The Construct Validity of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for Aboriginal Children Living in Urban New South Wales,Australia

The current study explores the construct validity of the standard Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for Aboriginal children living in urban communities in New South Wales, Australia. Parent report SDQ data from the first 717 Aboriginal children aged 4–17 years who participated in the baseline survey of the Study of Environment on Aboriginal Resilience and Child Health were analysed. The overall construct validity of the SDQ in our sample was acceptable but not “good.” The internal consistency reliability was excellent overall and good for all subscales with the exception of peer problems, a concept that may have a different significance for urban Aboriginal parents. Removing the peer relationships subscale, however, did not improve the fit of the model. The convergent validity of the SDQ was good. The prosocial behaviours scale and both the peer and conduct problems scales were highly correlated suggesting Aboriginal parents conceptualise these differently and that prosocial behaviours may be considered a key indicator of well‐being for Aboriginal children. Overall, the SDQ is a promising tool for urban Aboriginal children in New South Wales. Those working with Aboriginal young people should focus on the SDQ total difficulties score and limit their reliance on the peer relationships subscale.     

Tele‐web Psychology in Rural South Australia: The Logistics of Setting Up a Remote University Clinic Staffed by Clinical Psychologists in Training

There is a significant shortage of clinical psychology services in rural and remote Australia. It is proposed that tele‐web psychology may provide one potential solution to this inequity in health provision. A tele‐web psychology project was developed through a partnership between a university and country health service setting in rural South Australia. Tele‐web psychology was conducted by Provisional Psychologists on their first clinical placement, with patients attending sessions in a community mental health team hub in a regional centre north of Adelaide. This article describes the logistics of setting up a collaborative tele‐web psychology service and makes recommendations on how to expedite the success of this type of venture.     

Sleep Disturbances Among Combat Military Veterans: A Comparative Study Using Subjective and Objective Sleep Assessments

The sleep characteristics of 37 military veterans and active-duty service members (17 with PTSD and 20 without PTSD) of recent wars were analyzed to determine if combat deployment, with its associated sleep restriction, may be an alternative explanation for the sleep complaints found among combat veterans with PTSD (as determined by PTSD Checklist Military Version scores). Over a 1-week period, sleep data were collected using sleep actigraphy and self-report. Across the entire sample, subjective and objective assessment methods of sleep were strongly correlated, although there were some notable within-group differences. Specifically, although sleep duration between groups did not differ based on actigraphy, veterans without PTSD reported sleeping 1 h and 11 min (p = .002) longer than did veterans with PTSD. In an effort to determine why individuals without PTSD might be overreporting sleep, we found that symptoms of emotional arousal (anger, anxiety, and nightmares) were significantly correlated with self-reported sleep duration, suggesting a pattern of higher autonomic arousal found in veterans with PTSD. Thus, although sleeping for 6 h, the higher levels of emotional arousal reported by veterans with PTSD may mean that they do not perceive their sleep as restful. Further research is necessary to determine if the sleep architecture of veterans with PTSD is actually different from that of combat veterans without PTSD and if such differences are actually amenable to standard behavioral treatments for this disorder.     

The Protective Value of Hardiness on Military Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

This study examined the protective effects of hardiness (dispositional resilience) on self-reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a sample of postdeployed service members. Hardiness was negatively related to PTSD symptoms. Time in the military, number of deployments, and total time spent on deployment were all positively related to PTSD symptoms. Hardiness moderated the effects of time in the military on PTSD symptoms, such that time in the military had no effect on those who were high in hardiness. Hardiness did not moderate the effects of either deployment measure. Suggestions to modify current military resilience training programs to most effectively enhance the benefits of hardiness are discussed.     

Sociodemographic risk and early environmental factors that contribute to resilience in executive control: A factor mixture model of 3-year-olds

Young children at sociodemographic risk generally demonstrate lower executive control (EC), although with substantial heterogeneity across children. Given this marked variability, there may be some at-risk children who display higher EC and may be buffered from or resilient to the effects of sociodemographic risk who can be studied to identify the contributory factors. In this study, factor mixture modelling was used to determine whether subgroups of 3-year-old children existed based on their observed performance on a battery of EC tasks. Results indicated 2 latent groups: One characterized by lower EC and the other by higher EC. Both sociodemographically at-risk and low-risk children were represented in each group, yielding 4 risk-status-by-EC groups, where at-risk higher EC children were termed the resilient group. Proximal household enrichment (e.g., exposure to learning materials, varied enriching experiences, academic and language stimulation, parental responsivity) distinguished the resilient group from lower performing children of similar risk status, whereas distal financial resources and proximal social network resources did not distinguish these two groups. Results suggest potential intervention targets to promote optimal EC development, particularly among children at risk.     

The Hippocampus and Delayed Recall: Bigger is not Necessarily Better?

Healthy young female participants were tested on a measure of delayed verbal recall and then received volumetric Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans. The analysis of the MRI scans focused on the volume of the hippocampus. Left hippocampal volume was negatively associated with the level of delayed verbal recall performance. This relationship was confirmed in further testing. This finding is consistent with a previous report of a similar relationship in healthy elderly individuals, but not in patients with Alzheimer's disease, in whom the opposite relationship was observed. An explanation of these findings in terms of impaired neural pruning of the hippocampus is advanced, whereby insufficient pruning of the hippocampus during childhood and adolescence (following adequate growth) may lead to reduced mnemonic efficiency.     

Internal feature saliency as a marker of familiarity and configural processing

Two experiments that explore the internal feature advantage (IFA) in familiar face processing are reported. The IFA involves more efficient processing of internal features for familiar faces over unfamiliar ones. Experiment 1 examined the possibility of a configural basis for this effect through use of a matching task for familiar and unfamiliar faces presented both upright and upside-down. Results revealed the predicted IFA for familiar faces when stimuli were upright, but this was removed when stimuli were inverted. Experiment 2 examined the degree of training required before the IFA was demonstrated. Latency results revealed that whilst 90–180 s of exposure was sufficient to generate an IFA of intermediate magnitude, 180–270 s of exposure was required before the IFA was equivalent to that demonstrated for a familiar face. Taken together, these results offer three conclusions: First, the IFA is reaffirmed as an objective indicator of familiarity; second, the IFA is seen to rest on configural processing; and finally, the development of the IFA with familiarity indicates a development of configural processing with familiarity. As such, insight is gained as to the type of processing changes that occur as familiarity is gradually acquired.     

Creativity and Sex Composition: An Experimental Illustration

An experiment is reported in which the effect of sex composition on the creativity of brainstorming groups is investigated. It was hypothesized that mixed sex groups would be more creative than either homogeneous male or homogeneous female groups. Fifteen groups, consisting of four members each two males and two females; four females; four males, took part in the experiment. The experimenter noted the number of ideas generated per person, as well as the different associations with these ideas, and the number of different angles from which the task was approached. After finishing the exercise, subjects completed a post-experimental questionnaire. Results show that heterogeneous groups produced more creative outcomes than homogeneous groups. Also, they rated their process more positively. These findings are discussed in relation to the type of task used, and in relation to the general notion that heterogeneous groups are likely to produce more creative outcomes yet suffer from more process problems as compared to homogeneous groups.