Psychiatric diagnoses in infancy: A comparison

This study investigated the specificity of diagnostic classification in two standardized systems: DSM-IV and Diagnostic Classification: Zero to Three. A sample of 82 infants aged 1–24 months suffering from various psychogenic and functional pediatric symptoms was diagnosed applying both systems. For DC: 0–3 (the Diagnostic Classification on Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood), this study presents results with respect to the specificity of symptom patterns. Twelve out of 27 symptoms, specific for disorders in early infancy, showed high specificity and were significantly discriminative for the diagnostic entities. These symptoms were differentiated for frequency and severity of occurrence for each diagnosis. In the sample, DSM-IV and DC: 0–3 diagnoses were compared. Additionally, 13 items of biographical-biological data were collected (e.g., low SES combined with very young or older mothers resulted in an increased risk for psychiatric disorders in early infancy). The data provide support for the idea that the use of DC: 0–3 in early infancy may be helpful in relation to daily routines and research by increasing the range of clearly defined diagnostic entities.     

Teacher ratings of children's problem and competence behaviors: Normative and parametric characteristics

Teacher-rated adjustment differences among young elementary school children from (a) a recent sample and a 1974 cohort, and (b) urban/suburban, male/female, and grade-level subgroups were examined. A problem behavior checklist (Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale) and a school competence measure (Health Resources Inventory) for 974 children from 5 urban and 5 suburban schools were completed by 101 first- to fourth-grade teachers. Children from the more current cohort were rated as significantly more maladjusted than those from the earlier sample on 8 of 10 adjustment variables. In the recent sample, girls and suburban children evidenced a greater number of school competencies and fewer problem behaviors than boys and urban children, respectively. The implications of these findings for the future use of the teacher rating scales are discussed.     

Prevention opportunities in health care settings

Psychologists have an opportunity to offer their expertise at a time when health care settings are beginning to recognize the importance of behaviorally based interventions for improving health and health care. The authors review the changing patterns of health and illness that have led to an increased interest in the role of patient and provider behavior and discuss the many advantages of using health care settings as prevention sites. Examples of successful behaviorally based prevention programs are presented, along with the evidence supporting the cost-effectiveness of such programs. Challenges presented by working in health care settings are described. Throughout, the authors emphasize the multiple opportunities for psychologists' involvement across a wide variety of health care delivery sites.     

Depressed nursing home residents' activity participation and affect as a function of staff engagement

Behavioral interventions for depression target activity engagement and increased positive reinforcement, particularly from social interaction. Nursing homes provide limited opportunity for meaningful social engagement, and have a high prevalence of depression. Often residents obtain most of their social contacts from staff members. We present intra-individual correlations among positive staff engagement, resident affect, and resident activity participation from behavior stream observations of residents who were participants in an ongoing trial of an intervention for depression. Sixteen residents were observed 6 times weekly for 8 to 45 weeks, 5 minutes per observation. Positive staff engagement during the observations was significantly correlated with resident interest and pleasure. Positive staff engagement was related to resident participation in organized group activity; however, residents tended to be more engaged and show more pleasure when in informal group activities, especially those residents receiving the behavioral treatment. Positive staff engagement was not related to time in activities of daily living. Results have implications for understanding mechanisms and potential targets of interventions for depression.     

Strategies in landmark use by orangutans and human children

Landmark use has been demonstrated in a variety of organisms, yet the manner in which landmarks are encoded and subsequently used appears to vary between and sometimes within species, even when faced with identical landmark arrays. In the present experiments, orangutans and human children were shown a square array of identical landmarks and were trained to locate a hidden goal in the centre of the array. In Experiments 1 and 2, the search space appeared to be discrete, with white gridlines dividing up the space, and in Experiments 3a and 3b, the search space was uniformly coloured, making it appear continuous. In all experiments, following training, subjects were given a single expansion test, to determine their landmark strategy use, based on peak search activity. The orangutans appeared to use absolute directional vectors from individual landmarks, with peak search activities on the inner corners of the square array, and they used this strategy persistently. In contrast, human children showed two landmark-based strategies, absolute directional vectors and a relational or “middle” strategy, with the majority of children starting their search in the middle region. Although some children, especially young children, persistently used one strategy like the orangutans, many changed strategies when the original one failed to yield the hidden goal.     

The Personal and Social Worries of Adolescents in Northern Ireland: Results of a Survey

The aim of this study was to ascertain the self-perceived social and personal concerns of adolescents attending educational institutions in Northern Ireland. 446 questionnaires from 15-18-year-old students at ten institutions were analysed in order to determine the frequency with which respondents reported worrying about the following broad areas: school, choosing a job, finding a job, home, starting work, opposite-sex relationships, personal issues, and relating to others. The effects of variables such as gender, age and nature of educational institution attended were also examined. The results indicated that most frequent worry was reported about finding and choosing employment, personal issues and opposite-sex relationships. Gender, age and religious affiliation of school attended exerted major effects. Implications for those involved in working with adolescents within educational contexts are discussed.     

Coping with challenge and hindrance stressors in teams: Behavioral,cognitive, and affective outcomes

The purpose of this study was to utilize the challenge–hindrance framework to examine the discrete and combined effects of different environmental stressors on behavioral, cognitive, and affective outcomes at the team level. Results from 83 teams working on a command and control simulation indicated that the introduction of a challenge stressor positively affected team performance and transactive memory. The introduction of a hindrance stressor negatively affected team performance and transactive memory and positively affected psychological withdrawal. When the hindrance stressor was combined with the challenge stressor, teams exhibited the lowest levels of performance and transactive memory, and the highest levels of psychological withdrawal. These effects were due to the adoption of specific coping strategies by team members. Implications are discussed, as well as limitations and directions for future research.     

Executive Functions in Children: Associations with Aggressive Behavior and Appraisal Processing

This study investigated whether and how deficits in executive functioning and distortions in appraisal processing are related to subtypes of aggressive behavior. The sample included 83 boys assessed using multi-informant reports and performance measures. Deficits in two executive functions, response inhibition and planning ability were related primarily to reactive aggression. Hostile attributional biases moderated relations between planning ability and proactive and reactive aggression subtypes, with minimal relations between planning deficits and aggression at low levels of hostile attributional bias. As the level of hostile attributional bias increased, the relation between planning deficits and reactive aggression became increasingly large in a positive direction whereas the relation between planning deficits and proactive aggression became increasingly negative. Additionally, hostile encoding moderated the relation between behavioral inhibition and reactive aggressive behavior. Results also suggested a mediational role for response inhibition in the relation between planning ability and reactive aggression.