Intra- and interpersonal factors and adolescent wellbeing during COVID-19 in three countries

COVID-19 has altered adolescents' opportunities for developing and strengthening interpersonal skills and proficiencies. Using data from adolescents in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom, we examined the relation between internalizing symptoms assessed pre-pandemic or when pandemic-related restrictions were lifted (Time 1) and associated internalizing symptoms during a subsequent restrictive pandemic period (Time 2). Across all 3 countries, we found significant and consistent effect sizes in the relation between Time 1 and Time 2 internalizing symptoms. We further examined the direct and moderating impact of self-efficacy and contextual supports for adolescents' internalizing symptoms. Higher self-efficacy was associated with lower levels of internalizing symptoms at Time 2 in all 3 countries. Additionally, the relation between Time 1 and 2 internalizing symptoms was buffered by regulatory self-efficacy and peer support in Italy, but in the U.S., higher levels of general self-efficacy instead had an exacerbating effect on the relation between Times 1 and 2 internalizing symptoms. Results are discussed in the context of utilizing cross-national datasets to examine similarities in adolescent well-being over time and in the face of varying government responses to the pandemic.     

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN VIRTUE ETHICS AND CARE ETHICS

A dialogue between virtue and care ethics is formed as a step towards meeting Pellegrino's challenge to create a more comprehensive moral philosophy. It is also a dialogue between nursing and medicine since each practice draws on the Greek Virtue Tradition and the Judeo-Christian Tradition of care differently. In the Greek Virtue Tradition, the point of scrutiny lies in the inner character of the actor, whereas in the Judeo-Christian Tradition the focus is relational, i.e. how virtues are lived out in specific relationships, particularly unequal relationships where vulnerability of one of the members is an issue. In a care ethic relational qualities such as attunement rather than inner qualities are the point of scrutiny. A dialogue between these two traditions makes it possible to consider the relational virtues and skills of openness and responsiveness that are required for a respectful meeting of the other.     

Beyond Pathologizing Harm: Understanding PTSD in the Context of War Experience

An alternative to objectifying approaches to understanding Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) grounded in hermeneutic phenomenology is presented. Nurses who provided care for soldiers injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and sixty-seven wounded male servicemen in the rehabilitation phase of their recovery were interviewed. PTSD is the one major psychiatric diagnosis where social causation is established, yet PTSD is predominantly viewed in terms of the usual neuro-physiological causal models with traumatic social events viewed as pathogens with dose related effects. Biologic models of causation are applied reductively to both predisposing personal vulnerabilities and strengths that prevent PTSD, such as resiliency. However, framing PTSD as an objective disease state separates it from narrative historical details of the trauma. Personal stories and cultural meanings of the traumatic events are seen as epiphenomenal, unrelated to the understanding of, and ultimately, the therapeutic treatment of PTSD. Most wounded service members described classic symptoms of PTSD: flashbacks, insomnia, anxiety etc. All experienced disturbance in their sense of time and place. Rather than see the occurrence of these symptoms as decontextualized mechanistic reverberations of war, we consider how these symptoms meaningfully reflect actual war experiences and sense of displacement experienced by service members.     

A Child Trauma Treatment Pilot Study

We examined outcomes of a promising 21-session trauma treatment model for children aged 3 to 17 and their caregivers. All children in treatment had experienced at least one traumatic event. The treatment intervention was rooted in theories of trauma and attachment and combines parent training with cognitive behavioral therapy to form a comprehensive trauma treatment program. We report on 27 families who completed the program. Results reflect significant reductions in conduct disorder, problems in social relations, and caregiver depression at an average of a one-year post-treatment follow-up. Results from our preliminary study offer support for further evaluation of the model.     

Foster Parents’ Knowledge of Child Trauma: An Exploratory Study

To promote trauma-informed professional supports and services to maltreated youth, it is imperative that researchers explore foster parents’ knowledge of child trauma. However, there is a dearth in the literature related to this topic. This exploratory study utilizes a convenience sample (N = 219) of foster parents in one southeastern state. Variables of interest include actual and perceived knowledge about child trauma. After a terse review of background literature, this paper will explicate key results, discuss these findings, and identify salient practice and policy implications derived from this study. The paper will conclude by delineating apposite areas for future research.     

Academic Processing Speed Mediates the Influence of Both Externalizing Behavior and Language Skills on the Academic Skills of Students with Emotional Disturbance

The results from previous research suggest that there is a relatively small (albeit statistically significant) relationship between the externalizing behavior and academic skills of students with emotional disturbance (ED). Researchers have also found that the majority of these students have language deficits that hinder their academic performance. The purposes of this study were to investigate the mediating role of academic processing speed (i.e., academic fluency) on the relationship between: (a) The externalizing behavior and academic skills of K-12 students with ED; and (b) language skills and academic skills of students with ED. Results indicate that academic processing speed mediated the influence of both language skills and externalizing behavior on academic skills of this population. The findings, limitations, and implications were discussed.     

A Predictive Approach to Nonparametric Inference for Adaptive Sequential Sampling of Psychophysical Experiments

We present a predictive account on adaptive sequential sampling of stimulus-response relations in psychophysical experiments. Our discussion applies to experimental situations with ordinal stimuli when there is only weak structural knowledge available such that parametric modeling is no option. By introducing a certain form of partial exchangeability, we successively develop a hierarchical Bayesian model based on a mixture of Pólya urn processes. Suitable utility measures permit us to optimize the overall experimental sampling process. We provide several measures that are either based on simple count statistics or more elaborate information theoretic quantities. The actual computation of information theoretic utilities often turns out to be infeasible. This is not the case with our sampling method, which relies on an efficient algorithm to compute exact solutions of our posterior predictions and utility measures. Finally, we demonstrate the advantages of our framework on a hypothetical sampling problem.     

Discerning direct and mediated effects of ecological structures and processes on adolescents' educational outcomes

This short-term longitudinal study examined the relations among family and school characteristics, family-level processes (youth perceptions of parent-adolescent interactions), school-level processes (youth perceptions of school belonging, school climate), adolescents' school engagement, and later academic performance. Participants were an ethnically diverse, urban sample of 1,120 9th-grade students (M age = 14.6 years). The structural characteristics of families and schools influenced the proximal processes that occurred therein, and these proximal processes, in turn, influenced students' proximal (i.e., engagement) and distal educational outcomes (i.e., grades in school). Moreover, the structural characteristics of families and schools influenced proximal and distal outcomes indirectly through their influence on the proximal processes. The multimediated ecological model suggested that intervening at the process level may be a successful means of improving both adolescents' engagement in school and their subsequent school performance.