The <Emphasis Type="Italic">Community Supports for Wraparound Inventory</Emphasis>: An Assessment of the Implementation Context for Wraparound

The wraparound process has emerged as perhaps the most frequently implemented comprehensive approach for planning and providing individualized, community-based care for children and adolescents with serious mental health conditions. Providing comprehensive care through the wraparound process necessarily requires a high level of collaboration across organization and agency boundaries. This need for significant inter-agency or “system-level” collaboration creates a complex implementation environment for wraparound. It is therefore not surprising that creating and sustaining a hospitable implementation environment has proven to be extremely challenging. For the people who are responsible for managing the inter-organizational collaboration, it is not easy to evaluate the adequacy of local system-level support for wraparound and to see exactly what kinds of supports are lacking or where system-development efforts should focus. Furthermore, as system-development strategies are put into practice, it can be difficult to assess whether or not meaningful progress is occurring. The Community Supports for Wraparound Inventory (CSWI) was developed to respond to the need for an assessment of the extent to which a community has developed system-level capacity to implement wraparound. This article reports on a study that evaluated the reliability and validity of the CSWI for use in communities implementing wraparound. Findings indicate that the CSWI shows promise as a reliable, valid and useful tool.     

Time scale similarity and long-term memory for autobiographical events

We examine the extent to which retrieval from very long-term autobiographical memory is similar when participants are asked to retrieve from widely differing periods of time. Three groups of 20 participants were given 4 min to recall autobiographical events from the last 5 weeks, 5 months, or 5 years. Following recall, the participants dated their events. Similar retrieval rates, relative recency effects, and relative lag-recency effects were found, despite the fact that the considered time scales varied by a factor of 52. These data are broadly consistent with the principle of recency, the principle of contiguity (Howard & Kahana, 2002), and scale similarity in the rates of recall (Brown, Neath, & Chater, 2007; Maylor, Chater, & Brown, 2001). These findings are taken as support for models of memory that predict time scale similarity in retrieval, such as SIMPLE (Brown et al., 2007) and TCM (Howard & Kahana, 2002).     

What the experimenter’s prime tells the observer’s brain

The presentation of a stimulus below the threshold of conscious awareness can exert an influence on the processing of a subsequent target. One such consequence of briefly presented “primes” is seen in the negative compatibility effect. The response time (RT) to determine the left—right orientation of an arrow (i.e., the target) is relatively slow if a prime is also an arrow whose direction corresponds to that of the target. When the direction of the arrow is opposite that of the prime, RTs are relatively fast. In four experiments, we examined whether the prime shifts attention from the location of the subsequent target and whether this attention shift influences target processing. Results showed that the prime does indeed move attention. The consequence of this attention movement is that the representation of direction is affected. Specifically, RTs to process an arrow are shorter if the arrow’s direction is compatible with the last shift of attention. Furthermore, this interference occurs at a conceptual level concerning the representation of left and right rather than at the motor planning level. We argue that a shift in attention brought about by the prime can create a negative compatibility-like effect.     

Replication and p Intervals: p Values Predict the Future Only Vaguely, but Confidence Intervals Do Much Better

ABSTRACT— Replication is fundamental to science, so statistical analysis should give information about replication. Because p values dominate statistical analysis in psychology, it is important to ask what p says about replication. The answer to this question is "Surprisingly little." In one simulation of 25 repetitions of a typical experiment, p varied from <.001 to .76, thus illustrating that p is a very unreliable measure. This article shows that, if an initial experiment results in two-tailed p = .05, there is an 80% chance the one-tailed p value from a replication will fall in the interval (.00008, .44), a 10% chance that p < .00008, and fully a 10% chance that p > .44. Remarkably, the interval—termed a p interval —is this wide however large the sample size. p is so unreliable and gives such dramatically vague information that it is a poor basis for inference. Confidence intervals, however, give much better information about replication. Researchers should minimize the role of p by using confidence intervals and model-fitting techniques and by adopting meta-analytic thinking.     

Attentional and automatic processes in line tracing: is tracing obligatory?

When comparing two target elements placed on the same convoluted curve, response times are dependent on the distance between the targets along the curve, despite being separated by a constant Euclidean distance. The present study assessed whether such line tracing is obligatory across the whole of the line even when the task demands do not require it, or whether it is an optional strategy that can be disregarded when the circumstances favor a different method of attentional deployment. Three experiments were conducted to assess whether attention can select only a portion of a curve to trace when it is strategically sensible to do so. The results suggest that attention can indeed jump over portions of a line that are irrelevant to task performance before tracing has begun. However, the final experiment suggests that line tracing may continue beyond the task-relevant portion of the line. We conclude that line tracing is a strategy whose initial deployment can be influenced by top-down factors, rather than an obligatory response triggered by the stimuli-although, once engaged, line tracing may be hard to stop.     

Temporally selective attention modulates early perceptual processing: event-related potential evidence

Some of the most important information we encounter changes so rapidly that our perceptual systems cannot process all of it in detail. Spatially selective attention is critical for perception when more information than can be processed in detail is presented simultaneously at distinct locations. When presented with complex, rapidly changing information, listeners may need to selectively attend to specific times rather than to locations. We present evidence that listeners can direct selective attention to time points that differ by as little as 500 msec, and that doing so improves target detection, affects baseline neural activity preceding stimulus presentation, and modulates auditory evoked potentials at a perceptually early stage. These data demonstrate that attentional modulation of early perceptual processing is temporally precise and that listeners can flexibly allocate temporally selective attention over short intervals, making it a viable mechanism for preferentially processing the most relevant segments in rapidly changing streams.     

Onset of illusory figures attenuates change blindness

We examined whether the onset of a new object defined by illusory contours is detected with greater frequency than offset when neither is associated with a unique sensory transient. Observers performed a “one-shot” change detection task in which offsetting or onsetting elements of high luminance contrast circles generated the appearance or disappearance of a Kanizsa figure. Presenting “illusory figures” via this “flicker” method ensures that (1) any unique luminance transients associated with the two types of change are eliminated, and (2) the objects themselves can only be represented at a relatively high level. Results showed that offsets were detected more frequently than onsets only when they generated the onset of a Kanizsa figure. We argue that object appearance dominates object disappearance via mechanisms that operate at the level at which objects are constructed.     

The epistemic-teleologic model of deliberate self-persuasion.

Although past theory and research point to the importance of understanding deliberate self-persuasion (i.e., deliberate self-induced attitude change), there have been no empirical and theoretical efforts to model this process. This article proposes a new model to help understand the process, while comparing the process of deliberate self-persuasion with relevant theory and research. The core feature of this model is a distinction between epistemic processes, which involve attempting to form new valid attitudes, and teleologic processes, which involve self-induced attitude change but with minimal concerns for validity. The epistemic processes employ tactics of reinterpretation, reattribution, reintegration, retesting, changing comparators, and changing dimensions of comparison. The teleologic processes include suppression, preemption, distraction, and concentration. By mapping these processes, this model helps to generate many novel and testable hypotheses about the use of deliberate self-persuasion to cope with ambivalent attitudes.     

Examining the relationship between free recall and immediate serial recall: Similar patterns of rehearsal and similar effects of word length,presentation rate,and articulatory suppression

In five experiments, rehearsal and recall phenomena were examined using the free recall and immediate serial recall (ISR) tasks. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with lists of eight words, were precued or postcued to respond using free recall or ISR, and rehearsed out loud during presentation. The patterns of rehearsal were similar in all the conditions, and there was little difference between recall in the precued and postcued conditions. In Experiment 2, both free recall and ISR were sensitive to word length and presentation rate and showed similar patterns of rehearsal. In Experiment 3, both tasks were sensitive to word length and articulatory suppression. The word length effects generalized to 6-item (Experiment 4) and 12-item (Experiment 5) lists. These findings suggest that the two tasks are underpinned by highly similar rehearsal and recall processes.     

Stepping Stones Triple P: An RCT of a Parenting Program with Parents of a Child Diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder

Whilst the Triple P Positive Parenting Program has a large evidence base (Sanders, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 2:71–90, 1999; Sanders, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 68:624–640, 2000) and preliminary evidence indicates that Stepping Stones Triple P is also efficacious (Roberts, Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 35(2):180–193, 2006), to date Stepping Stones has not been evaluated with the ASD population. Fifty-nine families with a child with ASD aged between 2 and 9 participated in this randomized controlled trial. The results demonstrate significant improvements in parental reports of child behaviour and parenting styles with the treatment effects for child behaviour, parental over reactivity and parental verbosity being maintained at follow-up 6 months later. Further, the results suggest significant improvements in parental satisfaction and conflict about parenting as well as a sleeper effect for parental efficacy. The results indicate that Stepping Stones Triple P is a promising intervention for parents of children with ASD. Limitations and future research are also addressed.