Children's Understanding of the Instrumental Value of Products and Brands

Gelman and Echelbarger (2019—this issue) provide a valuable discussion about children's understanding of the inferred or nonobvious features of objects, which has implications for how children value products. We further this conversation by examining how children value products and brands as a means for meeting important goals, which we refer to as instrumental valuation. Specifically, we examine developmental trends in instrumental valuation for three goals—self‐concept development, self‐presentation, and happiness. Across these areas, we find that children place greater value on products and brands for meeting these goals as they grow older, particularly during late childhood and early adolescence. We conclude with a discussion of how age differences in instrumental valuation add to the general conversation about how children of different ages value objects.     

Increasing meal consumption in individuals with competing protective equipment

Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder may engage in self‐injurious behavior that can cause tissue damage. Protective equipment is sometimes used to decrease the severity of tissue damage when self‐injury occurs. However, wearing protective equipment may be incompatible with some forms of adaptive behavior, such as meal consumption. The purpose of the present analysis was to identify a treatment for increasing meal consumption in two adolescent males diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder who wore protective equipment that interfered with self‐feeding. Three interventions were evaluated: modifying the protective equipment, manipulating the reinforcing efficacy of the meal, and arranging additional positive reinforcement for meal consumption in the absence of protective equipment. Modifying protective equipment and manipulating the reinforcing efficacy of the meal were effective for both participants. Additional positive reinforcement was evaluated and effective for one participant.     

Item Parameter Drift in Context Questionnaires from International Large-Scale Assessments

The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of item parameter drift (IPD) occurring in context questionnaires from an international large-scale assessment and determine the most appropriate way to address IPD. Focusing on the context of psychometric and educational research where scores from context questionnaires composed of polytomous items were employed for the classification of examinees, the current research investigated the impacts of IPD on the estimation of questionnaire scores and classification accuracy with five manipulated factors: the length of a questionnaire, the proportion of items exhibiting IPD, the direction and magnitude of IPD, and three decisions about IPD. The results indicated that the impact of IPD occurring in a short context questionnaire on the accuracy of score estimation and classification of examinees was substantial. The accuracy in classification considerably decreased especially at the lowest and highest categories of a trait. Unlike the recommendation from literature in educational testing, the current study demonstrated that keeping items exhibiting IPD and removing them only for transformation were appropriate when IPD occurred in relatively short context questionnaires. Using 2011 TIMSS data from Iran, an applied example demonstrated the application of provided guidance in making appropriate decisions about IPD.     

Validation française d’une version brève de l’Échelle de satisfaction maritale

IntroductionFew measuring instruments of couple satisfaction maximizing the individual perception of the relationship exists in French. Settings such as Liaison psychiatry of a general hospital could benefit from a questionnaire adapting to a variety of clinical profiles.ObjectiveThis article proposes a French revision and validation of the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS; Roach, Frazier, and Bowden, 1981), a 48-item self-reported questionnaire designed to evaluate personal satisfaction towards one's couple relationship.MethodA sample of 349 community-dwelling individuals aged 20–85 answered the MSS, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1976), and a series of inquiries related to sociodemographics. As an initial Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) did not validate the unidimensional structure postulated by the original authors, the item number was reduced to 14.ResultsThis brief version of the scale (MSS-14) was subsequently validated with an internal replication analysis, a strong criterion-related validity with the DAS (r_s = 0.73, P < 0.001), an excellent internal consistency (α = 0.961, IC à 95% [0.955, 0.967]), a strong test-retest reliability (r_s = 0.90, CI à 95% [0.85, 0.93], P < 0.001, Z = − 0.033, P = 0.973), and strong item-to-total correlations (> 0.69). The MSS-14 could differentiate individuals with and without marital distress (AUC = 0.97), while no sociodemographic variable seemed to have a significant influence on couple satisfaction.ConclusionThe MSS-14 appears to be a reliable instrument to assess the personal satisfaction towards a couple relationship in community-dwelling adults.     

The California Linkages Program: Doorway to Housing Support for Child Welfare‐Involved Parents

Housing instability can complicate parents’ efforts to provide for their children. Child welfare service agencies have had difficulty adequately serving parents’ housing needs due to limited and constrained funding streams. This article integrates the voices of four important stakeholders to illuminate how an innovative model of service system coordination called Linkages addresses housing needs for child welfare‐involved parents eligible for public assistance. Facilitated by Linkages, these parents can receive supportive housing services through programs affiliated with the California public assistance program CalWORKs. Personal narratives reflecting the diverse perspectives of stakeholders in the Linkages collaboration—the statewide program director, a child welfare services coordinator, a CalWORKs caseworker, and a parent program participant—shed light on how the collaboration assists parents in attaining case plan goals, and highlights some of the factors facilitating and hindering effective collaboration between the agencies involved. Stakeholders emphasized the value of flexible service approaches, the intensity of the efforts required, the role of advocacy, and the importance of a shared vision between agencies working together to provide housing supports.     

The Impact of Family Unification Housing Vouchers on Child Welfare Outcomes

This study addresses whether providing housing vouchers through the Family Unification Program (FUP) to families involved in the child welfare system reduces child maltreatment and the need for child welfare services. The study uses child welfare administrative data on 326 children in Portland, Oregon, and 502 children in San Diego, California from the point at which their families were referred to the program through 18 months post‐referral. Using a quasi‐experimental waitlist comparison design, probit regressions show little impact of FUP on preventing child removal from home, but some positive impact on reunification among children already placed out of home. Hazard estimations show receipt of FUP speeds up child welfare case closure. Impacts on new reports of abuse and neglect are mixed, but point toward reduced reports. Low rates of removal among intact comparison families and high rates of reunification for children in out‐of‐home care suggest poor targeting of housing resources. Housing vouchers are being given to families not bearing the risks the program is intended to address. The presence of some positive findings suggests that housing vouchers might help reduce child welfare involvement if better targeting were practiced by child welfare agencies.     

Parents’ adjustment following the death of their child: Resilience is multidimensional and differs across outcomes examined

We examine whether the previously reported commonness of resilience to significant adversity extends to parents’ death of a child. To examine our research questions, we apply growth mixture models to longitudinal data from 461 parents in the HILDA study who had experienced child loss. The proportion of parents manifesting resilience were 44%, 56%, 21%, 32%, and 16% for life satisfaction, negative affect, positive affect, general health, and physical functioning, respectively. Only 5% were resilient across all five indices, whereas 28% did not show a resilient trajectory across all outcomes. Social connectedness, anticipating comfort when distressed, and everyday role functioning were the strongest predictors of resilient adaptation. Findings underscore that resilience is not a unidimensional construct.Words: 115.     

Breastfeeding and motor development: A longitudinal cohort study

BackgroundWhile there is a large body of work supporting the importance of early feeding practices on cognitive, immunity, behavioural and mental outcomes, few longitudinal studies have focused on motor development. The relationship between duration of breast feeding and motor development outcomes at 10, 14, and 17 years were examined.MethodsData were obtained from the Western Australian Pregnancy (Raine) Study. There were 2868 live births recorded and children were examined for motor proficiency at 10 (M = 10.54, SD = 2.27), 14 (M = 14.02, SD = 2.33) and 17 (M = 16.99, SD = 2.97) years using the McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (MAND). Using linear mixed models, adjusted for covariates known to affect motor development, the influence of predominant breast feeding for <6 months and ⩾6 months on motor development outcomes was examined.ResultsBreast feeding for ⩾6 months was positively associated with improved motor development outcomes at 10, 14 and 17 years of age (p = 0.019, β 1.38) when adjusted for child’s sex, maternal age, alcohol intake, family income, hypertensive status, gestational stress and mode of delivery.ConclusionEarly life feeding practices have an influence on motor development outcomes into late childhood and adolescence independent of sociodemographic factors.     

No blank slates: Pre-existing schemas about pharmaceuticals predict memory for side effects

Objectives: Attribution of symptoms as medication side effects is informed by pre-existing beliefs about medicines and perceptions of personal sensitivity to their effects (pharmaceutical schemas). We tested whether (1) pharmaceutical schemas were associated with memory (recall/recognition) for side effect information (2) memory explained the attribution of a common unrelated symptom as a side effect.

Design: In this analogue study participants saw the patient leaflet of a fictitious asthma drug listing eight side effects.

Main outcome measures: We measured recall and recognition memory for side effects and used a vignette to test whether participants attributed an unlisted common symptom (headache) as a side effect.

Results: Participants who perceived pharmaceuticals as more harmful in general recalled fewer side effects correctly (r_{Correct Recall} = ?.273), were less able to differentiate between listed and unlisted side effects (r_{Recognition Sensitivity} = ?.256) and were more likely to attribute the unlisted headache symptom as a side effect (r_{side effect attribution} = .381, ps < .01). The effect of harm beliefs on side effect attribution was partially mediated by correct recall of side effects.

Conclusion: Pharmaceutical schemas are associated with memory for side effect information. Memory may explain part of the association between pharmaceutical schemas and the attribution of unrelated symptoms as side effects.     

Investigating the neurodevelopmental mediators of aggression in children with a history of child maltreatment:An exploratory field study

Maltreatment of children is a chronic community problem that increases the risk of future aggression. Despite several decades of research highlighting this relationship, few studies have explored the potential neuropsychological deficits that are likely to mediate it. This exploratory study aimed to examine how child maltreatment may be associated with aggression via impairment in the developing prefrontal-limbic-autonomic pathways that are implicated in neuropsychological models of aggression. Furthermore, it aimed to investigate the relationship between child maltreatment and both reactive and proactive aggression subtypes. To investigate this non-invasively in an at-risk population, children with a documented protective care history (n = 20) and a community control group (n = 30), aged between 6 and 12 years, were compared on measures of cardiovascular functioning, affect regulation and cognitive functioning aligned with this neuropsychological model. Whilst no group differences were found on cardiovascular functioning (i.e., resting heart rate, heart rate reactivity, heart rate variability), the protective care group performed significantly worse on measures of affect regulation and cognitive functioning (i.e., global intelligence, executive functioning, smell identification and social cognition). The relationship between child maltreatment and aggression was mediated by executive dysfunction and affect dysregulation but not global IQ, social cognition or olfactory identification. The results suggest that interventions targeting aggression in maltreated children will benefit from clinical assessment and psychological strategies that address the executive dysfunction and affect dysregulation that has been associated with this clinical outcome.