Scalar timing in temporal generalization in children with short and long stimulus durations.

This experiment investigated temporal generalization performance in children aged 3, 5, and 8 years by using auditory stimulus durations where the standard was 0.4 s or 4.0 s, and non-standard stimuli were spaced linearly around the standard. At all ages, generalization gradients superimposed well when plotted on the same relative scale, indicating conformity to scalar timing. Whatever the standard duration used, the principal developmental changes were the increasing steepness of the generalization gradient with increasing age and a shift from symmetrical gradients, in the 3- and 5-year-olds, to adult-like asymmetrical gradients in the 8-year-olds.     

Parental and family predictors of behavior problems in inner-city black children

Studied contributions of maternal psychological distress, family stress load, maternal and family risk factors, and family coping strategies in predicting behavior problems in 441 inner-city black primary-grade children. Results indicated maternal psychological distress and high family stress load were associated with high child behavior problems. Family coping strategies offered no protection against risk, while coping with life difficulties by reframing them was detrimental to child behavioral adjustment. Active help-seeking strategies (i.e., family mobilization, acquiring social supports) served to moderate the effects of maternal psychological distress and family risk attributes for boys, but exacerbated the effects of dysfunctional maternal social and psychiatric histories for girls. Implications for understanding vulnerability and resilience in inner-city black children and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Argumentative aspects of indirect proof

While direct proof is widely considered the paradigm of the acquisition of knowledge by deductive means, indirect proof has traditionally been criticized as showing merely that its conclusion is true and not why it is true. This paper accounts for the traditional objection by emphasizing the argumentative role in indirect proof of logical principles such as excluded middle and non-contradiction.     

DEGRÉ DE CONTACT ET STRESS ACCULTURATIF DANS LE PROCESSUS D'ADAPTATION DES RÉFUGIÉS AFRICAINS

This study examines some aspects of the adaptive process of African refugees taking up residence in Quebec city, a rather culturally homogenous area. Considering that acculturative stress and degree of contact and participation with the host society are strong indicators of one's adjustment to a new culture, the main hypothesis is that the more contact and participation one establishes with the host society, the less acculturative stress he will report. Out of 62 subjects who voluntarily accepted to participate in the study, 57 were retained for analysis. Results reveal no significant relationship between stress and contact. Multiple regression analyses used to determine the significant predictor variables indicate that age and length of stay explain 19.5% of the total variance for stress while length of stay, sex and adaptive options explain 44% of the total variance for contact. These results tend to demonstrate that, for African refugees, degree of contact is a better indicator of adaptation than stress.     

Stepmothers and natural mothers: A study of maternal attitudes

The maternal attitudes of 15 natural mothers (M_d age 46) and 15 stepmothers (M_d age 47) were compared. The HerefordParent Attitude Survey was the instrument used to assess differences between the two populations on five scales measuring confidence, causation, acceptance, understanding, and trust. No significant differences were found between the two populations with the exception of the causation dimension (t=2.4840 p<.05), which indicated that stepmothers attribute the problem behavior of the child to genetic and environmental factors while natural mothers accept the influence of the maternal role in the child's problem behavior. It is the authors' opinion that the statistical similarities and differences found between the two samples is a reflection of the common problem they share, that of a child in treatment.     

Children's interpretive understanding,moral judgments,and emotion attributions: Relations to social behaviour

The study investigated interpretive understanding, moral judgments, and emotion attributions in relation to social behaviour in a sample of 59 5‐year‐old, 123 7‐year‐old, and 130 9‐year‐old children. Interpretive understanding was assessed by two tasks measuring children's understanding of ambiguous situations. Moral judgments and emotion attributions were measured using two moral rule transgressions. Social behaviour was assessed using teachers' ratings of aggressive and prosocial behaviour. Aggressive behaviour was positively related to interpretive understanding and negatively related to moral reasoning. Prosocial behaviour was positively associated with attribution of fear. Moral judgments and emotion attributions were related, depending on age. Interpretive understanding was unrelated to moral judgments and emotion attributions. The findings are discussed in regard to the role of interpretive understanding and moral and affective knowledge in understanding children's social behaviour.     

Synchrony and emotion in children and adults

This study examined both the development of synchronisation activities and the way emotion affects these activities in children and adults. Children aged from 3 to 8 years, as well as adults, performed a spontaneous motor tempo (SMT) task and a synchronisation task with a 500‐millisecond and 700‐millisecond inter‐stimulus interval (ISI), followed by a continuation task, in both an emotion‐free and an emotional context (High‐Arousal, Low‐Arousal, and Neutral). The results showed that the SMT was faster and more variable in the younger children. In addition, the younger children found it more difficult to slow down their tapping rate in synchrony with the 700‐millisecond ISI, with the result that they quickly returned to their internal tempo in the continuation phase. In contrast, the 8‐year‐olds' synchronisation performance was close to that of the adults. However, despite developmental changes in synchronisation skills, all the participants produced faster tempi in both the SMT and the synchronisation task for the High‐Arousal emotion than for the other emotions. This suggests that emotions induce an automatic distortion of motor timing as has also been observed for the perception of time.     

African American Adolescent-Caregiver Relationships in a Weight Loss Trial

Successful family-based weight loss interventions for African American adolescents are rare. Parent-adolescent interactions supporting adoption of healthier nutrition and physical activity practices are not well understood. African American caregivers' and adolescents' perspectives on how they worked together to achieve weight loss need further exploration. This study describes the relationships experienced by adolescents and caregivers during the 6-month, evidence-based FIT Families weight loss trial and explores differences between families whose adolescents were successful and unsuccessful with weight loss. Exit interviews conducted with 136 adolescents (age 12–16 years; BMI percentile ≥95) and their caregivers (primarily mothers) were taped and transcribed verbatim. Content and thematic analysis was conducted to explore differences between groups stratified by weight loss. Five adolescent-caregiver relationship patterns emerged which describe dyads working together, working alone, working against each other; caregiver support and caregiver working on self. When relationship patterns were compared between groups stratified by weight loss, three themes emerged: motivation, support, and persistence. Families that achieved the greatest weight loss referred more often to working together to reach weight loss goals, attributed their success to adolescent self-motivation, with engaged caregiver support which allowed families to persist in change efforts. Family relationships involving adolescent autonomy, engaged parental support, and persistence despite challenges, clustered differently among adolescents who were successful at weight loss compared to those who were not. Interventionists trained to reinforce effective adolescent-parent interactions will advance behavioral interventions for families who have typically benefited least in prior interventions.     

Perinatal maternal undernutrition programs the offspring hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

There is now compelling evidence, coming both from animal and human studies that an early exposure to undernutrition is frequently associated with low birth weight and programs HPA axis alterations throughout the lifespan. Although animal models have reported conflicting findings arising from differences in experimental paradigms and species, they have clearly demonstrated that such programming not only affects the brain but also the pituitary corticotrophs and the adrenal cortex. In fetuses, maternal undernutrition reduces HPA axis function and implicates a reduction of placental 11beta-HSD2 activity and a greater transplacental transfer of glucocorticoids (GRs). In young adults, usually only fine HPA axis alterations were observed, whereas in older ones, maternal undernutrition was frequently associated with chronic hyperactivity of this neuroendocrine axis. In humans, evidence of HPA axis dysregulation in people who were small at birth has recently emerged. Thus, we suggest that such alterations in adults may be implicated in the aetiology of several disorders related to the metabolic syndrome as well as to immune or inflammatory diseases. To reverse such programming, recent experimental reports have shown that postnatal environmental interventions, dietary modifications and the use of agents modulating the epigenomic state could partly restore physiological functions and thus open new therapeutic strategies.