Caregiving for children through conflict and displacement: a pilot study testing the feasibility of delivering and evaluating a light touch parenting intervention for caregivers in the West Bank

A child's adjustment to wartime stress is reliant not only on individual responses and qualities, but very significantly on the availability of support that they may receive from their parent or caregivers and quality of relationships. Strengthening parental support has the potential to be valuable. A pilot two-arm randomised controlled trial investigated the feasibility of delivering and evaluating the “Caring for Children Through Conflict and Displacement” intervention with caregivers in the West Bank. Feasibility to recruit and train non-specialist staff on-the-ground to screen families for eligibility, collect outcome data, deliver the intervention and to recruit and retain families in the study were examined. Research staff and intervention facilitators were successfully appointed in the field, screened participants and delivered the intervention to 120 caregivers, collecting outcome measures pre-and post-delivery. All families completed the outcome measures, with very little missing data. This indicated that the intervention can be delivered feasibly and evaluated with families in this humanitarian context. Preliminary outcome data showed promise that the intervention may have the potential to both improve family functioning and reduce children's problem behaviour. Implications of family-focused initiatives, particularly within a conflict/post-conflict context for the prevention of several negative health and social outcomes directions, are discussed.     

Intensive follow-up does not decrease the risk of repeat suicide attempts.

We carried out a randomized controlled trial to determine whether an intensive intervention after a suicide attempt could decrease by half the risk of a repeat attempt in the following two years. After initial assessment and randomization, experimental subjects attended 18 therapy appointments over one year, including one home visit, and measures to improve attendance. Control subjects received the usual care. Of 63 experimental subjects, 35% made a repeat attempt, and so did 30% of 63 control subjects. The study had a 99% power to detect the desired decrease of risk (30% to 15%). Clearly, the intervention did not achieve its objective.     

The long-term evaluation of a behavioral treatment program for child molesters

Recidivism data derived from various sources over a follow-up period of 1–11 yr, provided the basis for appraising the effectiveness of a comprehensive cognitive-behavioral treatment program for familial and nonfamilial child molesters. Unofficial records held by police and Children's Aid Societies proved to be the best data for estimating recidivism. These data revealed increases in recidivism with longer follow-up periods, but there were consistent advantages for the treated over the untreated patients. Men who had sexually abused the daughters of other people demonstrated the clearest treatment benefits. The younger offenders and those who had engaged in genital-genital contact with their victims were more likely to reoffend even if they were treated. Contrary to the expectations of behavior therapists, indices of deviant sexual preferences did not predict outcome.     

Individual differences in vocal activity rhythm: Fourier analysis of cyclicity in amount of talk

Speakers in informal conversations tend to alternate regularly between lower and higher amounts of talking; the periods of these low/high activity cycles are on the order of 3, 6, and 15 minutes. Statistically significant periodicities occurred in 55% of the conversations studied. The periodograms that describe the partition of variance among periodic components whow consistent individual differences in the cyclic patterning of vocal activity. Discriminant analysis used the amount of variance accounted for by each of the 12 lowest-frequency periodic components as discriminating variables to see whether speakers could be identified on the basis of the cyclic patterns in vocal activity. Speakers were discriminated and classified at levels well above chance. This suggests that there are consistent individual differences among speakers in the length of cycles in amount of talk.We gratefully acknowledge support from the Central University Research Fund and from the office of the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire.     

Selective impairment of phonation: A case study

A 47-year-old right-handed man underwent craniotomy for clipping of an aneurism at the trifurcation of the left middle cerebral artery. Subsequently, he suffered a left hemisphere CVA after which his speech and language resembled that of Broca's aphasia with accompanying apraxia of speech. Medical, behavioral, and acoustical data amassed over a period of several months indicated numerous contraindications to traditional diagnoses of Broca's aphasia, apraxia of speech, and dysarthria. Ultimately, it was determined that the patient had a selective impairement of phonation or laryngeal apraxia. This was illustrated dramatically when he was taught to use an electrolarynx which allowed him to bypass his disrupted phonatory system. Speaking with the electrolarynx, the patient communicated normally. Any semblance of Broca's aphasia disappeared. Supralaryngeal articulation was normal; apraxia of speech behaviors were absent. This case report indicates that dissociation of oral and laryngeal gestures due to brain injury is possible. Mechanisms underlying such a dissociation for this case are reviewed. The possibility of discrete center lesions in the frontal motor association area causing different types of apraxia of speech is discussed.     

Job experiences over time, multiple roles, and women's mental health: a longitudinal study.

Are changes over time in the quality of a woman's job associated with changes in her psychological distress? Do family roles moderate these relationships? We addressed these questions using longitudinal data from a 2-year 3-wave study of a stratified random sample of 403 employed women who varied in occupation, race, partnership, and parental status. After estimating individual rates of change for each woman on each of the predictors and the outcome, we modeled the relationships between family role occupancy and change in job-role quality on the one hand, and change in psychological distress on the other. Among single women and women without children, as job-role quality declined, levels of psychological distress increased. Among partnered women and women with children, change in job-role quality was unrelated to change in psychological distress.     

Variations in characteristic perceptual asymmetry: modality specific and modality general components.

The current study investigates sources of between-subjects variation in asymmetry scores on visual half-field and dichotic listening tasks. For each of these presentation modalities, subjects were given multiple laterality tasks. Results indicate that about 50% of the between-subjects variations in asymmetry scores in each modality is attributable to individual differences in perceptual asymmetries that are not stimulus-specific, referred to as "characteristic perceptual asymmetries" in this paper. In addition, the question of whether individual differences in characteristic perceptual asymmetries are modality specific, modality general, or both was investigated by entering subjects' asymmetry scores from visual half-field and dichotic listening tasks into a principal component analysis. The results of this analysis indicate that there are both modality specific and modality general influences on subjects' characteristic perceptual asymmetries.     

The effects of baby bath and massage by fathers on the family system: The sunraysia australia intervention project

Instruction in baby massage and the Burleigh Relaxation Bath technique was given to one-half of our sample of 32 couples who had just had their first child. This brief intervention, given at 4 weeks post-partum, led to beneficial behavioural and psychological effects for the family system when assessed at 12 weeks postpartum. Depression and marital satisfaction were assessed with mothers and fathers at 4 weeks and 12 weeks after the birth of their child, and self-esteem was measured at 12 weeks only. The mothers and fathers who were shown baby bathing and massage techniques showed higher degrees of marital satisfaction and self-esteem, as well as lower levels of depression at 12 weeks post-partum, than parents who did not receive instruction. It seems likely that brief interventions which educate new parents concerning functional techniques of baby care may favourably affect their feelings of competence and be of benefit to the entire family system.