Children's memory of events: effects of stress,age, time delay and location of interview

To examine the ability of children aged between 4 and 12 years to recall a stressful event (venipuncture) compared with a non-stressful event (demonstration of venipuncture), recall was tested after 6–8 weeks. Half also had recall tested after 2–7 days. Testing took place where the stressful event occurred (n=122) or at a neutral location (n=127). Children who experienced the stressful event were less likely to give inaccurate responses in free recall or to acquiesce to suggestive misleading questions. Apart from incorrect responses in free recall, correct responses increased and incorrect responses decreased with increasing age. Recall after 2–7 days was superior to recall after 6–8 weeks. Those who had an early and a late interview had better recall at the late interview than those who had a late interview only. The location of interview showed no effects on recall. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relation between infants' self/mother knowledge and three attachment categories

The relation between attachment and knowledge of self and mother was assessed in 1-to 2-year-old infants. Infant behavior in the Strange Situation was classified according to three attachment categories: secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant. Infants' featural knowledge was measured by featural recognition, name, possession, and gender. Infants who were securely or resistantly attached had significantly more complex knowledge of mother than self, whereas avoidantly attached infants did not differ in the complexity of knowledge of self and mother. Securely attached infants had more complex self-knowledge than both categories of insecurely attached infants. In contrast, avoidantly attached infants had less complex knowledge of mother than did securely or resistantly attached infants. These data are discussed in the context of how infants' strategies of coping with stress are related to the acquisition of self- and mother-knowledge.     

Connection and separation in the infant-mother dyad: Patterns of touch and use of interpersonal space

Infant-mother boundaries were operationalized in terms of body-to-body contact and use of interpersonal space. The unit of observation was the infant-mother dyad. Infants between the ages of 12 and 24 months and their mothers were observed in three situations: self- and mother-recognition tasks, and the free-play and second reunion episodes of the Strange Situation. Infant-mother touch and the pattern of proximity-distality were principally determined by context of interaction; and, in the more stressful and more structured situations, the connection-separation balance favored connection, whereas in the free-play situation the balance favored separation. Infant-mother touch and use of interpersonal space were not found to be isomorphic to attachment; in addition, attachment interacted with age and gender of the infant to describe level of connection-separation. Results are discussed in the context of working models of the relationship and formation of boundaries.     

Anxiety, anxiety disorders, tobacco use, and nicotine: a critical review of interrelationships

Smoking is highly prevalent across most anxiety disorders. Tobacco use increases risk for the later development of certain anxiety disorders, and smokers with anxiety disorders have more severe withdrawal symptoms during smoking cessation than smokers without anxiety disorders. The authors critically examined the relationships among anxiety, anxiety disorders, tobacco use, and nicotine dependence and reviewed the existing empirical literature. Future research is needed to better understand the interrelationships among these variables, including predictors, moderators, and mechanisms of action. Increased knowledge in these areas should inform prevention efforts as well as the development and improvement of smoking cessation programs for those with anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.     

Beyond the forest and the trees: local and global interference in hierarchical visual stimuli containing three levels

Our visual world can be thought of as organised in a hierarchical manner. Studies on hierarchical letter stimuli (a large letter composed of smaller letters) suggest that processing of a visual scene is global to local, a phenomenon known as the global-precedence effect. Elaborating on this global-to-local hypothesis we tested whether global interference will increase with increasing level of globality. For this, we used three-level hierarchical letter stimuli with a global, middle, and local level. When attending to the local level of the stimulus, only the middle level showed an interference effect, whereas the global level did not interfere at all. We argue that, considering the perceptual and attentional contributions to this effect, the hypothesis of global-to-local processing of a visual scene may only hold within a limited spatial attentional window.     

Word acquisition, retention, and transfer: findings from contextual and isolated word training

Successful reading instruction entails not only acquiring new words but also remembering them after training has finished and accessing their word-specific representations when they are encountered in new text. We report two studies demonstrating that acquisition, retention, and transfer of unfamiliar words were affected differentially by isolated word and context training. Materials were individualized to include only those words that average readers in second grade were unable to name in context. Different words were trained in each condition; context training presented words in stories, and isolated word training presented words on flashcards. Together, the studies show that context training promotes word acquisition beyond that experienced from reading words in isolation. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, memory performance for words trained in context and in isolation did not differ; children demonstrated excellent retention over an 8-day interval in both conditions. Finally, transfer was maximized when the congruency between training and testing was high. Therefore, when reading trained words in novel circumstances, the best method of training was mediated by the transfer task employed at test.     

A cluster analysis of the circumstances of death in suicides in Hong Kong

Classification of suicides is essential for clinicians to better identify self-harm patients with future suicidal risks. This study examined potential subtypes of suicide in a psychological autopsy sample (N = 148) in Hong Kong. Hierarchical cluster analysis extracted two subgroups of subjects in terms of expressed deliberation assessed by the Beck Suicide Intent Scale (SIS). The first group was associated with charcoal burning suicide, no psychiatric illness, indebtedness, better problem-solving ability, chronic stress, and higher overall SIS scores. The second group was associated with jumping from a height, psychotic disorders, psychiatric treatment, acute stress, and lower overall SIS score. The existence of a substantial cluster of subjects with lower expressed intent and preparation has important implications for the performance of the SIS as a predictive tool. Suicide prevention strategy may have to target potential subgroups with specific approaches.     

Political Correctness: the Twofold Protection of Liberalism

Philosophia - As understood today, political correctness aims at preventing social discrimination by curtailing offensive speech and behaviour towards underprivileged groups of...     

The Cultural Adaptation of a Transition Program for Latino Families of Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder

During the transition to adulthood, effective and culturally relevant supports are critical for families of youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). There is a dearth of documented program development and research on supports for Spanish-speaking Latino families during this life stage. The present work describes the cultural adaptation process of an evidence-based transition program for Latino families of youth with ASD. A model of the actions necessary to meaningfully conduct a cultural adaptation in this context is described. After implementing the culturally adapted program titled Juntos en la Transición with five Spanish-speaking families, parents reported high social validity of the program through surveys and interviews. The cultural adaptation process followed in this work is important for the further development of programs that address the transition needs of Latino youth with ASD and their families. Our impressions may also be useful to those who aim to develop culturally sensitive and ecologically valid multifamily group intervention programs for families from cultural and linguistic minority groups.     

Onsets and rimes in a phonologically transparent orthography: differences between good and poor beginning readers of Dutch.

This study investigates whether beginning readers of Dutch develop onset-rime units when these units are emphasized in their reading method, even when the orthography is transparent at the grapheme-phoneme level. The speed of naming intact pseudowords (wot) was compared with the speed of naming pseudowords with an onset-rime (w ot) or body-coda (wo t) segmentation. Whereas body-coda items consistently slowed down naming for both good and poor readers, the onset-rime effect covaried with reading skill: it changed from inhibitory for good readers to facilitatory for poor readers. Two alternative explanations are proposed.