Comparing mathematics interventions: Does initial level of fluency predict intervention effectiveness?

A paucity of research has directly compared empirically supported interventions to examine their effectiveness among students with different mathematics fluency skills. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two empirically supported interventions and a control condition on the mathematics fluency of 98 second and third grade students. Specifically, effects of explicit timing and cover-copy-compare on subtraction fluency were examined each session, which occurred twice weekly for a total of six weeks. HLM was used to examine progress during the intervention sessions and determine the effect of initial fluency level on intervention effectiveness. Results suggested students' initial level of fluency impacted intervention effectiveness. That is, for students whose fluency levels fell within the frustrational range CCC and control conditions resulted in the best performance over time but for children whose fluency was in the instructional range explicit timing was the most effective treatment.     

Familiar other-race faces show normal holistic processing and are robust to perceptual stress

Other-race individuals are remembered more poorly and receive less holistic/configural processing than same-race individuals, at least when faces are novel. Here, we examine the amelioration of these effects with familiarity, using distinctiveness-matched Caucasian and Asian stimulus sets. We confirmed a cross-race deficit for upright faces following a single encoding trial, which disappeared rapidly with practice on a small set of other-race 'friends' and did not re-emerge when perceptual processing was put under stress (presentation in the periphery). We also examined holistic/configural processing for familiarised faces using the peripheral inversion effect (McKone, 2004 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 30 181 - 197). A test for faces and nonface objects (dogs) confirmed the validity of this technique as providing a direct measure of holistic processing; we then showed that, after 1 h of training, holistic processing was as strong for other-race as same-race faces. We conclude that practice with other-race individuals can rapidly engage normal face-processing mechanisms.     

Interethnic Differences (or Similarities?) in the Relative Individuation of Women and Men

What roles do ethnicity, gender, and attitudes play in determining whether a person will be perceived as a unique individual versus a homogenized group member? Attitudes toward women’s roles have been found to predict Whites’ relative individuation of women and men; however, African Americans were found to individuate women and men equally, regardless of attitude (Stewart et al. 2000). Using a name–trait matching paradigm, the present research found that when targets were identified as African American, African American participants’ (18 male and 35 female college students) attitudes toward women’s roles predicted their individuation of men and women. These results suggest that an ethnic out-group homogeneity effect, rather than gender-egalitarian attitudes, contributed to the previous finding of equivalent individuation.     

Athletic Participation, Fraternity Membership, and Sexual Aggression Among College Men: A Meta-analytic Review

A meta-analysis of the data relating either college athletic participation or fraternity membership to attitudes and behaviors associated with sexual aggression was conducted with 29 studies which yielded 57 effect sizes. Membership in each male group was associated to a moderate extent with rape-supportive attitudes, and to a smaller extent with self-report of sexually aggressive behavior. There was much variability in the data that could be partially predicted by variables such as the size of the college, the validity of the study, and the age of the research participants. The involvement of these all-male groups in the perpetuation of hypermasculine attitudes (Mosher and Sirkin 1984) in a patriarchal culture was discussed.     

Utah youth suicide study: barriers to mental health treatment for adolescents

Forty-nine suicide cases were drawn from an original sample of 151 consecutive youth suicide deaths. We used information from 270 interviews with parents and other survivors to evaluate mental health treatment sought for and by the decedent and barriers to mental health treatment. Participants reported the same primary barriers for the decedent: belief that nothing could help, seeking help is a sign of weakness or failure, reluctance to admit to having mental health problems, denial of problems, and too embarrassed to seek help. It is suggested that the stigma of mental illness is a considerable barrier to mental health treatment.     

Gender, Internalization of Expressive Traits, and Expectations of Parenting

This study examined parental role salience, expectations and intentions, and the extent to which the internalization of gender associated traits may be related to these parenting variables within emerging adults. Childless undergraduates at a western Canadian university (N?=?236; 119 women) completed a self-report questionnaire. As predicted, role salience and expectations were positively correlated with intentions. Internalization of expressive/feminine traits, but not instrumental/masculine traits, was positively correlated with all three parenting variables, although gender moderated this relation. While femininity was unrelated to the expectations of women, men possessing more expressive traits held more positive views than their less expressive male counterparts. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the parental roles anticipated by young women and men.     

An Examination of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms and Aggression among Children with a History of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Childhood aggression is associated with many deleterious outcomes and is a common reason for psychiatric referral (Card & Little, 2006; Gurnani et al., 2016). One factor associated with childhood aggression is Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs; Felitti et al., 1998). However, existing research remains equivocal on which characteristics of ACEs (e.g., cumulative impact, typology, etc.) are significantly elated to aggression, especially when considering differential effects of ACEs on proactive aggression (PA) and reactive aggression (RA; Dodge & Coie, 1987). Post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are a common negative sequalae of ACEs and are characterized by disruptions in several cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes similar to those associated with both RA and PA (e.g., Marsee, 2008). As such, the examination of PTSS as an underlying mechanism of influence on the relation between ACEs, PA, and RA is warranted. The present study fills several gaps in the literature by examining ACE characteristics that might be related to PTSS, PA, and RA while also examining direct and indirect effects on the relation between ACEs, PTSS and PA and RA. Results indicated the type of ACE, specifically child maltreatment ACEs (CM-ACEs), was most strongly related to all outcome variables. Therefore, CM-ACEs were included in a path analysis with PTSS, PA, and RA. Results indicated a significant indirect effect for PTSS on the relation between CM-ACEs and RA (β?=?.18, p?<?.01) but not PA. Findings have several implications for future research and clinical practice, especially for children with an extensive history of CM-ACEs.

     

The effects of adults' affective expression and direction of visual gaze on 12‐month‐olds' visual preferences for an object following a 5‐minute, 1‐day,or 1‐month delay

Between 12‐ and 14 months of age infants begin to use another's direction of gaze and affective expression in learning about various objects and events. What is not well understood is how long infants' behaviour towards a previously unfamiliar object continues to be influenced following their participation in circumstances of social referencing. In this experiment, we examined infants' sensitivity to an adult's direction of gaze and their visual preference for one of two objects following a 5‐min, 1‐day, or 1‐month delay. Ninety‐six 12‐month‐olds participated. For half of the infants during habituation (i.e., familiarization), the adults' direction of gaze was directed towards an unfamiliar object (look condition). For the remaining half of the infants during habituation, the adults' direction of gaze was directed away from the unfamiliar object (look‐away condition). All infants were habituated to two events. One event consisted of an adult looking towards (look condition) or away from (look‐away condition) an object while facially and vocally conveying a positive affective expression. The second event consisted of the same adult looking towards or away from a different object while conveying a disgusted affective expression. Following the habituation phase and a 5‐min, 1‐day, or 1‐month delay, infants' visual preference was assessed. During the visual preference phase, infants saw the two objects side by side where the adult conveying the affective expression was not visible. Results of the visual preference phase indicate that infants in the look condition showed a significant preference for object previously paired with the positive affect following a 5‐min and 1‐day delay. No significant visual preference was found in the look condition following a 1‐month delay. No significant preferences were found at any retention interval in the look‐away condition. Results are discussed in terms of early learning, social referencing, and early memory.     

The association between children's numerical magnitude processing and mental multi-digit subtraction

Children apply various strategies to mentally solve multi-digit subtraction problems and the efficient use of some of them may depend more or less on numerical magnitude processing. For example, the indirect addition strategy (solving 72–67 as “how much do I have to add up to 67 to get 72?”), which is particularly efficient when the two given numbers are close to each other, requires to determine the proximity of these two numbers, a process that may depend on numerical magnitude processing. In the present study, children completed a numerical magnitude comparison task and a number line estimation task, both in a symbolic and nonsymbolic format, to measure their numerical magnitude processing. We administered a multi-digit subtraction task, in which half of the items were specifically designed to elicit indirect addition. Partial correlational analyses, controlling for intellectual ability and motor speed, revealed significant associations between numerical magnitude processing and mental multi-digit subtraction. Additional analyses indicated that numerical magnitude processing was particularly important for those items for which the use of indirect addition is expected to be most efficient. Although this association was observed for both symbolic and nonsymbolic tasks, the strongest associations were found for the symbolic format, and they seemed to be more prominent on numerical magnitude comparison than on number line estimation.     

Gradient language dominance affects talker learning

Traditional conceptions of spoken language assume that speech recognition and talker identification are computed separately. Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies imply some separation between the two faculties, but recent perceptual studies suggest better talker recognition in familiar languages than unfamiliar languages. A familiar-language benefit in talker recognition potentially implies strong ties between the two domains. However, little is known about the nature of this language familiarity effect. The current study investigated the relationship between speech and talker processing by assessing bilingual and monolingual listeners’ ability to learn voices as a function of language familiarity and age of acquisition. Two effects emerged. First, bilinguals learned to recognize talkers in their first language (Korean) more rapidly than they learned to recognize talkers in their second language (English), while English-speaking participants showed the opposite pattern (learning English talkers faster than Korean talkers). Second, bilinguals’ learning rate for talkers in their second language (English) correlated with age of English acquisition. Taken together, these results suggest that language background materially affects talker encoding, implying a tight relationship between speech and talker representations.