A Review of: “Greenwald,R. (2009). Treating Problem Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach.”

This single-case-design experiment examined an intervention to decrease bed-sharing in children, ages 2 through 6. Three sessions were conducted with each parent. At the first session, parents described bed-sharing history and began collecting baseline data. At the second session, parents were instructed to employ the intervention. At the third session, parents were interviewed and offered continued support, if needed. Participants included three children who slept with their parents 4 or more nights per week. The intervention resulted in a substantial decrease in bed-sharing behavior for all participants, and parents reported being satisfied with the intervention.     

The role of animacy in European Portuguese relative clause attachment: evidence from production and comprehension tasks

This work presents an analysis of the role of animacy in attachment preferences of relative clauses to complex noun phrases in European Portuguese (EP). The study of how the human parser solves this kind of syntactic ambiguities has been focus of extensive research. However, what is known about EP is both limited and puzzling. Additionally, as recent studies have stressed the importance of extra-syntactic variables in this process, two experiments were carried out to assess EP attachment preferences considering four animacy conditions: Study 1 used a sentence-completion-task, and Study 2 a self-paced reading task. Both studies indicate a significant preference for high attachment in EP. Furthermore, they showed that this preference was modulated by the animacy of the host NP: if the first host was inanimate and the second one was animate, the parser's preference changed to low attachment preference. These findings shed light on previous results regarding EP and strengthen the idea that, even in early stages of processing, the parser seems to be sensitive to extra-syntactic information.     

Validation of a Portuguese version of the multidimensional measure of employability

This study describes the validity and reliability evidence of the multidimensional measure of employability (MME) based on the internal structure and relations to career self-efficacy and career success. Two hundred forty seven Portuguese persons (75.7% women) aged from 21–73 years old (M = 39.9, SD = 10.9) participated. Confirmatory factor analysis suggested adequate fit in the correlational and hierarchical models. Measurement reliability was good for total score and each factor. Correlations with the additional measures provided evidence of validity. MME provides a tool for research and career counseling, enabling comprehensive employability assessment and personalized interventions, while recognising the interplay between employability dimensions.     

Dysfunctional attitudes and episodes of major depression: Predictive validity and temporal stability in never-depressed, depressed, and recovered women

In a large, community-based sample of women (N = 750), the authors examined the nature of associations between dysfunctional attitudes and depression. Dysfunctional attitudes were evaluated both as a vulnerability factor for depression and as a consequence of depression. A link was found between past depression and baseline elevations in dysfunctional attitudes that was independent of current subsyndromal symptoms, but intensification of dysfunctional attitudes following prospectively evaluated episodes of depression (depressive "scarring") was not observed. Although baseline dysfunctional attitudes predicted an episode of major depression over 3 years of prospective study, this prediction, considered alone or in interaction with negative life events, was redundant with that offered by history of past depression. Further, no significant prediction was evident for the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (A. N. Weissman & A. T. Beck, 1978) when the formerly depressed and never-depressed cohorts were considered separately. Implications for cognitive theories are discussed.     

Computer aided self‐monitoring to increase academic production and reduce self‐injurious behavior in a child with autism

Self‐monitoring to increase the on‐task behavior of students with learning disabilities has been the focus of numerous studies in the literature. This study examined the effectiveness of computer aided self‐monitoring of academic task completion to reduce self‐injurious behavior in a 13‐year‐old male student with autism. Using an ABAB design, data were collected over 22 sessions in a resource‐reading classroom. Visual and statistical analyses indicated that when self‐monitoring of activity completion was implemented, rates of completion increased and maladaptive behaviors such as self‐injurious behavior and tantruming decreased. Discussion follows for implications for self‐monitoring with students with autism. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship between semantic paraphasias and related nonverbal factors

Word-finding deficits are a common problem in aphasic patients. One hypothesis suggests that the difficulty that patients experience in naming objects or pictures is related to a disruption in the ability to access the lexicon. Another hypothesis suggests that these problems are caused by a disruption of the mental dictionary and the semantic representations contained in it. The main purpose of this study is to assess whether nonverbal factors such as the ability to distinguish between similar attributes of objects is related to word-use problems in aphasia. 14 adults with left hemisphere cerebrovascular accidents and some word use deficit were administered the first 30 items of the Boston Naming Test and the Conceptual Matching subtest of the Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude. Errors on the Conceptual Matching subtest correlated significantly with the number of semantic paraphasias.