The "prodromal" patient: both symptomatic and at-risk

This article discusses conceptual issues relevant to the prospective diagnosis of the schizophrenic prodrome. Recent efforts to diagnose these patients with operational criteria based on current symptoms are reviewed. Symptomatic patients so identified appear to be treatment-seeking and to have mild cognitive impairments. In addition to being currently symptomatic, these patients are imminently at risk for progression of illness and development of schizophrenia. Data from three international centers suggest that this risk is approximately 40% over the next year of follow-up if untreated. The implications of the reviewed data for the appropriateness of the term "prodromal" and for treatment/prevention research for these patients are discussed.     

Cross-cultural aspects of fears in African children and adolescents

The purpose of this study was to compare level and type of fears in Nigerian and Kenyan children using the Fear Survey Schedule for Children, Revised (FSSC-R; [Ollendick, T.H. (1983). Reliability and validity of the Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC-R). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 21, 685-692]). A total of 852 males and females between the ages of 8 and 17 were surveyed. Results indicated that Nigerian children reported significantly higher total fear than Kenyan children and that scores from both countries were higher than those found in the United States, Australia and China. This suggests that the cultures of Kenya and Nigeria may share a common variable that makes reporting of fears greater than that reported by children of other world cultures. In addition, Christian children in both countries reported higher levels of fear on several factors than Muslim children, indicating that Islamic beliefs may encourage children to report less fear or to deal with their fears better than Christian beliefs. Finally, children between the ages of 8 and 12 reported greater fear of the unknown than children between 13 and 17 years of age. Overall, these findings suggest that important cultural, religious and age differences exist for levels of childhood fears reported in Nigeria and Kenya.     

Error monitoring dysfunction across the illness course of schizophrenia

Response monitoring abnormalities have been reported in chronic schizophrenia patients, but it is unknown whether they predate the onset of psychosis, are present in early stages of illness, or are late-developing abnormalities associated with illness progression. Response-synchronized event-related potentials (ERP) recorded during a picture-word matching task yielded error-related negativity (ERN), correct-response negativity (CRN), and error positivity (Pe) from 84 schizophrenia patients (SZ), 48 clinical high risk patients (CHR), and their age-matched healthy controls (HC; n = 110 and 88, respectively). A sub-sample of 35 early illness schizophrenia patients (ESZ) was compared to 93 age-matched HC and the CHR patients (after statistically removing the effects of normal aging). Relative to HC, 1) SZ, ESZ, and CHR had smaller ERNs, and 2) SZ and ESZ had larger CRNs and smaller Pes. Within the SZ, longer illness duration was associated with larger CRNs but was unrelated to ERN or Pe. CHR and ESZ did not differ on ERN or CRN, although Pe was smaller in ESZ than CHR. These results indicate that while ERN, CRN, and Pe abnormalities are present early in the illness, only the ERN abnormality is evident prior to psychosis onset, and only the CRN abnormality appears to worsen progressively over the illness course. Brain regions subserving response monitoring may be compromised early in the illness and possibly during its clinical prodrome.     

Evidence for mental ability related individual differences in the attentional blink obtained by an analysis of the P300 component

Attentional blink (AB) refers to impaired identification of a target (T2) when this target follows a preceding target (T1) after about 150-450 ms within a stream of rapidly presented stimuli. Previous research on a possible relation between AB and mental ability (MA) turned out to be highly ambiguous. The present study investigated MA-related individual differences in consolidation of T2 in working memory during the AB as indicated by the P300 component of the event-related potential. Thirty high (HA) and 30 low MA (LA) female participants performed an AB task while their brain activity was recorded. The AB did not differ between the two groups. HA individuals exhibited a larger P300 amplitude and longer P300 latencies during the AB suggesting higher mental effort. This higher mental effort, however, did not result in better performance presumably because of more competition between target and distractor stimuli in HA than LA individuals.     

Construction and validation of the South African version of the Fear Survey Schedule for Children: an exploratory factor analysis

The Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised (Ollendick, 1983) is an 80-item self-report instrument that has been used internationally to asses the number of fears and general level of fearfulness among children. Despite its widespread use, this instrument has not been adapted to the South African context. The present study addressed this gap by means of a 2-phase investigation aimed at developing a South African version of the instrument. In Phase 1, semistructured interviews were conducted with 40 children (7 to 13 years of age). Qualitative data obtained from these interviews were used to construct additional items for inclusion in the South African Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised. The modified scale, consisting of 97 items, was then administered to a sample of 646 children between the ages of 7 and 13 years. Further psychometric considerations resulted in the final version of the scale consisting of 74 items with high internal consistency (α=.97). The factor structure was explored by means of principal component analysis with varimax rotation and a 5-factor solution was found to provide the best conceptual fit. The factors identified were as follows: Fear of Death and Danger; Fear of the Unknown; Fear of Small Animals and Minor Threats to Self; Large Animal Fears; and Situational Fears. Differences between the South African version and the original Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised are noted and implications for the study of fear in South Africa and other countries are discussed.     

A successive-conditionalization approach to disjunctive and syllogistic reasoning

With p and q each standing for a familiar event, a disjunctive statement, “either p or q”, seems quite different from its material conditional, “if not p then q”. The notions of sufficiency and necessity seem specific to conditional statements. It is surprising, however, to find that perceived sufficiency and necessity affect disjunctive reasoning in the way they affect conditional reasoning. With B and C each standing for a category name, a universal statement, “all B are C”, seems stronger than its logically equivalent conditional statement, “if B then C”. However, the effects of perceived sufficiency or necessity were found to be as pronounced in conditional reasoning as in syllogistic reasoning. Furthermore, two experiments also showed that (a) MP (modus ponens)-comparable disjunctive reasoning was as difficult as MT (modus tollens)-comparable disjunctive reasoning, and that (b) MT-comparable syllogisms were easier to solve than MT problems in conditional reasoning.     

Multiple goals, writing strategies, and written outcomes for college students learning English as a second language

This study examined relations of achievement goals of writers who are speakers of English as a foreign language (EFL), the frequency of their writing strategy use, and the quality of their writing from a multiple goals perspective. The goal profiles of 57 EFL college students with similar writing proficiency were based on rating items of an unpublished scale; Group 1 had strong mastery and strong performance-approach goals, and two groups included students with only one strong mastery (Group 2) or performance (Group 3) goal. Think-aloud protocols indicated that the participants adopted 21 strategies in an argumentative writing task, classified into five categories. Group 1 was found to use writing strategies of monitoring or evaluating, revising, and compensating significantly more often than the other two groups, and produced better essays. Strong mastery and performance-approach goals might be beneficial for EFL college writers.     

Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: the frequency-lag hypothesis

To contrast mechanisms of lexical access in production versus comprehension we compared the effects of word frequency (high, low), context (none, low constraint, high constraint), and level of English proficiency (monolingual, Spanish-English bilingual, Dutch-English bilingual) on picture naming, lexical decision, and eye fixation times. Semantic constraint effects were larger in production than in reading. Frequency effects were larger in production than in reading without constraining context but larger in reading than in production with constraining context. Bilingual disadvantages were modulated by frequency in production but not in eye fixation times, were not smaller in low-constraint contexts, and were reduced by high-constraint contexts only in production and only at the lowest level of English proficiency. These results challenge existing accounts of bilingual disadvantages and reveal fundamentally different processes during lexical access across modalities, entailing a primarily semantically driven search in production but a frequency-driven search in comprehension. The apparently more interactive process in production than comprehension could simply reflect a greater number of frequency-sensitive processing stages in production.     

Depression and Suicidal Ideation After Predictive Testing for Huntington's Disease: A Two-Year Follow-up Study

The present study reports a two-year follow-up of psychological effects of predictive testing for Huntington's disease. Questionnaires assessing depression, general health, well-being, self injurious behavior, life satisfaction, and lifestyle were completed by 35 carriers and 58 non-carriers before the predictive test, and 2, 6, 12, and 24 months afterwards. Both carriers and non-carriers showed high suicidal ideation before the predictive testing. Depression scores and frequency of suicidal thoughts increased for carriers, compared to non-carriers, over time. There were no differences regarding life satisfaction or life style between carriers and non-carriers. Predictive testing was beneficial in reducing overall ill-health symptoms and increasing well-being for those initially expressing concern about Huntington's disease. The importance of assessing suicidal ideation and of continuing to provide adequate support is emphasized.     

The Comorbidity of Conduct Problems and Depression in Childhood and Adolescence

An extensive body of research documents the high prevalence of comorbidity among child and adolescent disorders in general and between conduct problems and depression in particular. These problems co-occur at significantly higher rates than would be expected by chance and their comorbidity may have significant implications for nosology, treatment, and prognosis. Four main hypotheses have been put forth to account for these high rates of comorbidity. First, comorbidity may be a result of shortcomings associated with referral or informant biases. Second, comorbidity may be an artifact of overlapping definitional criteria. Third, one disorder may cause the other disorder by influencing the developmental trajectory and placing an individual at increased risk for further difficulties. Finally, comorbidity between two disorders may be explained by shared underlying causal or risk factors. The purpose of this review is to explore these possibilities, concentrating primarily on the common risk factors of parent psychopathology, emotion regulation, and cognitive biases that may underlie the co-occurrence of these two disorders. Based on our review, we propose a model for the development of comorbidity between these two disorders.