Disentangling Fine Motor Skills’ Relations to Academic Achievement: The Relative Contributions of Visual-Spatial Integration and Visual-Motor Coordination

Recent research has established a connection between children's fine motor skills and their academic performance. Previous research has focused on fine motor skills measured prior to elementary school, while the present sample included children ages 5–18 years old, making it possible to examine whether this link remains relevant throughout childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, the majority of research linking fine motor skills and academic achievement has not determined which specific components of fine motor skill are driving this relation. The few studies that have looked at associations of separate fine motor tasks with achievement suggest that copying tasks that tap visual-spatial integration skills are most closely related to achievement. The present study examined two separate elements of fine motor skills—visual-motor coordination and visual-spatial integration—and their associations with various measures of academic achievement. Visual-motor coordination was measured using tracing tasks, while visual-spatial integration was measured using copy-a-figure tasks. After controlling for gender, socioeconomic status, IQ, and visual-motor coordination, and visual-spatial integration explained significant variance in children's math and written expression achievement. Knowing that visual-spatial integration skills are associated with these two achievement domains suggests potential avenues for targeted math and writing interventions for children of all ages.     

Visitor Motivations Across Three Informal Education Institutions: An Application of the Identity-Related Visitor Motivation Model

ABSTRACT

Recent studies suggest that visitors’ situated museum identities may be examined through the motivations expressed during visits to zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, and other museums. This article examines a tool published by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and J. Falk, Heimlich, and Bronnenkant (2008) for documenting visitors’ motivations at zoos, aquariums, and other informal education settings and compares motivations for visiting across three informal education sites. Surveys were administered to 370 adult visitors to an aquarium, science center, and boat-based eco-tour operator. Findings revealed both different motivations of visitors to these informal education institutions and seasonal changes to those motivations. Moreover, the motivations tool, which was created specifically to document visitor motivations in zoos and aquariums, was able to successfully document visitor motivations in such places as a science center and boat excursion company. It is not clear, however, that it sheds direct light on visitor identity. Modifications to the instrument and underlying taxonomy are suggested and theoretical issues are discussed and used to suggest further areas of research. Findings from the empirical work contribute to discussions of how informal education institutions may use visitor motivations data along with a theory of identity to better understand current audiences and reach new audiences.     

The Citizenship Project Part II: Impact of a Citizenship Intervention on Clinical and Community Outcomes for Persons with Mental Illness and Criminal Justice Involvement

This study assessed the effectiveness of an intervention based on a theoretical framework of citizenship on reducing psychiatric symptoms, alcohol use, and drug use, and increasing quality of life for persons with serious mental illness (SMI) and criminal justice involvement. One-hundred fourteen adults with SMI and a history of criminal justice involvement participated in a 2 × 3 longitudinal randomized controlled trial of a four-month citizenship intervention versus usual services. Linear mixed model analyses were used to assess the intervention’s impact on quality of life, symptoms, and substance use. After controlling for baseline covariates, participants in the experimental condition reported significantly increased quality of life, greater satisfaction with and amount of activity, higher satisfaction with work, and reduced alcohol and drug use over time. However, individuals in the experimental condition also reported increased anxiety/depression and agitation at 6 months (but not 12 months) and significantly increased negative symptoms at 12 months. Findings suggest that community-oriented, citizenship interventions for persons with SMI and criminal justice histories may facilitate improved clinical and community outcomes in some domains, but some negative clinical findings suggest the need for post-intervention support for intervention participants. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.     

Military Sexual Trauma in Treatment-Seeking Women Veterans

As the number of women serving in the military continues to grow, it is increasingly important to explore the sequelae of military sexual trauma (MST) among female veterans. The current study included 232 female veterans who sought outpatient mental health treatment at an urban Veterans Affairs hospital. The study's aims were to (a) describe and compare the demographic characteristics, health behaviors, and psychological symptoms of female veterans who have experienced MST to those veterans who do not report this experience; and (b) examine the associations between psychological symptoms and health behaviors in this sample, stratified by MST status. Results indicate that treatment-seeking women veterans who reported experiencing MST endorsed more psychological distress compared to those who did not report experiencing MST. In addition, psychological symptoms were associated with engaging in problematic health behaviors, such as binge eating and infrequent physical exercise among both those women who experienced MST and those who did not.     

Nietzsche’s ‘Anti-Naturalism’ in ‘The Four Great Errors’

Abstract

This paper is primarily a response to ‘analytically-minded’ philosophers, such as Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter, who push for a ‘naturalistic’ interpretation of Nietzsche. In particular, this paper will consider Leiter’s (2007 Leiter, B. 2007. Nietzsche’s Theory of the Will. Philosophers’ Imprint, 7(7): 1–15.  [Google Scholar]) discussion of Nietzsche’s chapter in Twilight of the Idols, ‘The Four Great Errors’, and argue that Leiter has misinterpreted this chapter in at least four ways. I provide a superior interpretation of this chapter, which argues that Nietzsche is using a transcendental style of argument to argue against a common conception of causation. I argue that Nietzsche’s ultimate aim of this chapter is to argue for ‘the innocence of becoming’ rather than, as Leiter claims, the error of free will. I argue that this anti-naturalist methodology and conclusion are in tension with Leiter/Clark’s Nietzsche, and highlights the need to pay attention to the being/becoming distinction in Nietzsche.     

Links Between Antisocial Behavior and Depressed Mood: The Role of Life Events and Attributional Style

Comorbidity between antisocial behavior and depression in adolescence is widely recognized. This paper examines whether links with depressed mood differ among three subtypes of antisocial behavior: oppositionality, physical aggression and delinquency. In addition we examine two possible contributors to these links: negative life events that are dependent upon the individual's actions and depressogenic attributional style. Data are drawn from the G1219 large-scale community twin and sibling sample, and include 2409 questionnaire responses from youths aged between 13 and 19 living in the United Kingdom. Depressed mood was independently associated with both oppositionality and delinquency, but not with physical aggression. Dependent negative life events were strongly implicated in the association between delinquency and depressed mood, whereas depressogenic attributional style was implicated in the associations of both oppositionality and delinquency with depressed mood. Oppositionality remained a significant predictor of depressed mood after accounting for attributional style and life events whereas delinquency did not. The pattern of associations was largely similar in boys and girls. We discuss these results in terms of developmental models of the links between antisocial behavior and depressed mood.     

Attentional disregulation: a benefit for implicit memory

The authors investigated the effect of age and time of testing on the ability to control attention and addressed the possibility that older adults' susceptibility to distraction may sometimes facilitate performance on a later cognitive task. Using a modification of a G. Rees, C. Russell, C. D. Frith, and J. Driver (1999) procedure, the authors asked the participants to make same or different judgments on line drawings superimposed with task-irrelevant letter strings. Memory for the distractors was subsequently tested with an implicit memory task. Both older and young adults demonstrated greater memory for distractors at nonoptimal times of day than at optimal times of day; however, older adults showed considerably better memory for the distractors than did young adults.     

Generating animal and tool names: an fMRI study of effective connectivity

The present fMRI study of semantic fluency for animal and tool names provides further evidence for category-specific brain activations, and reports task-related changes in effective connectivity among defined cerebral regions. Two partially segregated systems of functional integration were highlighted: the tool condition was associated with an enhancement of connectivity within left hemispheric regions, including the inferior prefrontal and premotor cortex, the inferior parietal lobule and the temporo-occipital junction; the animal condition was associated with greater coupling among left visual associative regions. These category-specific functional differences extend the evidence for anatomical specialization to lexical search tasks, and provide for the first time evidence of category-specific patterns of functional integration in word-retrieval.     

Labor supply and consumption of food in a closed economy under a range of fixed- and random-ratio schedules: tests of unit price

The behavioral economic concept of unit price predicts that consumption and response output (labor supply) are determined by the unit price at which a good is available regardless of the value of the cost and benefit components of the unit price ratio. Experiment 1 assessed 4 pigeons' consumption and response output at a range of unit prices. In one condition, food was available according to a range of fixed-ratio schedules, whereas in the other condition, food was available according to a range of random-ratio schedules. Consistent with unit price predictions, consumption and response output were approximately equivalent across schedule types within the lower range of unit prices. However, at Unit Prices 64 (ratio value = 192) and greater, considerably more consumption and response output were observed in the random-ratio condition. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with 4 pigeons using the rapid demand curve assay procedure that is commonly used in the behavioral economics literature. Findings are integrated with two mathematical models of behavior under variable reinforcer delays.     

Reading problems and depressed mood

Although reading difficulties show well-established overlaps with disruptive behavior disorders in childhood, much less is known about reading-disabled children's vulnerability to emotional difficulties. Using longitudinal data from 6 assessments of boys in the Pittsburgh Youth Study, we found robust links between severe, persistent reading problems and increased risk for depressed mood in a community sample of boys aged 7 and 10 years at initial assessment, though not in those who had already entered their teens. These associations could not be accounted for in terms of selected family risks or comorbid disruptive behaviors; instead, the pattern of the findings pointed to the existence of more direct causal processes whereby reading problems influence younger boys' risk of depressed mood.