Infant crying and parent–infant interaction: Theory and measurement

Infant crying is frequently quantified as a primary dependent variable in studies where the goal is to understand and soothe infant crying within the context of the parent–infant relationship. Through a historical review and an examination of studies and measurement techniques, the utility of quantifying infant crying is discussed. Although duration and timing of infant crying may be a practical concern for families and health professionals, the effectiveness of soothing interventions may not be best examined by attempts to measure unit reductions in infant crying. Rather, developing an understanding of infant crying within the context of parent–infant relationships may have more utility. Understanding infant crying in context may provide direction to the selection of soothing interventions and to more appropriate measures of the effectiveness of such interventions. ©1999 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Die vielen Gesichter der primär progredienten Aphasie

psychopraxis. neuropraxis - Primär Progrediente Aphasien (PPA) präsentieren sich initial in Form von Defiziten in der Sprache und im Sprechen. Meist betrifft dies...     

Research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: A call to action for psychological science

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) that has caused the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represents the greatest international biopsychosocial emergency the world has faced for a century, and psychological science has an integral role to offer in helping societies recover. The aim of this paper is to set out the shorter- and longer-term priorities for research in psychological science that will (a) frame the breadth and scope of potential contributions from across the discipline; (b) enable researchers to focus their resources on gaps in knowledge; and (c) help funders and policymakers make informed decisions about future research priorities in order to best meet the needs of societies as they emerge from the acute phase of the pandemic. The research priorities were informed by an expert panel convened by the British Psychological Society that reflects the breadth of the discipline; a wider advisory panel with international input; and a survey of 539 psychological scientists conducted early in May 2020. The most pressing need is to research the negative biopsychosocial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to facilitate immediate and longer-term recovery, not only in relation to mental health, but also in relation to behaviour change and adherence, work, education, children and families, physical health and the brain, and social cohesion and connectedness. We call on psychological scientists to work collaboratively with other scientists and stakeholders, establish consortia, and develop innovative research methods while maintaining high-quality, open, and rigorous research standards.     

Investigating the Relationships Between Mobility Behaviours and Indicators of Subjective Well-Being Using Smartphone-Based Experience Sampling and GPS Tracking

People interact with their physical environments every day by visiting different places and moving between them. Such mobility behaviours likely influence and are influenced by people's subjective well-being. However, past research examining the links between mobility behaviours and well-being has been inconclusive. Here, we provide a comprehensive investigation of these relationships by examining individual differences in two types of mobility behaviours (movement patterns and places visited) and their relationship to six indicators of subjective well-being (depression, loneliness, anxiety, stress, affect, and energy) at two different temporal levels of analysis (two-week tendencies and daily level). Using data from a large smartphone-based longitudinal study (N = 1765), we show that (i) movement patterns assessed via GPS data (distance travelled, entropy, and irregularity) and (ii) places visited assessed via experience sampling reports (home, work, and social places) are associated with subjective well-being at the between and within person levels. Our findings suggest that distance travelled is related to anxiety, affect, and stress, irregularity is related to depression and loneliness, and spending time in social places is negatively associated with loneliness. We discuss the implications of our work and highlight directions for future research on the generalizability to other populations as well as the characteristics of places. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Research report: A preliminary analysis of medical futility decisionmaking: law and professional attitudes

Judicial decisions reviewed in this article indicate that courts have taken two disparate approaches to disputes over futility of treatment. To explore whether a consensus on medical futility is developing among hospitals, the authors conducted a nationwide survey of health care professionals at hospitals. Respondents assigned importance ratings to factors used in recent futility decisions made at their institutions. The resulting importance ratings showed significant variation by characteristics of the institution (comparing respondents from for-profit, not-for-profit, and government hospitals) and by profession of the respondent (comparing physicians and nurses). The respondents' judgments endorsed three distinct strategies for making futility decisions (i.e., emphasis on the patient's decision preferences, providing for the patient and family, and adhering to objective medical and social norms). © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Outcome evaluation in brief mother-infant psychotherapies: Report on 75 cases

The effects of brief mother–infant psychotherapies (maximum of 10 sessions) were examined in cases of functional and behavioral disturbances in children less than 30 months old. Seventy-five mother-infant dyads were assessed prior to treatment, at 1 week, and 6 months after therapy ended. The outcome measures were changes in the infant's symptoms, the behavioral interactions between mother and infant, and maternal representations. The effect of two forms of intervention—Psychodynamic Therapy and Interaction Guidance Therapy—were compared. Results indicated a significant symptom reduction; dyadic interactions became more harmonious (mothers became less intrusive and infants more cooperative). Maternal self-esteem grew significantly and negative affects decreased. Improvements lasted as least several months, with some positive improvement detected at the 6-month follow-up. No major difference in outcome was found between the effects of the two forms of intervention. Within the limitations of research in a clinical context, this study suggests that brief mother–infant psychotherapies are a cost-effective method of early intervention.     

Lesbian Youth Support Information Service (LYSIS): Developing a Distance Support Agency for Young Lesbians

The Lesbian Youth Support Information Service (LYSIS) was established in 1991 as a result of research conducted into the needs and experiences of young lesbians. This research found that young lesbians are vulnerable to mental health problems, including depression, attempted suicide, self-harming behaviours and alcohol misuse, as well as isolation and social rejection. There were also strong indications that young lesbians are most vulnerable when they are coming to terms with their sexual orientation. LYSIS offers support to young lesbians in four main ways: correspondence counselling; telephone counselling; peer support; and information. LYSIS is part of an umbrella organization, the Lesbian Information Service (LIS), which provides indirect support for young lesbians including publishing, education and training, projects and campaigning.     

Adolescent maternity: A risk factor in poverty situations?

This paper describes the psychosocial characteristics of adolescent mothers living in poverty in urban communities of Uruguay, whose children are now 0 to 5 years old. A sample of 965 mothers representative of the poor urban communities in the entire country was studied. One hundred thirty-six of these mothers were adolescents, 19 years old or younger. Six major areas were explored: socioeconomic status and social support, family characteristics, child-rearing practices, maternal and paternal availability, and characteristics of the child. In the group of children 2 to 5 years of age, psychomotor development was explored using the Test de Desarrollo Psicomotor (TEPSI). Psychosocial risk and child development were compared for adolescent and nonadolescent poor urban mothers. Children in both groups showed negative effects. It was not found that children of adolescent mothers did worse than those of nonadolescent mothers. Therefore, it was concluded that adolescent maternity is a complex phenomenon that cannot be viewed in isolation from the social environment in which it takes place. The results indicated that in poor communities the poverty-related risk factors may obscure the effect of the age-related ones.     

Playground Contexts for Aggression for Preschoolers with Hyperactivity

This study assessed the naturalistic conditions that set the occasion for aggressive behavior in three preschoolers with hyperactivity and aggression (H/A). Peer and teacher responses to preschoolers' aggression were also investigated. For a total of 114 aggressive instances observed, relatively low percentages of aggression in social play with at least one other child were documented. The antecedent condition that was most predictive of aggression was (a) when children were seeking to enter into an activity and were denied entry and (b) when another child interrupted an on-going activity. Aggression was about 14 times greater for seeking/interrupted activity than for ongoing social play. Finally, the percentage of negative responses from peers to aggression on the playground was almost three times the rate documented in past research for preschoolers without hyperactivity.     

Modeling pedagogical interactions with machine learning

Zusammenfassung. Dieser Artikel beschreibt einen Ansatz zur Codierung und Analyse pädagogischer Interaktionen zwischen Lernenden und Experten im Bereich der Luftfahrt-Technik im Rahmen einer intelligenten tutoriellen Lernumgebung zur Fehlererkennung und -behebung (Sherlock 2). Es werden zwei prototypische maschinelle Lernverfahren dargestellt, welche bei der Analyse eines Corpus von Dialogprotokollen eingesetzt werden. Die Verfahren generieren der Diskursstruktur möglichst gut entsprechende Grammatiken. Die gefundenen Grammatiken führten zu neuen Einsichten hinsichtlich der Funktion bestimmter Sprechakte in tutoriellen Dialogen sowie zu klaren und präzisen Modellen von Erklärungsdialogen bei Diagnoseproblemen. Summary. This paper describes our approach to coding pedagogical interactions that took place between avionics students and domain experts in an ITS for electronic troubleshooting called Sherlock 2. We also describe prototype machine learning systems that we developed to learn grammars of discourse structure. The grammars revealed instructional functions of particular speech acts that we had not been aware of, and provided concise models of explanations common in diagnostic tasks.