Offspring of anxious parents: reactivity, habituation, and anxiety-proneness

Reactivity and habituation patterns were examined in the offspring of anxious and non-anxious parents. Although no differences emerged for magnitude of response to either fear-relevant visual or auditory stimuli, offspring of anxious parents displayed significantly more electrodermal activity during resting baseline and during the inter-trial intervals of these stimulus presentations. Differences also were observed for the number of children per group achieving habituation to the fear-relevant visual and auditory stimuli, where offspring of anxious parents were less likely to habituate to either stimuli. The same pattern of group differences emerged after excluding children diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, indicating that even offspring of anxious parents who did not have an anxiety disorder differ from offspring of normal controls with respect to their pattern of psychophysiological reactivity. It is hypothesized that these features might serve as an indication of anxiety proneness and risk for the development of anxiety disorders.     

Parents’ Perception of the Effects of Church Involvement on Adolescent Substance Use

The study utilized qualitative methods to study protective factors among middle school students who were at risk for substance use. Three focus groups (consisting of 6–7 parents each) were conducted to learn more about parent’s perceptions of protective factors within the neighborhood, school, family, and the individual. In terms of spirituality, parents stressed the importance of church involvement in preventing high-risk behaviors. These findings will be highlighted to provide information that may serve as a basis for further examining church involvement and spirituality as protective factors in adolescent substance use.     

Equivalence-based instruction to teaching reading by families and teachers students with autism and/or intellectual disabilities

The study evaluated the learning of computerized equivalence-based reading instruction in students with intellectual disability and/or autism who attend regular school when exposed to a teaching practices package (teaching practices programmed) conducted by different educational agents (parents, regular classroom teachers, and special education teachers) in school settings and at home. The students were exposed to teaching packages that were applied by educational agents. The study has two hypotheses. First, the involvement of teachers and families in implementing interventions, in the presence of the researcher, may contribute to their learning to read in inclusive classrooms and at home. Secondly, the teaching of reading in Portuguese language may be favored by the direct teaching of syllables. A multiple baseline procedure was used to evaluate the teaching of three sets of words. Students improved from zero reading skills in the pretest to an average of 80% correct responses out of 21 taught words.     

Influence of Deviant Friends on Delinquency: Searching for Moderator Variables

Three categories of potential moderators of the link between best friend's deviancy and boys' delinquency during early adolescence were investigated: personal (i.e., disruptiveneness profile during childhood, attitude toward delinquency), familial (i.e., parental monitoring, attachment to parents), and social (i.e., characteristics of other friends). Best friend's and other friends' deviancy were assessed during preadolescence through the use of peer ratings. Potential moderators were assessed at the same age period with teacher ratings or self-reports. Finally, delinquent behaviors were assessed at ages 13 and 14, as well as age 10 for control purposes, with self-reports. Results showed that boys' disruptiveness profiles during childhood, attachment to parents, and attitude toward delinquency moderated the link between best friend's deviancy and later delinquent behaviors. Other friends' deviancy and parental monitoring had main effects but no moderating effects. These results help clarify the conditions under which exposure to a deviant best friend can influence boys' delinquent behaviors. They also help to reconcile different theoretical explanations of the role of deviant friends in the development of delinquency.     

Structural, Relative, and Absolute Agreement between Parents' and Adolescent Inpatients' Reports of Adolescent Functional Impairment

This study assessed agreement between parents' and adolescent inpatients' scores on caretaker and self-report versions of the Functional Impairment Scale for Children and Adolescents (FISCA and FISCA-SR). Self-report data describing impairment in eight domains were collected from 375 inpatients (M age = 15.0 years, 55% females), with parent data available for 233 (62%). Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated structural congruence between a hypothesized, three-factor model, based on a prior study of the parent FISCA, and an observed model, based on responses to the FISCA-SR (GFI = .95). Correlations (measuring relative agreement) and paired comparisons of means (assessing absolute agreement) generally identified stronger agreement in public than private domains of impairment, and greater relative than absolute agreement in covert, antisocial domains.     

Is separation anxiety in adolescents and parents related to parental differentiation of self?

The current study examined the relationship between separation anxiety in adolescents after their transition to middle school, on the one hand, and differentiation of self and separation anxiety in their parents, on the other hand. The sample included 88 adolescents from northern Israel, together with their biological parents. Adolescents' separation anxiety was found to be negatively associated with maternal I-position (IP). In terms of gender differences, mothers' levels of emotional reactivity and fusion with others were higher than fathers', while fathers' levels of IP and emotional cut-off were higher than mothers'. Furthermore, parents' levels of differentiation of self were negatively correlated with their own levels of separation anxiety. The study found an absence of gender differences in separation anxiety, both for parents and adolescents. Also, parents' separation anxiety was not related to adolescents' separation anxiety. The results indicate that differentiation of self among mothers is a significant characteristic in understanding adolescents' separation anxiety. On a practical level, this study has the potential to increase the awareness of teachers, school counsellors and psychologists of those familial sources that promote and increase adolescents' separation anxiety.     

Milieu therapy for neglected children: Treatment in a caring relationship

The central thesis of this paper is that treatment of neglected children can better take place in a caring relationship than in psychotherapy or analysis. In order to create the basis for this idea, Part 1 introduces a milieu therapy for neglected children, developed by the author. In Part 2 of the article, it is proposed that treatment in a caring relationship is in line with the child's dependence on a caring person. It is also argued that the traditional distinction between problems in the child's environment and internal psychological difficulties seems imprecise. Instead, it is proposed that a problem has both an external and an internal aspect. This supports the idea that it may be possible to solve problems that are traditionally considered internal through environmental strategies, for example milieu therapy. The article is hypothesis-generating and builds upon clinical experience inspired by works of, among others, Erikson, Bowlby, Winnicott, and Fonagy and collaborators. Part 1 of the article is the first presentation in English of the main points of the author's books on milieu therapy. The ideas in Part 2 are published here for the first time.     

‘An Association for All’—Notions of the Meaning of Autistic Self‐Advocacy Politics within a Parent‐Dominated Autistic Movement

In this paper, we seek to explore the tensions between advocacy and self advocacy autistic movements in a Swedish context with a special focus on the meanings that enable the production of particular understandings of autism and the autistic subject. Drawing on articles written for the Swedish advocacy magazine Empowerment written for and by people with autism, the discourse analysis explores two competing discourses: a reformist and a radical. The reformist discourse underlines a goal of (political) representation expressed in Empowerment. It may be understood as an important part of producing a legitimate autistic political subject–positioned as a full member, with a full membership–within a parent‐dominated autistic advocacy movement. The reformist discourse can be viewed as a result of a negotiation, where full membership is conditioned on the parents' terms and granted on specific terms. These include working together (neuro‐inclusively), advocacy based on interest rather than identity/position as a specific target/member group, agreement upon a definition of autism as a disability (a deficit) a person has rather than an identity. In relation to this, an alternative legitimate autistic subject is produced through invoking the counter‐hegemonic radical discourse. Such a narrative produces the ‘Asperger’ or ‘Aspie’. Here, the ‘full membership’ refers to a sense of identification with sense of belonging to and being at home with other people with autism. It contains a certain amount of autistic solidarity within the group of adults with autism. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parents’ influence on the development of their children’s ethnic intergroup attitudes: a longitudinal analysis from middle childhood to early adolescence

This study investigated to what extent parents’ intergroup attitudes influence the development of their children’s ethnic intergroup attitudes (i.e., ingroup bias), and which socialization factors moderate this influence. We report on a four-year longitudinal study of 213 children (M_age = 7.94) and their parents conducted in Eastern Germany. Findings showed significant interindividual differences in children’s developmental trajectories, which could, in part, be explained by child gender, socio-economic status and parental attitudes. The influence of parents’ intergroup attitudes was moderated by parenting style and parental similarity in attitudes both of which, our findings suggest, can make the transmission of parental attitudes more likely.