A Review of: “Greenwald,R. (2009). Treating Problem Behaviors: A Trauma-Informed Approach.”

This single-case-design experiment examined an intervention to decrease bed-sharing in children, ages 2 through 6. Three sessions were conducted with each parent. At the first session, parents described bed-sharing history and began collecting baseline data. At the second session, parents were instructed to employ the intervention. At the third session, parents were interviewed and offered continued support, if needed. Participants included three children who slept with their parents 4 or more nights per week. The intervention resulted in a substantial decrease in bed-sharing behavior for all participants, and parents reported being satisfied with the intervention.     

Childhood Sexual Assault,Quality of Life,and Psychiatric Comorbidity in Veterans With Military and Civilian Sexual Trauma

Veterans with military sexual trauma (MST) are at risk for a variety of psychiatric conditions, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Survivors of MST are also likely to experience diminished quality of life (QoL). Individuals with higher lifetime incidence of sexual trauma may also be at increased risk for poorer outcomes in QoL and psychiatric symptomatology. The differences in psychological sequelae among those who have experienced sexual trauma as children, and those whose sexual trauma exposure is limited to adulthood are relatively understudied. The majority of sexual trauma literature has focused primarily on civilian trauma, and comparatively few studies have specifically examined psychosocial sequelae (e.g., QoL) in veterans with MST. This study examined how childhood sexual abuse (CSA) affects overall QoL as well as severity of PTSD and depressive symptoms. Veterans who reported CSA had significantly greater depression symptom severity than veterans who did not. No significant differences in PTSD symptom severity or QoL were found between veterans who did and did not report CSA. Results highlight the need for further examination of the relationship between CSA and depression in veterans with MST-related PTSD who also report CSA.     

‘And when you were a child?’: how therapists working with parents alongside individual child psychotherapy bring the past into their work

When a child is offered psychotherapy, it is common that regular meetings will be offered to the parents. However, there are debates in the literature about the degree to which such parent work should include a focus on the parents’ own childhood experiences. This study aimed to examine the way that those offering parent work as part of a study evaluating the treatment of adolescent depression dealt with this issue in their work with parents, both in the study and in routine clinical practice. Design: five therapists were interviewed on the subject of working with parents’ childhood experiences within parent work parallel to child psychotherapy. Data were analysed qualitatively, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings: participants described the need to consider the different parameters of this work to individual adult therapy; in addition, participants felt that it was necessary to negotiate permission to work on the parents’ childhood experiences. They also spoke of making use of insight into the repetition of the parents’ history, the analysis of parental projections and offering containment within the relationship; this varies from the ‘transference work’ of individual therapy and a different style of interpretation was described. Conclusions: there is a need to give more attention to the neglected field of working with parents alongside individual child psychotherapy, especially at a time when such work is under threat within many public services. There are particular technical issues related to work with parents’ own childhood histories that are different to how one might work in individual therapy with a parent.     

Young Children's Trust in Overtly Misleading Advice

The ability of 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children to disregard advice from an overtly misleading informant was investigated across five studies (total n = 212). Previous studies have documented limitations in young children's ability to reject misleading advice. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that these limitations are primarily due to an inability to reject specific directions that are provided by others, rather than an inability to respond in a way that is opposite to what has been indicated by a cue. In Studies 1 through 4, a puppet identified as The Big Bad Wolf offered advice to participants about which of two boxes contained a hidden sticker. Regardless of the form the advice took, 3‐year olds performed poorly by failing to systematically reject it. However, when participants in Study 5 believed they were responding to a mechanical cue rather than the advice of the Wolf, they were better able to reject misleading advice, and individual differences in performance on the primary task were systematically correlated with measures of executive function. Results are interpreted as providing support for the communicative intent hypothesis, which posits that children find it especially difficult to reject deceptive information that they perceive as being intentionally communicated by others.     

The Idea of an Exact Number: Children's Understanding of Cardinality and Equinumerosity

Understanding what numbers are means knowing several things. It means knowing how counting relates to numbers (called the cardinal principle or cardinality); it means knowing that each number is generated by adding one to the previous number (called the successor function or succession), and it means knowing that all and only sets whose members can be placed in one‐to‐one correspondence have the same number of items (called exact equality or equinumerosity). A previous study (Sarnecka & Carey, 2008) linked children's understanding of cardinality to their understanding of succession for the numbers five and six. This study investigates the link between cardinality and equinumerosity for these numbers, finding that children either understand both cardinality and equinumerosity or they understand neither. This suggests that cardinality and equinumerosity (along with succession) are interrelated facets of the concepts five and six, the acquisition of which is an important conceptual achievement of early childhood.     

Parent–adolescent conflict,treatment adherence and glycemic control in Type 1 diabetes: The importance of adolescent externalising symptoms

Parent–adolescent conflict has been demonstrated to relate to treatment adherence and glycemic control in adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. The present longitudinal study investigated how these variables were interrelated over time, and examined whether externalising and internalising symptoms function as mediating variables. A total of 109 adolescents with diabetes participated at four annual time points and completed measures on conflict with parents, internalising and externalising symptoms. Information on treatment non-adherence and glycemic control was obtained from treating physicians. Cross-lagged analyses from a structural equation modelling approach indicated that father–adolescent but not mother–adolescent conflict positively influenced treatment non-adherence over time, which, in turn, was associated with higher glycosylated haemoglobin-values. Further, externalising but not internalising symptoms were found to mediate the pathway from father–adolescent conflict to treatment adherence over time. Finally, mother–adolescent conflict was found to relate indirectly to treatment non-adherence through its relationship with externalising symptoms. Hence, the present longitudinal study provides evidence that externalising symptoms represent an important mechanism through which earlier experiences of parent–adolescent conflict may influence later treatment non-adherence and poorer glycemic control. Implications and suggestions for future research are outlined.     

Physical activity and diabetes: An application of the theory of planned behaviour to explain physical activity for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in an adult population sample

Physical activity (PA) plays a key role in the management of Type 1 (T1D) and Type 2 diabetes (T2D) but there are few theory-based, effective programs to promote PA for individuals with diabetes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) in understanding PA in an adult population with T1D or T2D. A total of 2311 individuals (691 T1D; 1614 T2D) completed self-report TPB constructs of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control (PBC), intention and PA at baseline and 1717 (524 T1D; 1123 T2D) completed the PA measure again at 6-month follow-up. Multi-group Structural Equation Modelling was conducted to: (1) test the fit of the TPB structure (2) determine the TPB structural invariance between the two types of diabetes and (3) to examine the explained variances in PA and compare the strength of associations of the TPB constructs in the two types of diabetes. The TPB constructs explained ≥40% of the variance in intentions for both diabetes groups. In cross-sectional models, the TPB accounted for 23 and 19% of the variance in PA for T1D and T2D, respectively. In prospective models, the TPB explained 13 and 8% of the variance in PA for T1D and T2D, respectively. When adjusting for past PA behaviour, the impact of PBC and intention on behaviour was reduced in both groups. The findings provide evidence for the utility of the TPB for the design of PA promotion interventions for adults with either T1D or T2D.     

Comparison of the role of self-efficacy and illness representations in relation to dietary self-care and diabetes distress in adolescents with type 1 diabetes

This cross-sectional study examined the joint effects of self-efficacy and illness representations on dietary self-care and diabetes distress in adolescents with type 1 diabetes by comparing two theoretical models: the Self-regulation Model (Leventhal, H., Meyer, D., & Nerenz, D. (1980). The common-sense representations of illness danger. In S. Rachman (Ed.), Medical Psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 7–30). New York: Pergamon.) and Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, A. (1997). Self efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W.H. Freeman.). One hundred and fifty-one adolescents with type 1 diabetes completed self-report measures of dietary self-efficacy, illness representations, dietary self-care and diabetes distress. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The model best supported by the data (Leventhal's Self-regulation Model) showed that dietary self-efficacy, perceived consequences and treatment effectiveness had direct and independent effects on both dietary self-care and diabetes distress. Together with dietary self-efficacy, perceived short-term treatment effectiveness was a significant predictor of dietary self-care. Age was found to be a negative predictor of short-term treatment effectiveness beliefs. Diabetes distress was best predicted by self-efficacy and perceived consequences. It can be concluded that to target effectively dietary self-care and distress, clinicians should focus on key illness representation variables (perceived short-term treatment effectiveness and perceived consequences) in conjunction with self-efficacy.     

Understanding adolescent type 1 diabetes self-management as an adaptive process: A grounded theory approach

Objective: To develop a conceptual understanding of the process of adapting to the self-management of type 1 diabetes during adolescence.

Design: Participants were recruited from a National Health Service paediatric diabetes service within the south-west of England which runs six countywide diabetes clinics. Thirteen interviews were conducted using a social constructivist grounded theory approach.

Results: The findings illustrate how self-management can be understood in terms of a continuum-based framework, ranging from difficulties with, to successful self-management. Adaptation within the continuum can further be understood by specific transitional phases and process mechanisms, providing further depth to individuals’ experiences of adaptation.

Conclusion: This investigation provides a conceptual understanding of the complex issues adolescents encounter while adapting to and integrating a diabetes self-management regime into their lives. It provides an invaluable framework for exploring psychological mechanisms and contextualising them within a self-management continuum. Implications for healthcare professionals are discussed and further research proposes whether the model could be applicable to other chronic illnesses.     

Is preschool executive function causally related to academic achievement?

The primary objective of this study was to reevaluate the well-established result that preschoolers' performance on executive function tasks are positively associated with their performance on academic achievement tests. The current study replicated the previously established concurrent associations between children's performance on EF tasks and academic achievement tests. Specifically, children's performance on measures of inhibitory and motor control were positively associated with their performance on tests of reading, writing, and mathematics achievement (rs?=?.2?.5); moreover, although diminished in magnitude, most of these associations held up even after including an earlier measure of academic achievement as a covariate (rs?=?.1?.3). However, the application of an alternative analytic method, fixed effects analysis, a method that capitalizes on repeated measures data to control for all time stable measured and unmeasured covariates, rendered the apparent positive associations between executive function and academic achievement nonsignificant (rs?=?.0?.1). Taken together, these results suggest that the well-replicated association between executive function abilities and academic achievement may be spurious. Results are discussed with respect to the importance of utilizing analytic methods and research designs that facilitate strong causal inferences between executive function and academic achievement in early childhood, as well as the limitations of making curriculum development recommendations and/or public policy decisions based on studies that have failed to do so.