School-based applications of the wraparound process: Early results on service provision and student outcomes

The application of a school-based wraparound approach presents different challenges, perspectives, and knowledge from those seen in mental health or child welfare settings. For the past three years, the La Grange Area Department of Special Education's Wraparound Project has been implementing a school-based individualized service network that is now being integrated into the larger local and state special education, mental health, and social service systems. We present school-based applications of wraparound for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, including the community and system context, program application, evaluation process and preliminary results. Students who were identified through self-contained special education classrooms were compared to students who were identified from various other school and mental health settings. Students from the school-based program were less clinically involved than students identified from other settings. Service provision differed between program groups and by out-of-home experiences. Finally, the use of wraparound approaches across a variety of educational settings to prevent out-of-school and out-of-home care are discussed.     

The functional state of the central nervous system in chemical stress

The psychosocial and physical factors, including chemical ones, which affect the human organism are considered by some authors to be stress factors which affect the functional state (FS) of the central nervous system (CNS). We calculated correlations among the clinical, psychological/psychometric, and quantitative electropsychological (QEEG) variables of the functional changes of the CNS in chemical stress. These data were based on occupational contact with lead as experienced by 402 workers, with styrene by 96, with shale-oil products by 252, with organic solvents by 77 workers, and a control group of 145 workers in different age groups. The QEEG data of 77 patients were analyzed to determine the chronic neurotoxic effects of industrial chemical substances by diagnosing the functional changes at the syndrome level. We concluded that occupational chemical factors impact the functional state of the CNS. During chemical stress -activity and total cerebral bioelectrical activity (BA) decreases. The use of psychometric/ psychological and QEEG methods makes it possible to diagnose the changes of the CNS as hypersthenic, hyposthenic, and organic psychosyndromes.     

Personality disorders and psychosocial changes after intensive psychotherapy: A prospective follow-up study of an outpatient psychotherapy project, 5 years after end of treatment*

This report presents the results of a 7-year prospective outcome study designed to examine the psychosocial changes during and after therapy among 25 outpatients suffering from personality disorders and psychoses. The therapeutic approach was based mainly on object relations theory and psychodynamic self-psychology, and focused in particular on affect consciousness, parental images, self-image and interpersonal relations. Twenty patients completed the form which measured psychosocial changes during therapy, and 21 persons participated at follow-up. The data show statistically significant changes in the capacity to tolerate intimate relationships and actually establish such relationships, improved quality of contact in relationships with friends, a general raising of socioeconomic status and reduced use of ordinary health and social services. Both the global psychosocial outcome at follow-up as measured by HSRS and the general level of symptoms measured by SCL-90 suggest that 76% of the sample had reached a level of psychosocial functioning and adaptation that can be defined as “no-caseness”.     

Sleep apnea syndrome: Symptomatology,associated features,and neurocognitive correlates

This article reviews the essential features, types, prevalence, pathophysiology, and neuropsychological correlates associated with the sleep apnea syndrome. Persons who experience the intermittent hypoxia and fragmented sleep characteristic of the sleep apnea syndrome tend to exhibit moderate symptoms of diffuse cognitive dysfunction as well as multiple emotional and psychosocial sequela. It is concluded that more research is required in order to elucidate the relationship between the hypoxic parameters and neurocognitive deficits seen in the sleep apnea syndrome, and that neuropsychological assessment might represent a means whereby the effectiveness of various treatments for sleep apnea may be evaluated.     

Body Image Testing System: A microcomputer program for assessing body image

An interactive computer program, the Body Image Testing System (BITS), was developed to assess different components of the body image construct. The BITS program displays a frontal and side view of a human body. Subjects can change the size of each of nine body parts independently (face, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, breasts, stomach, hips, and thighs). Subjects interact with the program until satisfied that the image created matches the instructions. Subjects also provide satisfaction ratings for the nine body segments. To validate BITS, a variety of body image and eating disturbance measures was obtained from over 500 subjects. A factor analysis of actual-ideal differences and a perceptual distortion measure, derived using multiple regression, resulted in five orthogonal factors. Factor 1 measured actual-ideal discrepancy for weight-sensitive body parts. Factor 2 measured the perceptual distortion of weight-sensitive body parts. Additional factors measured perception of face and neck, shoulders, and breasts. The five factor scores plus the satisfaction ratings were strongly associated with actual body size, body fat percentage, and circumference of specific body parts. In addition, there were strong associations between the BITS and other measures of body image. Finally, BITS scores accounted for between 15 and 60% of the variance in measures of eating disturbance.     

Weaning in Japan: A longitudinal study of mother and child behaviours during milk- and solid-feeding

Behaviours of seven Japanese mother-infant dyads during daytime feeding of both milk and solids were observed longitudinally to the middle of the second year. The first 3 months were a period of exclusive milk-feeding largely uninterrupted by mother-infant social interaction. In the following 6 months there was increasing mother-infant communicative interaction during milk-feeding and the mother began attempts to feed solids. After 8 months, weaning was promoted by reduction in some types of interaction during milk-feeding, and increased rejection by the infant of passive feeding as self-feeding of solids increased. Self-feeding was at first mainly by hand, and later with tools. A positive correlation was found between hand-feeding at 12-14 months and active physical stimulation of the infant by the mother during milk-feeding in the first year. Self-feeding of solids with tools increased significantly after 1 1/2 years, and the mother supported this development. The mother showed non-intentional eating-like mouth movement at the moment infants ate (empathetic behaviour), and this behaviour peaked in the latter half of the first year and decreased thereafter. The development of independence or autonomy in feeding was a mutual or cooperative process between mother and infant, and was initiated by the infant rather than imposed by the mother.     

Predictions of developmental patterns during infancy: Assessments of children 0–1 years

The present study investigated how neonatal behavioural organization was related to later mental development during the first year of life. The study further investigated the relationship between early social affective behaviour and later mental development. A group of 40 infants was assessed five times during the infants' first year, at three and 14 days and at four, eight and 12 months. The Brazelton Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale (NBAS), the Duve method (a clinically based method for observation of social affective behaviour), and Griffiths' Mental Development Scales were used to assess the development of the infants. The results indicate that early predictive behavioural components can be identified. Neonatal state control capacity was related to motor development at both eight and 12 months. Social responsitivity at four months was related to hearing and speech at eight as well as at 12 months. The NBAS dimensions were good predictors of eight months performance, but were poor predictors of 12 months performance.     

An emerging research agenda for investigative interviewing: hypotheses from the narrative action system

The present issue of JIP-OP brings together an intriguing range of papers that cover a wide range of aspects of testimony and aspects of investigative interviewing. They show how the considerations of how testimony is obtained is broadening out from the memory improvement strategies that once dominated this area with attempts to detect deception, to cover many aspects of how testimony is obtained. This draws attention to the need for more careful examination of the variations in testimony eliciting processes that will be responsive to differences in context and crime. A research agenda is therefore proposed that draws on developments in the understanding of psychological differences between crimes. This research would study the relationship between the psychological processes underpinning offence actions and the interview behaviour of suspects or witnesses. With regard to suspects, recent developments in the modelling of offence style have indicated a narrative basis (narrative action system model) for understanding the patterns of offence actions and the perpetrator's psychological background and characteristics that can be inferred from these. It is therefore suggested that the Hero's Quest, Professional's Adventure, Revenger's Tragedy, and Victim's Irony offending narratives and the Object, Vehicle, and Person victim roles assigned within these, may provide a fruitful link to different patterns of interview behaviour, with consequent implications for approaches to interviewing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Segmenting global markets by generational cohorts: determining motivations by age

Marketing has long rested on the use of market segmentation. While birth age has been a useful way to create groups, it describes segments but in itself does not help to understand segment motivations. Environmental events experienced during one's coming‐of‐age years, however, create values that remain relatively unchanged throughout one's life. Such values provide a common bond for those in that age group, or cohort. Segmenting by ‘coming‐of‐age’ age provides a richer segmentation approach than birth age. This approach, known to work in America, is used in this paper to create generational cohorts in Russia and in Brazil. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

A threat-detection advantage in those with autism spectrum disorders

Identifying threatening expressions is a significant social perceptual skill. Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are impaired in social interaction, show deficits in face and emotion processing, show amygdala abnormalities and display a disadvantage in the perception of social threat. According to the anger superiority hypothesis, angry faces capture attention faster than happy faces in individuals with a history of typical development [Hansen, C. H., & Hansen, R. D. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd: An anger superiority effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 917–924]. We tested threat detection abilities in ASD using a facial visual search paradigm. Participants were asked to detect an angry or happy face image in an array of distracter faces. A threat-detection advantage was apparent in both groups: participants showed faster and more accurate detection of threatening over friendly faces. Participants with ASD showed similar reaction time, but decreased overall accuracy compared to controls. This provides evidence for less robust, but intact or learned implicit processing of basic emotions in ASD.