Phonological loop and central executive contributions to oral comprehension skills of 5.5 to 9.5 years old children

Oral story comprehension in 5.5, 7.5 and 9.5 year old children is examined in relation to working memory (WM) contributions. The phonological loop (PL) of the Baddeley and Hitch WM model was assessed with word, non‐word and digit recall and a word list matching task. The central executive (CE) was assessed with listening, counting and backward digit recall tasks. A composite score was calculated for each WM component. Receptive vocabulary and oral comprehension were also assessed. Regression analyses demonstrated CE contributions to oral comprehension overall, and also to comprehension sub‐skills (above any vocabulary contributions). Effects were stronger in preschoolers and decreased with age. The PL did not play an important role in oral comprehension. Comprehension control was the comprehension skill best predicted. The study demonstrates the CE importance in off‐line comprehension processes during early childhood and the usefulness of assessing CE processes for identifying possible comprehension difficulties later at school. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-coping complexity: Role of self-construal in relational, individual and collective coping styles and health outcomes

Using a tripartite relational (R), individual (I) and collective (C) framework, three studies explored the health benefits of self-coping complexity (SCC). Study 1 ( N  = 333) developed and validated RIC coping scales. Study 2 ( N  = 346) identified two clusters of Australians, those with an expansive pattern of multiple self-aspects and coping styles, and those with a more restricted self-coping pattern. Both clusters reported similar stress, but the expansive high SCC cluster reported greater well-being. A culturally diverse sample ( N  = 225) in Study 3 yielded the expected high SCC RIC self-coping cluster, plus interdependent RC and independent I clusters. Cluster membership was not associated with culture or gender in these studies, but greater SCC did confer a health advantage to men and women from both Eastern and Western cultures.     

Predictors and Trajectories of Response to the Homework,Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) Intervention for Adolescents With ADHD

The goal of the present study was to evaluate the relative importance of adolescent and parent skills acquired during participation in the Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) intervention in predicting intervention response. A sample of 111 middle school students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (66% male; M_age = 11.99, SD = 1.05) received the HOPS intervention, which includes 16 brief sessions with the adolescent and two parent meetings. Each session, school mental health providers completed checklists measuring students’ acquisition of homework recording, materials organization, and time management skills. Parents provided information on whether they monitored and used contingencies to reinforce skills use at home. Outcome measures included parent and teacher ratings of homework problems and organizational/time management skills postintervention. Grade point average and assignment completion were also evaluated as objective outcomes. Regressions found accurate homework recording and time management to be unique predictors of parent-reported homework and organizational skills outcomes. Growth mixture models examining organizational skills trajectories throughout the intervention significantly predicted parent- and teacher-reported outcomes, GPA, and assignment completion; homework recording trajectories predicted parent-reported outcomes and GPA. Sixty-eight percent of participants displayed high acquisition of organization and homework recording skills. Parent-reported use of monitoring and contingencies to support adolescent skills implementation was not associated with outcomes. Results highlight the importance of examining individual differences in school-based intervention studies targeting organization, time management, and planning. Importantly, for a school-based adolescent-focused intervention, improvement in outcomes does not appear to be dependent upon parent skills implementation.     

Relationship Distress as a Mediator of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Health: Implications for Clinical Practice with Economically Vulnerable Racial and Ethnic Minorities

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are interpersonal sources of distress negatively correlated with physical and mental health, as well as maladaptive intimate partner conflict strategies in adulthood. Economically vulnerable racial and ethnic minorities report the greatest disparities in exposure to ACE, as well as relationship distress and health. Yet, little is known about the connections between ACE, relationship distress, and health. We therefore tested a theoretical model for the mediating role of relationship distress to explain the ACE‐health connection with a sample (N = 96) predominantly racial/ethnic minorities (87%) with low income. We applied partial least squares structural equation modeling with bootstrapping (N = 500). Relationship distress strengthened the predictive relationship between ACE and health, and accounted for 42% of the variance in health. The results provide preliminary support for relationship distress as a social determinant of health disparities with implications for interdisciplinary health intervention.     

Lifespan Development Revisited: African-Centered Spirituality Throughout the Life Cycle

Traditionally in the field of psychology, most theories were developed from the perspective of scholars from Western culture. Because of this, the generality of such theories is usually limited, especially when applying them to people of African descent who have experienced different realities of life as a function of worldwide racial oppression. Especially lacking in the theories is a consideration of the role of spirituality in the development and psychological well-being of people of African descent. The authors discuss the problems of Western theories using Erikson's model of life-span development as an example. They present the definition of spirituality using an African-centered lens, and then propose a synthesis between Western and non-Western developmental theories with the issue of spirituality placed in the center of analysis.     

Thinking of critical words during study is unnecessary for false memory in the Deese,Roediger, and McDermott procedure

Do participants in the Deese, Roediger, and McDermott (DRM) procedure demonstrate false memory because they think of nonpresented critical words during study and confuse them with words that were actually presented? In two experiments, 160 participants studied eight visually presented DRM lists at a rate of 2 s or 5 s per word. Half of the participants rehearsed silently: the other half rehearsed overtly. Following study, the participants' memory for the lists was tested by recall or recognition. Typical false memory results were obtained for both memory measures. More important, two new results were observed. First, a large majority of the overt-rehearsal participants spontaneously rehearsed approximately half of the critical words during study. Second, critical-word rehearsal at study enhanced subsequent false recall, but it had no effect on false recognition or remember judgments for falsely recognized critical words. Thinking of critical words during study was unnecessary for producing false memory.     

A brief actuarial assessment for the prediction of wife assault recidivism: the Ontario domestic assault risk assessment

An actuarial assessment to predict male-to-female marital violence was constructed from a pool of potential predictors in a sample of 589 offenders identified in police records and followed up for an average of almost 5 years. Archival information in several domains (offender characteristics, domestic violence history, nondomestic criminal history, relationship characteristics, victim characteristics, index offense) and recidivism were subjected to setwise and stepwise logistic regression. The resulting 13-item scale, the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA), showed a large effect size in predicting new assaults against legal or common-law wives or ex-wives (Cohen's d = 1.1, relative operating characteristic area =.77) and was associated with number and severity of new assaults and time until recidivism. Cross-validation and comparisons with other instruments are also reported.     

The impact of personality on cognitive, behavioral, and affective political processes: the effects of need to evaluate

Need to evaluate (NE) is a personality trait that reflects a person's proclivity to create and hold attitudes; people high in NE are especially likely to form attitudes toward all sorts of objects. Using data from the 1998 National Election Survey Pilot and the 2000 National Election Survey, NE was shown to predict a variety of important attitude-relevant cognitive, behavioral, and affective political processes beyond simply holding attitudes: NE predicted how many evaluative beliefs about candidates a person held, the likelihood that a person would use party identification and issue stances to determine candidate preferences, the extent to which a person engaged in political activism, the likelihood that a person voted or intended to vote, the extent to which a person used the news media for gathering information, and the intensity of emotional reactions a person felt toward political candidates. Thus, NE appears to play a powerful role in shaping important political behavior, emotion, and cognition.     

Dyadic Influence of Adverse Childhood Experiences: Counseling Implications for Mental and Relational Health

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) predict physical and mental health. We examined dyadic differences in intimate partner relationship health by ACE score among couples with low to moderate income enrolled in a relationship education program. Overall, we found a high prevalence of ACEs, disproportionate representation in the highest risk ACE group, and a significant effect between ACEs and indicators of mental and relational health. Implications for counselors include support for an ACE‐informed approach to couples counseling services, as well as a holistic and systemic view of mental and relational health.