaviour. Employing a cross-sectional between-groups comparison design, 84 participants, previously diagnosed with a non-affective psychotic disorder, were recruited from community mental health services. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire and clinical measures of psychopathology. To assess participants’ suicide schemas, a series of direct and indirect cognitive tasks were designed and administered. Pathfinder analysis enabled the construction of empirically derived representations of the groups’ suicide schemas based on responses to the cognitive tasks. The suicide group achieved significantly greater scores on measures of anxiety, depression, hopelessness and suicidality than the non-suicide group, but not on measures indicative of the severity of psychosis. The suicide schema for the suicide group was more elaborate and extensive than for the non-suicide group, even when clinical measures were taken into account. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.