Introduction to the Special Theme Issue on Health Disparities,Trauma, Disruptive and Criminal Behaviors and the Adolescent Brain: Conference Collaborators,Major Developments in Conference Planning,and Overview of the Articles

ABSTRACT

The November 21, 2015, conference Health Disparities, Trauma, Disruptive and Criminal Behaviors and the Adolescent Brain, examined the national problem of youth incarceration by exploring research on the adolescent brain, trauma, poverty, racism, health disparities and mental health treatment. This special theme issue of the Journal of Infant, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy provides an opportunity for selected authors to contribute original articles that capture their contributions to the conference event. The purpose of this article is to provide an introduction to this special theme issue. This article provides an overview of the following: the roots of the conference, including the role of numerous collaborators; specific major developments that contributed to the evolution of the conference focus; and a brief overview of the actual articles that have been selected for inclusion in the theme issue.     

Measures of expressions of love

This study developed scales for Chapman's five expressions of love: quality time, receiving gifts, words of affirmation, physical touch, and acts of service (two dimensions). A total of 338 student respondents were surveyed resulting in 321 usable surveys (95%). Of this total, 177 were women and 144 men, with a median age of 24 yr.     

The effects of blocking mouthing of leisure items on their effectiveness as reinforcers

Leisure items are commonly used as reinforcers in behavior-analytic applications. However, a defining feature of autism is the occurrence of stereotypy, and individuals with autism often engage leisure items in a stereotyped manner. The opportunity for stereotyped interaction may be the only aspect of a contingent stimulus that makes it a reinforcer for appropriate behavior. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of blocking stereotyped reinforcer interaction on reinforcer efficacy for 2 children with autism. Results showed that blocking stereotypic reinforcer interaction did not influence reinforcer efficacy.     

Ethnic Differences in Children’s Entry into Public Mental Health Care via Emergency Mental Health Services

For children and youth making a mental health crisis visit, we investigated ethnic disparities in whether the children and youth were currently in treatment or whether this crisis visit was an entry or reentry point into mental health treatment. We gathered Medicaid claims for mental health services provided to 20,110 public-sector clients ages 17 and younger and divided them into foster care and non-foster care subsamples. We then employed logistic regression to analyze our data with sociodemographic and clinical controls. Among children and youth who were not placed in foster care, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans were significantly less likely than Caucasians to have received mental health care during the three months preceding a crisis visit. Disparities among children and youth in foster care were not statistically significant. Ethnic minority children and youth were more likely than Caucasians to use emergency care as an entry or reentry point into the mental health treatment, thereby exhibiting a crisis-oriented pattern of care.     

Transfer of Responsibility in Parent–Child Play During the Second Year

The purpose of the present study was to examine changes in parental support for play during the toddler's second year. Thirty toddlers and their parents were observed when the toddlers were 13,14,20 and 21 months of age. Parents' production of facilitating behaviours and exploratory play increased over time, whereas their production of combinatorial, symbolic and sequential play decreased. Correlational and sequential analyses indicated that, at the early visits, parents responded to their toddlers' combinatorial and symbolic play with similar types of play, whereas at the later visits, only symbolic play was followed by comparable actions. Sensitive parents ‘transfer responsibility’ for play actions as they believe their toddlers become more competent. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Development of prospective memory: tasks based on the prefrontal-lobe model.

This study investigated the development of prospective memory using tasks based on the prefrontal-lobe model. Three groups each of 30 children, adolescents, and young adults were compared on prospective-memory performance using ongoing tasks with two levels of cognitive demand (low and high), and two levels of importance (unstressed and stressed) of remembering prospective cues. The Self-Ordered Pointing Task (SOPT), Stroop Color Word Interference Test, and Tower of London were also used to assess relationships between prospective memory and prefrontal-lobe functions. The children remembered fewer prospective cues than either the adolescents or adults, but the adolescents and adults remembered equally well. This trend increased significantly as the cognitive demand of the ongoing tasks increased. However, stressing or not stressing the importance of remembering made no difference to prospective-memory performance. Performance on the SOPT and Stroop Colour Word Interference predicted performance on the high- but not on the low-demand condition. These findings implicate the maturation of the brain's prefrontal region in the development of prospective memory.     

Methodological Overview of the Parents Matter! Program

We present an overview of the methodology employed in the Parents Matter! Program. Information on the following aspects of the program is presented: participant eligibility and recruitment; consenting procedures and administration of assessments; development and utilization of measures in the assessments; study design; intervention procedures; facilitator characteristics and training; procedures to assess treatment fidelity assessment; and procedures utilized to enhance retention of study participants.