Scholastic Attainment Following Severe Early Institutional Deprivation: A Study of Children Adopted from Romania

The relationship between severe early institutional deprivation and scholastic attainment at age 11 in 127 children (68 girls and 59 boys) adopted from institutions in Romania was compared to the attainment of 49 children (17 girls and 32 boys) adopted within the UK from a non-institutional background. Overall, children adopted from Romania had significantly lower attainment scores than those adopted within the UK; the children within the Romanian sample who had spent 6 months or more in an institution had significantly lower attainment scores than those who had spent less than 6 months in an institution, but there was no additional risk of low attainment associated with longer institutional care after 6 months. The lower scholastic attainment in the children adopted from Romanian institutions, as compared with domestic adoptees, was mediated by IQ, and to a lesser degree, inattention/overactivity. When these factors were taken into account, only small between-group differences in attainment remained.     

College dating and social anxiety: using the Internet as a means of connecting to others.

With the advent and widespread use of the Internet, various online media are being used to connect and maintain social relationships in individuals of all ages. Social relationships are vital to healthy development, and individuals with social and/or dating anxiety may have marked difficulty in establishing appropriate, supportive relationships because of fear of negative evaluation by others. For these individuals, the Internet may open avenues of communication and provide an outlet through which relationships can be formed and preserved. This study investigated the characteristics of computer and Internet use in young adults to determine whether individuals who were high in social/dating anxiety symptoms were more likely to make and maintain social relationships online. To further understand the patterns of these behaviors, several measures of social and dating anxiety were collected and analyzed along with demographic, computer use, and relationship characteristics. Results indicated differences between high and low social/dating anxiety with respect to media use and relationship formation. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Disorder-specific Effects of CBT for Anxious and Depressed Youth: A Meta-analysis of Candidate Mediators of Change

The commonalities between anxiety and depression have been discussed before, but few have delineated the potentially different mechanisms through which treatments work for these populations. The current study conducted a comprehensive review of child and adolescent randomized clinical trials that tested cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety or depression. All studies were required to have assessed both treatment outcomes and at least one theory-specific process target, including behavioral, physiological, cognitive, and coping variables. Using a meta-analytic approach, CBT demonstrated positive treatment gains across anxiety, depression, and general functioning outcomes. CBT for anxiety also produced moderate to large effects across behavioral, physiological, cognitive, and coping processes, with behavioral targets demonstrating potentially the greatest change. CBT for depression produced small effects for cognitive processes but nonsignificant effects for behavioral and coping variables. Findings were generally consistent with CB theory but suggest potentially different mediators in the treatment of anxiety and depression. Results are discussed in terms of implications for mechanisms research, theories of change, and treatment development.     

Alphabetizing in old age

Abstract: A long term, intensive analysis with a woman in old old age is reported. An attempt is made to answer the question, ‘What, in analytic work, is healing?’. The patient's previous classical Jungian work is contrasted with the author's developmental perspective. It is suggested that an enactment, representing what Neville Symington has called an analyst's act of freedom, was crucial in effecting a profound transformation in the patient's psyche.     

Use of Self-perspectives and their Sources to Predict the Mathematics Enrollment Intentions of Girls and Boys

An understanding of the differences in the ways in which self-efficacy and interest influence boys’ and girls’ intentions to continue enrollment in mathematics courses may provide insight into how to encourage continued mathematics enrollment for all students. Two competing theoretical models of mathematics self-efficacy and interest in predicting students’ enrollment intentions and achievement were evaluated separately across samples of middle level boys and girls. One model was empirically supported for both groups and indicated the independent influence of self-efficacy and interest in predicting enrollment intentions. Multi-group analyses revealed that self-efficacy’s influence in enrollment intentions and achievement was significantly stronger for boys than for girls, and interest was significantly more important in the prediction of enrollment intentions for girls than for boys.     

Relative numerousness judgment and summation in young, middle-aged, and older adult orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus abelii and Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus)

The ability to select the larger of two quantities ranging from 1 to 5 (relative numerousness judgment [RNJ[) and the ability to select the larger of two pairs of quantities with each pair ranging from 1 to 8 (summation) were evaluated in young, middle-aged, and older adult orangutans (7 Pongo pygmaeus abelii and 2 Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus). Summation accuracy and RNJ were similar to those of previous reports in apes; however, the pattern of age-related differences with regard to these tasks was different from that previously reported in gorillas. Older orangutans were less accurate than the young and middle-aged for RNJ, and summation accuracy was equivalent among age groups. Evidence was found to suggest that the young and middle-aged based their selection of the largest quantity pair on both quantities within each pair during the summation task. These results show a relationship between subject age and the quantitative abilities of adult orangutans.     

Norms of age of acquisition and concreteness for 30,000 Dutch words

Word processing studies increasingly make use of regression analyses based on large numbers of stimuli (the so-called megastudy approach) rather than experimental designs based on small factorial designs. This requires the availability of word features for many words. Following similar studies in English, we present and validate ratings of age of acquisition and concreteness for 30,000 Dutch words. These include nearly all lemmas language researchers are likely to be interested in. The ratings are freely available for research purposes.     

Using mixture models with known class membership to address incomplete covariance structures in multiple‐group growth models

Multi‐group latent growth modelling in the structural equation modelling framework has been widely utilized for examining differences in growth trajectories across multiple manifest groups. Despite its usefulness, the traditional maximum likelihood estimation for multi‐group latent growth modelling is not feasible when one of the groups has no response at any given data collection point, or when all participants within a group have the same response at one of the time points. In other words, multi‐group latent growth modelling requires a complete covariance structure for each observed group. The primary purpose of the present study is to show how to circumvent these data problems by developing a simple but creative approach using an existing estimation procedure for growth mixture modelling. A Monte Carlo simulation study was carried out to see whether the modified estimation approach provided tangible results and to see how these results were comparable to the standard multi‐group results. The proposed approach produced results that were valid and reliable under the mentioned problematic data conditions. We also present a real data example and demonstrate that the proposed estimation approach can be used for the chi‐square difference test to check various types of measurement invariance as conducted in a standard multi‐group analysis.