School-Based Intervention for Social Skills in Children from Divorced Families

Divorce is an increasingly prevalent occurrence in society that has the potential to result in many adverse short- and long-term consequences for children and their parents. Social skills, such as those with peers, are one of the problems that may emerge for children of divorce. Despite this growing problem, there is a paucity of research available to effectively address the social skills needed to build and maintain positive peer interactions and subsequent relationships in students whose parents are no longer married. It was hypothesized that a social skills training program would be effective in remediating social skill deficits related to building relationships with peers in students from divorced families. The purpose of this study was to employ COPE, a school-based social skills program, to examine the effect on social skills in elementary students whose parents are divorced. Results of the social skills intervention indicated that the treatment was effective for most participants, but generalization of the COPE program had mixed results.     

颜色对基于时间的视觉选择的影响

旨在探讨颜色属性对基于时间的图形预览搜索的影响及其机制。实验采用视觉标记实验范式的变式考察三种颜色的图形刺激的预览收益。结果发现:搜索与旧干扰物相同颜色的靶子和搜索新异颜色刺激并未出现反应时的差异,而且,两者都快于搜索与新干扰物颜色相同的靶子。这说明,在图形刺激的预览搜索中,观察者没有主动抑制旧干扰物的颜色,而是主动加工新出现的刺激。还探讨了基于颜色标记的抑制机制和主动非抑制机制。     

The contribution of disengagement to temporal discriminability

The present study examines the idea that time-based forgetting of outdated information can lead to better memory of currently relevant information. This was done using the visual arrays task, along with a between-subjects manipulation of both the retention interval (1?s vs. 4?s) and the time between two trials (1?s vs. 4?s). Consistent with prior work [Shipstead, Z., &; Engle, R. W. (2013). Interference within the focus of attention: Working memory tasks reflect more than temporary maintenance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 277–289; Experiment 1], longer retention intervals did not lead to diminished memory of currently relevant information. However, we did find that longer periods of time between two trials improved memory for currently relevant information. This replicates findings that indicate proactive interference affects visual arrays performance and extends previous findings to show that reduction of proactive interference can occur in a time-dependent manner.     

Differential age-related effects on conjunctive and relational visual short-term memory binding

An age-related associative deficit has been described in visual short-term binding memory tasks. However, separate studies have suggested that ageing disrupts relational binding (to associate distinct items or item and context) more than conjunctive binding (to integrate features within an object). The current study directly compared relational and conjunctive binding with a short-term memory task for object–colour associations in 30 young and 30 older adults. Participants studied a number of object–colour associations corresponding to their individual object span level in a relational task in which objects were associated to colour patches and a conjunctive task where colour was integrated into the object. Memory for individual items and for associations was tested with a recognition memory test. Evidence for an age-related associative deficit was observed in the relational binding task, but not in the conjunctive binding task. This differential impact of ageing on relational and conjunctive short-term binding is discussed by reference to two underlying age-related cognitive difficulties: diminished hippocampally dependent binding and attentional resources.     

COMT and DAT1 polymorphisms moderate the indirect effect of parenting behavior on youth ADHD symptoms through neurocognitive functioning

Although gene × environment interactions contribute to youth attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, the pathways mediating these influences are unknown. We tested genetic moderation of indirect effects from parenting behavior to youth ADHD symptoms through multiple neurocognitive factors. Two hundred and twenty-nine youth with and without ADHD were assessed at baseline (Wave 1; ages 5–10) and at a 2-year follow-up (Wave 2; ages 7–13). At Wave 1, youth completed a neurocognitive battery including measures of response inhibition, visuospatial working memory, and fluid reasoning, and a standardized parent–child interaction task yielding observational measures of positive and negative parenting. At Wave 2, youth psychopathology was rated by parents and teachers using multiple methods (i.e., structured interview, rating scale). We employed moderated multiple mediation and compared conditional indirect effects across youth genotypes at two biologically plausible genetic loci. Controlling for parent ADHD symptoms as well as youth demographic factors and co-occurring externalizing symptoms, these genetic factors moderated the indirect effect from Wave 1 parenting to multi-method/informant Wave 2 ADHD symptoms through Wave 1 neurocognitive functioning. This preliminary study is the first to identify genetic moderation of mediated effects underlying ADHD symptoms and suggests that specific gene × parenting interactions may underlie neurocognitive functioning deficits and subsequent ADHD.     

Executive functioning and its relation to ASD and ADHD symptomatology in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome*

Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS; velo-cardio-facial-syndrome) are at risk for the developmental disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, the relation between executive functioning (EF) and the severity of ADHD and ASD symptoms is examined, since EF is known to be important in relation to emotional and behavioral problems. The participants consist of 58 children (38 females) with a mean age of 13.5 years (SD 2.6). Standardized assessment was used to evaluate the severity of ASD and ADHD symptomatology. The major aspects of EF, i.e., cognitive flexibility, inhibition, sustained attention, distractibility, working memory and reaction speed, were evaluated. The profile of EF in 22q11DS was found to be characterized by weaker performance compared to the norms on all subdomains of EF. Poor cognitive flexibility and inhibition, as well as high distractibility, were found to be related to more severe ASD symptoms, while poor quality of sustained attention and high distractibility were found to be related to more severe ADHD symptoms. It is concluded that children with 22q11DS experience impairments in EF, and that the degree of impairment on specific EF subdomains is related to the severity of ASD and/or ADHD symptomatology. These results may help in defining the mediating role of neurocognitive dysfunctions in the development of social and behavioral problems in 22q11DS.     

Are sluggish cognitive tempo symptoms associated with executive functioning in preschoolers?

The aim of this study is to investigate whether sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms are associated with neurocognitive task performance and ratings of real-world executive functioning (EF) in preschoolers at risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The associations between parent- and teacher-rated SCT symptoms and neuropsychological task performance and ratings of EF in 61 4-year-old preschool children (51 boys, 10 girls) with self-regulation difficulties were examined, with regression analyses controlling for the effects of ADHD inattention symptoms. In the study sample, higher teacher-rated SCT symptoms are significantly associated with poorer performance on tasks of visual-perceptual abilities, auditory and visual attention, sustained and selective attention, inhibitory control, pre-numerical/numerical concepts, and slower processing speed, but SCT symptoms are not significantly associated with working memory, attention shifting or cognitive flexibility when controlling for ADHD inattention. Higher parent-rated SCT symptoms are significantly associated with visual-perceptual abilities. ADHD inattention symptoms are more strongly associated than SCT with daily life EF ratings; neither parent- nor teacher-rated SCT symptoms are significantly associated with daily life ratings of inhibition, working memory, or planning/organization after controlling for ADHD inattention. This study suggests that SCT symptoms contribute to EF deficits at least on neurocognitive tasks assessing visual-perceptual/spatial abilities, attention to detail and processing speed, as observed in this sample of young children at risk for ADHD, and may be an important intervention target.     

The effects of autobiographical memory and visual perspective on working memory

The present research aims to explore whether recalling and writing about autobiographical memory from different perspectives (first-person perspective vs. third-person perspective) could affect cognitive function. The participants first performed a working memory task to evaluate their working memory capacity as a baseline and then were instructed to recall (Study 1) or write about (Study 2) personal events (failures vs. successes) from the first-person perspective or the third-person perspective. Finally, they performed the working memory task again. The results suggested that autobiographical memory and perspective influence working memory interactively. When recalling a success, the participants who recalled from the third-person perspective performed better than those who recalled from the first-person perspective on the working memory capacity task; when recalling a failure, the opposite was true.     

The Role of Social–Emotional Mediators on Middle School Students’ Academic Growth as Fostered by an Evidence‐Based Intervention

The authors describe a school counselor intervention delivered to a predominantly Hispanic group of 193 7th‐grade students. Using multilevel modeling, the authors found that participation resulted in greater rates of academic achievement, particularly in math and for students who pretested at lower achievement levels. Results indicated an indirect effect on math achievement for the executive functioning constructs of plan and organize and task completion, but no executive functioning mediators were found for reading or feelings of connectedness.     

家长教育期望对学业倦怠的影响:家长投入的中介及家庭功能的调节

本研究以北京市2921名中小学生及其家长为调查对象,考察了家长教育期望对其子女学业倦怠的影响,以及家长投入的中介作用和家庭功能的调节作用。结果发现：（1）在控制年级、性别后,家长教育期望依然负向预测子女的学业倦怠;（2）家长投入在家长教育期望与学业倦怠之间起部分中介作用,即教育期望能够通过提升家长投入,进而降低子女的学业倦怠水平;（3）家庭功能在家长投入与学业倦怠的关系中起到调节作用,只有家庭功能良好时,家长投入才能显著降低子女的学业倦怠水平。这一结果对于家长如何科学有效地促进子女的学业发展具有启示意义。