The Influence of Presentation Format of Story on Narrative Production in Chinese Children Learning English-as-a-Second-Language: A Comparison Between Graphic Novel,Illustration Book and Text

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Past studies have shown that multimodal presentation of story can improve story-retelling performance in the first language. The purpose of the present study...     

Suicide Ideation,Alcohol Consumption,Motives, and Related Problems: Exploring the Association in College Students

Previous findings on the relationship between suicide ideation (SI) and alcohol misuse among college students are inconsistent, leading to conflicting clinical implications. We aimed to clarify this relationship in order to determine the utility of regarding alcohol misuse as a risk factor for SI in this population. Unselected college students (N = 545) completed an online survey including measures of alcohol consumption, problems, drinking motives, SI, and related variables. Our results suggest alcohol misuse is not a correlate of SI among college students; therefore, one should not assume that students who misuse alcohol are necessarily at increased risk for SI.     

Is the future always brighter than the past? Anticipation of changes in the personal future after recall of past experiences

People tend to hold an optimistic view of their futures. Using a novel paradigm to examine the anticipated change from the personal past to the personal future, we found that the future was not always perceived as brighter than the past. College students (N = 156) recalled positive and negative personal events of various situations. Following each recall, they imagined a future personal event involving the same situation. Participants expected over half of the events to change in either upward or downward directions, depending on the valence of the past events. In addition, participants anticipated greater changes in domains of less stability, and Asians anticipated greater changes than European Americans. Anticipated future changes were further associated with psychological well-being. The findings shed new light on future event simulation.     

A qualitative examination of the work–family interface: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

Within the work–family literature little is known about the work–family challenges and opportunities faced by families that have one or more children with autism spectrum disorder. However, it has been consistently demonstrated that parents of children with autism spectrum disorder are at a higher risk of experiencing a host of negative outcomes. Using a qualitative design, within grounded theory, the present study sheds light on the needs, experiences, and challenges that parents of children with autism spectrum disorder face and also offers insight into ways to expand the scope of work–family research in this area. The present research provides evidence of how the family domain can greatly impact experiences and decisions made in the work domain for families with special needs. The present research adds to the small but growing literature examining the interplay between home and work life for families with special needs and demonstrates that this is an important research domain in need of additional conceptual and empirical consideration.     

Behavioral assessment of physical activity in obese preschool children

We measured changes in physical activity in 2 obese preschool children when a package intervention was evaluated in a reversal design. Physical activity was measured via direct observation and pedometers. Although the intervention produced only modest increases in activity, the results provide preliminary concurrent validation for the dependent measures used, in that the two measures covaried and a similar degree of change was observed with each across baseline and intervention phases.     

Attentional biases using the body in the crowd task: are angry body postures detected more rapidly?

Research using schematic faces has consistently demonstrated attentional biases towards threatening information (angry faces), which are accentuated for individuals with higher levels of anxiety. However, research has yet to reveal whether this is the case for other nonverbal channels of communication. In the research reported here, ninety-five undergraduates completed a body in the crowd task analogous to the face in the crowd task, to examine whether attentional biases for threat existed for schematic body postures. Participants demonstrated faster detection of threat. A discrepant angry posture in a neutral crowd was identified quicker than a discrepant happy posture in a neutral crowd. This effect was pronounced for individuals with higher self-reported levels of trait anxiety. Results also demonstrated evidence of delayed disengagement from threat. Individuals were slower (i.e., more distracted) by identical crowds of angry postures rather than happy or neutral crowds and were slower to detect a discrepant neutral posture among an angry crowd than neutral among a happy crowd. These findings are the first to establish threat biases using body postures in a visual search paradigm. The results are in accordance with previous research using schematic face stimuli. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Emotion understanding, theory of mind, and prosocial orientation: Relations over time in early childhood

Data were collected when children were 42, 54, and 72 months of age (Ns=210, 191, and 172 for T1, T2, and T3, respectively). Children's emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were examined as predictors of children's prosocial orientation within and across time. EU positively related to children's sympathy across 2.5 years, and T1 EU positively related to parent-reported prosocial orientation concurrently and across 1 year (T2). T2 ToM positively related to parents' reports of sympathy and prosocial orientation concurrently and 18 months later (T3); in contrast, T3 ToM did not relate to sympathy or prosocial orientation. T2 ToM accounted for marginally significant variance (p<0.058) in T3 mother-reported prosocial orientation over and above that accounted for by T2 prosocial orientation. Fostering the development of EU and ToM may contribute to children's prosocial orientation.     

A retrospective analysis of the relation between resurgence and renewal of behavior targeted for reduction

Functional communication training (FCT) is an evidence-based treatment for behavior targeted for reduction that often combines extinction for target responses and arranges functionally equivalent reinforcement for alternative behavior. Long-term effectiveness of FCT can become compromised when transitioning from clinic to nonclinic contexts or thinning reinforcement schedules for appropriate behavior. Such increases in targeted behavior have been conceptualized as renewal and resurgence, respectively. The relation between resurgence and renewal has yet to be reported. Therefore, the present report retrospectively analyzed the relation between renewal and resurgence in data collected when implementing FCT with children diagnosed with developmental disabilities. We found no relation when evaluating all 34 individuals assessed for resurgence and renewal or a subset of individuals exhibiting both resurgence and renewal. These findings suggest that one form of relapse may not be predictive of another form of relapse.