Youth with Oppositional Defiant Disorder at Entry into Home-Based Treatment,Foster Care,and Residential Treatment

We explored and compared rates of youth diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) at entry into three broad program types, home-based care, foster care, and residential care. We also explored factors other than an ODD diagnosis that could be associated with program placement, and compared the presence of these factors in youth with and without an ODD diagnosis. Analyses were conducted using data from an ongoing, private-agency led, outcome measurement project. Programs were grouped into low (home-based), moderate (foster), or high (residential) categories, based upon levels of supervision and structure provided. A sample of 9,564 youth admitted into care between years 2005 and 2007 was used. Results suggested the following rates of ODD: 14.2 % overall; 7.9 % for low level programs; 5.3 % for moderate level programs; 21.1 % for high level programs. Rates were significantly different by program level (p ≤ 0.001). Sixty of 65 additional risk factors were also significantly associated with placement by level of program. No risk factors were unique to youth with ODD. Of the significant factors for youth with ODD, 4 were particularly strong: Classification as a child in need of services (CHINS), history of neglect, verbal aggression, and truancy. Youth classified as CHINS and with substantiated or suspected neglect were more likely placed into a moderate level program. Youth with verbal aggression or truancy were more likely placed into a high level program. Results suggested many factors are considered at program entry. Given the potential for poor prognosis and social costs of ODD, results support an individualized approach to placement determinations, with increased attention to symptoms of ODD and associated features at program entry.     

Zipf’s word frequency law in natural language: A critical review and future directions

The frequency distribution of words has been a key object of study in statistical linguistics for the past 70 years. This distribution approximately follows a simple mathematical form known as Zipf’s law. This article first shows that human language has a highly complex, reliable structure in the frequency distribution over and above this classic law, although prior data visualization methods have obscured this fact. A number of empirical phenomena related to word frequencies are then reviewed. These facts are chosen to be informative about the mechanisms giving rise to Zipf’s law and are then used to evaluate many of the theoretical explanations of Zipf’s law in language. No prior account straightforwardly explains all the basic facts or is supported with independent evaluation of its underlying assumptions. To make progress at understanding why language obeys Zipf’s law, studies must seek evidence beyond the law itself, testing assumptions and evaluating novel predictions with new, independent data.     

Extending Parent–Child Interaction Therapy for Early Childhood Internalizing Problems: New Advances for an Overlooked Population

Although efficacious psychological treatments for internalizing disorders are now well established for school-aged children, until recently there have regrettably been limited empirical efforts to clarify indicated psychological intervention methods for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders presenting in early childhood. Young children lack many of the developmental capacities required to effectively participate in established treatments for mood and anxiety problems presenting in older children, making simple downward extensions of these treatments for the management of preschool internalizing problems misguided. In recent years, a number of research groups have successfully adapted and modified parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT), originally developed to treat externalizing problems in young children, to treat various early internalizing problems with a set of neighboring protocols. As in traditional PCIT, these extensions target child symptoms by directly reshaping parent–child interaction patterns associated with the maintenance of symptoms. The present review outlines this emerging set of novel PCIT adaptations and modifications for mood and anxiety problems in young children and reviews preliminary evidence supporting their use. Specifically, we cover (a) PCIT for early separation anxiety disorder; (b) the PCIT-CALM (Coaching Approach behavior and Leading by Modeling) Program for the full range of early anxiety disorders; (c) the group Turtle Program for behavioral inhibition; and (d) the PCIT-ED (Emotional Development) Program for preschool depression. In addition, emerging PCIT-related protocols in need of empirical attention—such as the PCIT-SM (selective mutism) Program for young children with SM—are also considered. Implications of these protocols are discussed with regard to their unique potential to address the clinical needs of young children with internalizing problems. Obstacles to broad dissemination are addressed, and we consider potential solutions, including modular treatment formats and innovative applications of technology.     

Aging and the segmentation of narrative film

The perception of event structure in continuous activity is important for everyday comprehension. Although the segmentation of experience into events is a normal concomitant of perceptual processing, previous research has shown age differences in the ability to perceive structure in naturalistic activity, such as a movie of someone washing a car. However, past research has also shown that older adults have a preserved ability to comprehend events in narrative text, which suggests that narrative may improve the event processing of older adults. This study tested whether there are age differences in event segmentation at the intersection of continuous activity and narrative: narrative film. Younger and older adults watched and segmented a narrative film, The Red Balloon, into coarse and fine events. Changes in situational features, such as changes in characters, goals, and objects predicted segmentation. Analyses revealed little age-difference in segmentation behavior. This suggests the possibility that narrative structure supports event understanding for older adults.     

On Alienation from the Built Environment

If “environment” means “that which environs us,” it isn’t clear why environmentalist thinkers so often identify it with nature and not with the built environment that a quick glance around would reveal is what we’re actually environed by. It’s a familiar claim that we’re “alienated from nature,” but I argue that what we’re really alienated from is the built environment itself. Typically talk of alienation from nature involves the claim that we fail to acknowledge nature’s otherness, but the built environment is just as other from us as the natural one. And just as we are said to fail to recognize the role of nature as the origin of everything with which we have to do in the world, so too we fail to recognize the role of socially organized human labor in the objects that surround us. Overcoming alienation would require acknowledging the builtness and the sociality of the world we inhabit.     

Social comparison mediates chimpanzees’ responses to loss,not frustration

Why do chimpanzees react when their partner gets a better deal than them? Do they note the inequity or do their responses reflect frustration in response to unattainable rewards? To tease apart inequity and contrast, we tested chimpanzees in a series of conditions that created loss through individual contrast, through inequity, or by both. Chimpanzees were tested in four social and two individual conditions in which they received food rewards in return for exchanging tokens with an experimenter. In conditions designed to create individual contrast, after completing an exchange, the chimpanzees were given a relatively less-preferred reward than the one they were previously shown. The chimpanzees’ willingness to accept the less-preferred rewards was independent of previously offered foods in both the social and individual conditions. In conditions that created frustration through inequity, subjects were given a less-preferred reward than the one received by their partner, but not in relation to the reward they were previously offered. In a social context, females were more likely to refuse to participate when they received a less-preferred reward than their partner (disadvantageous inequity), than when they received a more-preferred reward (advantageous inequity). Specifically, the females’ refusals were typified by refusals to exchange tokens rather than refusals to accept food rewards. Males showed no difference in their responses to inequity or individual contrast. These results support previous evidence that some chimpanzees’ responses to inequity are mediated more strongly by what others receive than by frustration effects.