Efficacy of self-administered treatments for pathological academic worry: A randomized controlled trial

Research on treatments for reducing pathological worry is limited. In particular, academic worry is a common theme in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) samples as well as non-clinical student samples. Given the high cost of anxiety disorders to society, research is needed to examine the efficacy of self-administered treatments designed to reduce pathological worry. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the benefits of three self-administered interventions for reducing academic worry. College students (N = 113) experiencing clinically significant academic worry were randomized to either: (a) worry exposure (WE); (b) expressive writing (EW); (c) relaxation consisting of pulsed audio-photic stimulation (APS); or (d) waitlist control (WLC). Participants were instructed to practice their interventions three times per week for one month and completed home practice logs online to track treatment adherence. Academic worry, general anxiety, and perceived stress were assessed at baseline and post-treatment. Academic worry and general anxiety were also assessed at a three-month follow-up. Those assigned to the WE and APS conditions showed significant improvement relative to EW and WLC at post-treatment. All treatment conditions showed continued improvement by follow-up, with no between-group differences. Treatment and public health implications are discussed.     

Speaking, writing, and memory span in children: output modality affects cognitive performance

Low‐level processes of children's written language production are cognitively more costly than those involved in speaking. This has been shown by French authors who compared oral and written memory span performance. The observed difficulties of children's, but not of adults' low‐level processes in writing may stem from graphomotoric as well as from orthographic inadequacies. We report on five experiments designed to replicate and expand the original results. First, the French results were successfully replicated for German third‐graders, and for university students. Then, the developmental changes of the cognitive costs of writing were examined during primary school, comparing the performance of second‐ and fourth‐graders. Next, we show that unpractised writing modes, which were experimentally induced, also lead to a decrease of memory performance in adults, which supports the assumption that a lack of graphomotoric automation is responsible for the observed effects in children. However, unpractised handwriting yields clearer results than unpractised typing. Lastly, we try to separate the influences of graphomotoric as opposed to orthographic difficulties by having the words composed through pointing on a “spelling board”. This attempt, however, has not been successful, probably because the pointing to letters introduced other low‐level costs. In sum, throughout the four years of primary school, German children show worse memory span performance in writing compared to oral recall, with an overall increase in both modalities. Thus, writing had not fully caught up with speaking regarding the implied cognitive costs by the end of primary school. Therefore, conclusions relate to the question of how to assess properly any kind of knowledge and abilities through language production.     

The development of perceptual sensitivity to second-order facial relations in children

This study investigated children’s perceptual ability to process second-order facial relations. In total, 78 children in three age groups (7, 9, and 11 years) and 28 adults were asked to say whether the eyes were the same distance apart in two side-by-side faces. The two faces were similar on all points except the space between the eyes, which was either the same or different, with various degrees of difference. The results showed that the smallest eye spacing children were able to discriminate decreased with age. This ability was sensitive to face orientation (upright or upside-down), and this inversion effect increased with age. It is concluded here that, despite early sensitivity to configural/holistic information, the perceptual ability to process second-order relations in faces improves with age and constrains the development of the face recognition ability.     

A preliminary investigation of sex differences in associations between emotion regulation difficulties and higher-order cognitive abilities

The present study sought to clarify the cognitive correlates of emotion regulation difficulties (ERD). Further, because prior evidence suggests sex differences in emotion regulation, sex was examined as a moderator of associations between cognitive abilities and ERD. Participants (N = 154) completed self-report measures of ERD, and were administered neuropsychological tests assessing crystallized and fluid intelligence, as well as various components of executive functioning. Bivariate correlations and results from regression analyses suggested sex-dependent associations among cognitive processes and ERD. For men, inhibition of dominant response tendencies was associated with lower ERD, whereas for women, a host of executive abilities (e.g., greater inhibition, cognitive flexibility, semantic processing, abstract reasoning) were associated with greater ERD. Implications for the neurocognitive conceptualization of emotion dysregulation will be discussed.     

The biasing effect of personality on self-estimates of cognitive abilities in males and females

In addition to exploring the relationship between psychometric and self-estimated measures of Crystallized Knowledge (Gc) and Visual Processing (Gv), this study investigated whether personality significantly moderated these relationships, thereby influencing the accuracy of the self-estimates. Adult participants (N = 165) completed the Big Five Inventory and self-estimated their levels of Gc and Gv. They were subsequently administered the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery II, a group test of cognitive ability. Significant and positive relationships between psychometric Gc and Gv and their respective self-estimates were found. Additionally, investigation of the moderating effects of personality for each gender separately using standard multiple regressions found that females high in Extraversion and males low in Conscientiousness were more prone to overestimating their Gv ability, while males high in Openness provided more accurate estimates of their Gv than those low in Openness. Elucidating the personality traits that distort self-perceptions of intellectual functioning has significant implications for the identification of individuals at risk of harboring inaccurate expectations, leading to the potential for interventions aimed at ameliorating associated deleterious consequences.     

Strategy instruction for writing composition at school and at home

Abstract

The objectives of this study are 1) to analyze the effectiveness of a writing composition intervention program aimed to increase children's writing performance and other personal variables; 2) to analyze whether implementation in the environment (school and home) or responsible figures (parents and teachers) produced different effects in program effectiveness; and 3) to check whether increasing parental involvement in doing homework was sufficient to improve children's outcomes or whether prior family training is required to enable them to be efficient. The sample consisted of 112 students (5th-6th grade) and their families. 26 of them made up the EFP group (mothers implementing a writing program), 25 of them were assigned to the PAD group (mothers increasing help with writing homework), 35 to the PRO group (teachers applying a writing program) and 26 to the OC group (ordinary curriculum). We analyze the results and present and discuss our conclusions.     

Predicting early emotion knowledge development among children of colour living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods: consideration of child pre-academic abilities,self-regulation,peer relations and parental education

ABSTRACT

Emotion knowledge, the ability to accurately perceive and label emotions, predicts higher quality peer relations, higher social competence, higher academic achievement, and fewer behaviour problems. Less is known, however, about predictors of early development of emotion knowledge. This study examines emotion knowledge development among children attending pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten programmes in high-poverty urban schools. The study considers child pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations and parental education as predictors of emotion knowledge development over two years. The sample (n?=?1034) of children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods was primarily Black (85%) and low-income (～61%). The sample was part of a longitudinal follow-up study of a cluster (school) randomised controlled trial in ten public elementary schools. Children’s emotion knowledge was assessed with a series of tasks three times over a two-year period. At baseline, parents and teachers reported on peer relations, children completed a test of pre-academic abilities, independent observers rated child self-regulation, and parents reported on their educational attainment. Results demonstrate that emotion knowledge increases over time, and pre-academic abilities, self-regulation, peer relations, and parent education independently predict children’s emotion knowledge. This study highlights multiple factors that predict emotion knowledge among primarily Black children living in historically disinvested neighbourhoods.     

“Hidden Treasures” from Israeli Women's Writing Groups: Exploring an Integrative,Feminist Therapy

This article presents the work of mental health practitioners and laywomen who have developed and applied a new model of working with women in groups, a model founded on feminist principles that uses women's writing as the vehicle for group work. The model maintains a delicate balance between the needs of the group, the needs of the women in their social environment, and the women's ability to be the broker of their time, place, and mode of expression. This article presents the theoretical roots of the model and the qualitative evaluation of the writing groups that have been held over seven years, and it discusses how and why this model works for women of all ages and from all walks of life.     

Associations between cortical thickness and general intelligence in children,adolescents and young adults

Neuroimaging research indicates that human intellectual ability is related to brain structure including the thickness of the cerebral cortex. Most studies indicate that general intelligence is positively associated with cortical thickness in areas of association cortex distributed throughout both brain hemispheres. In this study, we performed a cortical thickness mapping analysis on data from 182 healthy typically developing males and females ages 9 to 24 years to identify correlates of general intelligence (g) scores. To determine if these correlates also mediate associations of specific cognitive abilities with cortical thickness, we regressed specific cognitive test scores on g scores and analyzed the residuals with respect to cortical thickness. The effect of age on the association between cortical thickness and intelligence was examined. We found a widely distributed pattern of positive associations between cortical thickness and g scores, as derived from the first unrotated principal factor of a factor analysis of Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) subtest scores. After WASI specific cognitive subtest scores were regressed on g factor scores, the residual score variances did not correlate significantly with cortical thickness in the full sample with age covaried. When participants were grouped at the age median, significant positive associations of cortical thickness were obtained in the older group for g-residualized scores on Block Design (a measure of visual-motor integrative processing) while significant negative associations of cortical thickness were observed in the younger group for g-residualized Vocabulary scores. These results regarding correlates of general intelligence are concordant with the existing literature, while the findings from younger versus older subgroups have implications for future research on brain structural correlates of specific cognitive abilities, as well as the cognitive domain specificity of behavioral performance correlates of normative gray matter thinning during adolescence.