The 2014 Agreed Statement on Christology of the Churches of the Anglican Communion and the Oriental Orthodox Churches: a Catholic review

This article discusses the sources of the 2014 Agreed Statement on Christology, which include not only the 433 Formula of Union and the teaching of St Cyril of Alexandria but also some language from the Council of Chalcedon (451), the Second Council of Constantinople (553), and the Third Council of Constantinople (680–681). It also examines the rejection of Eutychianism and Nestorianism, as well as the Anglican Christology represented by Richard Hooker and the firm connection drawn between the hypostatic union and Christ’s work of salvation. The article also presents the text in comparison and contrast with two Christological declarations shared by the Roman Catholic Church and the Coptic Pope Shenouda III (1973) and the Assyrian Church of the East (1994).     

The Role of Non-Numerical Stimulus Features in Approximate Number System Training in Preschoolers from Low-Income Homes

Recent findings have suggested that adults’ and children’s approximate number system (ANS) acuity may be malleable through training, but research on ANS acuity has largely been conducted with adults and children who are from middle- to high-income homes. We conducted 2 experiments to test the malleability of ANS acuity in preschool-aged children from low-income homes and to test how non-numerical stimulus features affected performance. In Experiment 1, mixed-effects models indicated that children significantly improved their ratio achieved across training. Children’s change in probability of responding correctly across sessions was qualified by an interaction with surface area features of the arrays such that children improved their probability of answering correctly across sessions on trials in which numerosity conflicted with the total surface area of object sets significantly more than on trials in which total surface area positively correlated with numerosity. In Experiment 2, we found that children who completed ANS acuity training performed better on an ANS acuity task compared with children in a control group, but they only did so on ANS acuity trials in which numerosity conflicted with the total surface area of object sets. These findings suggest that training affects ANS acuity in children from low-income homes by fostering an ability to focus on numerosity in the face of conflicting non-numerical stimulus features.     

Development of egocentric and allocentric spatial representations from childhood to elderly age

Spatial reference frames are fundamental to represent the position of objects or places. Although research has reported changes in spatial memory abilities during childhood and elderly age, no study has assessed reference frames processing during the entire lifespan using the same task. Here, we aimed at providing some preliminary data on the capacity to process reference frames in 283 healthy participants from 6 to 89 years of age. A spatial memory task requiring egocentric/allocentric verbal judgments about objects in peri-/extrapersonal space was used. The main goals were: (1) tracing a baseline of the normal process of development of these spatial components; (2) clarifying if reference frames are differently vulnerable to age-related effects. Results showed a symmetry between children of 6–7 years and older people of 80–89 years who were slower and less accurate than all other age groups. As regards processing time, age had a strong effect on the allocentric component, especially in extrapersonal space, with a longer time in 6- to 7-year-old children and 80- to 89-year-old adults. The egocentric component looked less affected by aging. Regarding the level of spatial ability (accuracy), the allocentric ability appeared less sensitive to age-related variations, whereas the egocentric ability progressively improved from 8 years and declined from 60 years. The symmetry in processing time and level of spatial ability is discussed in relation to the development of executive functions and to the structural and functional changes due to incomplete maturation (in youngest children) and deterioration (in oldest adults) of underlying cerebral areas.     

Common Factors Come Alive: Practical Strategies for Implementing Common Factors in MFT Training

Presently, MFT training programs teach MFT models in a way that emphasizes differences over similarities (Karam et al. in J Marital Fam Ther, 2015. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12096; Sprenkle and Blow in J Marital Fam Ther 30:113–129, 2004a. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2004.tb01228.x, in J Marital Fam Ther 30:151–157, b. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-0606.2004.tb01230.x; Sprenkle et al. in Common factors in couple and family therapy: the overlooked foundation for effective practice. Guilford Press, New York, 2009). Although teaching a variety of models and their distinctiveness is vital, doing so may create a competitive rather than integrative relationship between models (Karam et al. 2015). While Karam et al. 2015 encourage the inclusion of common factors in MFT training, we expand their justification for the importance of doing so We also explain conceptual and practical ways to include common factors in MFT training. Common factors instruction can fulfill multiple purposes: (a) create a sense of cohesiveness for programs which need to teach breadth of topics that can seem unrelated, (b) help prepare practitioners who need to learn many models well but will likely adopt an integrative approach, (c) align with basic skills training, (d) align with process research, and (e) enhance the richness of individual models. For each of these purposes, we provide an example of a classroom activity. We conclude with a unifying example of how one student may learn the common-factors perspective and weave it into her reflective practices as an MFT student.     

Childhood Interrupted: A Story of Loss,Separation, and Reconciliation

This essay presents a story of personal loss and childhood trauma experienced by the author in 1968. Written in autoethnographic form, the author narrates a particular time in his life when he lost his hearing and subsequently experienced “disrupted attachment”(Becker, 1997 Becker, G. (1997). Disrupted lives: How people create meaning in a chaotic world. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]) caused by forced separation from family on the day he began life at a residential school for deaf children. Forty-six years later, the author weaves together a narrative of loss and trauma followed by his own reflections, showing how he used writing conversation as a source of healing that allowed him reconcile with his past.     

Naming times and standardized norms for the italian PD/DPSS set of 266 pictures: Direct comparisons with American, English, French, and Spanish published databases

The present study provides Italian normative measures for 266 line drawings belonging to the new set of pictures developed by Lotto, Dell’Acqua, and Job (in press). The pictures have been standardized on the following measures: number of letters, number of syllables, name frequency, within-category typicality, familiarity, age of acquisition, name agreement, and naming time. In addition to providing the measures, the present study focuses on indirect and direct comparisons (i.e., correlations) of the present norms with databases provided by comparable studies in Italian (in which normative data were collected with Snodgrass & Vanderwart’s set of pictures; Nisi, Longoni, & Snodgrass, 2000), in British English (Barry, Morrison, & Ellis, 1997), in American English (Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980; Snodgrass & Yuditsky, 1996), in French (Alario & Ferrand, 1999), and in Spanish (Sanfeliu & Fernandez, 1996).     

Blocking cholesterol synthesis impairs acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response

Smith-Lemli-Opitz (SLO) syndrome is a congenital disorder characterized by severe mental retardation. Patients with SLO lack 7-dehydrocholesterol (7 dH) reductase, which catalyzes the last step of cholesterol synthesis. Administration of an agent that blocks 7 dH cholesterol reductase, BM 15.966 (BM), leads to a biochemical profile which resembles that of SLO patients, i.e., lower plasma, live and brain cholesterol levels accompanied by the appearance of the precursors 7 dH and 8 dH cholesterol. In this article we address the functional consequences of chronic BM treatment on new motor learning by assessing acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response. Just-weaned rats were fed BM by gavage for four months, with half of these rats given exogenous cholesterol during the last two months of BM treatment. Acquisition of the eyeblink response was impaired in BM-treated rats. Impaired acquisition of the eyeblink response was not accompanied by alterations in responsiveness to either the conditioned or unconditioned stimulus. Exogenous cholesterol, a clinically relevant countertreatment, failed to correct for the learning impairment produced by BM treatment. Chronic treatment with a cholesterol synthesis-blocking agent impaired associative learning in just-weaned rats.     

Generalization of Supermarket Shopping Skills for Individuals with Mild Intellectual Disabilities Using Stimulus Equivalence Training

The Psychological Record - We developed an intervention to promote generalization in an applied community setting. The intervention was derived primarily from experimental research examining...