Book reviews

Arnold, M. Memory and the brain. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. 532. ISBN 0-89859-290-9. £47.90.

Green, T. R. G., Payne, S. P. and van der Veer, G. C. (Eds.). The psychology of computer use.. London: Academic Press. 1983. Pp. 225. ISBN 0-12-2974204. $9.50.

Stunkard, A. J. and Stellar, E. (Eds.). Eating and its disorders. New York: Raven Press. 1984. Pp. 302. ISBN 0-89004-891-6. $58.50.

Spillmann, L. and Wooten, B. R. (Eds.) Sensory experience, adaptation, and perception: Festschrift for Zero Kohler. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 1984. Pp. xxvii + 748. ISBN 0 8985-3-218-6. £70.85.

Geschwind, N. and Galaburda, A. M. (Eds.)Cerebral dominance: The biological foundations. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1984. Pp. 232. ISBN 0-674-10658-X. £24.35.

Annett, M. Left, right, hand and brain: The right shift theory. 1985. London and Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pp. xiii + 474. ISBN 0-86377418-5 £29.95.

Ericsson, K. A. and Simon, H. A. Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press. 1984. Pp. 426. ISBN 0-262-05029-3. £28.95.     

Relational aspects of identity: late adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with parents

This study examines the relationship between late adolescents' identity status and their memories of their relationships to their parents. One hundred male and female undergraduates completed two questionnaires. The first assessed subjects' retrospective perceptions of their affective relationships with parents across five age periods: 1 to 5 years, 5 to 10 years, 10 to 15 years, 15 to 20 years, and the present. The second questionnaire, the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status, assessed subjects' current identity status. Trend analyses revealed: (1) a significant quadratic trend in identity committed subjects' ratings of the amount of love they felt for mother across the five age periods, and (2) a significant linear trend of increasing love from mother. In contrast, uncommitted subjects showed significant linear trends of decreasing love both for and from their mothers. Results are interpreted as evidence of the importance of resolution of identity issues to the establishment of feelings of intimacy between late adolescents and their parents.     

TRANSITIONS IN CHILDREN'S ROLES AND CAPABILITIES*

Stage theories and empirical studies have concentrated on a few periods of childhood (e.g., age 5 to 7 years) as important times of transition. On the basis of ethnographic suggestions that the age period 8 to 10 years also involves interesting changes, the authors carried out a search of published empirical studies for findings of transitions in capabilities at 8 to 10 years. An annotated bibliography is provided summarizing the studies found in a 5-year period in three journals. The authors discuss possibilities for characterizing the transition at age 8 to 10, as well as how such a transition meshes with the concept of stage.     

The nativist-empiricist controversy in the context of recent research on spatial and quantitative development

Demonstrations of cognitive competence in preschool children and infants played an important role in the waning influence of Piagetian theory and the rise of nativism. Arguments and data favoring modularity have further buttressed the case for nativism. This article reviews evidence concerning early competence and modularity in the spatial and quantitative domains, as well as the role of experience in development. This evidence provides little reason to support nativist claims in either domain.     

Toddlers' use of metric information and landmarks to reorient

Mobile organisms can keep track of spatial location (both their own location and that of objects in the environment) using either an external referent system or one centered on the self and updated by information about movement through space. When the latter system is disabled (e.g., by rapid turning), aspects of the external world must be used to reestablish orientation. Recently, it has been claimed that, both for rats and for human toddlers, reorientation is achieved using a geometric module that accepts only information about the metric properties of the environment (C. R. Gallistel, 1990; L. Hermer & E. S. Spelke, 1994, 1996). In a series of experiments, this paper confirms that geometric information is used for reorientation by young children, but gives reason to doubt that the use of this information is achieved using a module impenetrable to nongeometric information.     

Infants’ coding of location in continuous space

The ability to code location in continuous space is fundamental to spatial behavior. Existing evidence indicates a robust ability for such coding by 12 months, but systematic evidence on earlier origins is lacking. A series of studies investigated 5-month-olds’ ability to code the location of an object hidden in a sandbox, using a looking-time paradigm. In Experiment 1, after familiarization with a hiding-and-finding sequence at one location, infants looked longer at an object being disclosed from a location 12 inches (30 cm) away than at an object emerging from the hiding location, showing they were able to code location in continuous space. In Experiment 2, infants reacted with greater looking when objects emerged from locations 8 inches (20 cm) away from the hiding location, showing that location coding was more finely grained than could be inferred based on the first study. In Experiment 3, infants were familiarized with an object shown in hiding-and-finding sequences at two different locations. Infants looked longer at objects emerging 12 inches (30 cm) away from the most recent hiding location than to emergence from the other location, showing that infants could code location even when events had previously occurred at each location. In Experiment 4, after familiarization with two objects with different shapes, colors, and sounding characteristics, shown in hiding-and-finding sequences in two locations, infants reacted to location violations as they had in Experiment 3. However, they did not react to object violations, that is, events in which the wrong object emerged from a hiding location. Experiment 5 also found no effect of object violation, even when the infants initially saw the two objects side by side. Spatiotemporal characteristics may play a more central role in early object individuation than they do later, although further study is required.     

Getting the big picture: Development of spatial scaling abilities

Spatial scaling is an integral aspect of many spatial tasks that involve symbol-to-referent correspondences (e.g., map reading, drawing). In this study, we asked 3–6-year-olds and adults to locate objects in a two-dimensional spatial layout using information from a second spatial representation (map). We examined how scaling factor and reference features, such as the shape of the layout or the presence of landmarks, affect performance. Results showed that spatial scaling on this simple task undergoes considerable development, especially between 3 and 5 years of age. Furthermore, the youngest children showed large individual variability and profited from landmark information. Accuracy differed between scaled and un-scaled items, but not between items using different scaling factors (1:2 vs. 1:4), suggesting that participants encoded relative rather than absolute distances.     

Spirituality and spiritual care – missing concepts from core undergraduate children’s nursing textbooks

Background: Spiritual care is espoused to be fundamental in children’s nursing; however, the extent to which current fundamental children’s nursing textbooks support and advocate spiritual care delivery by children’s nurses and nursing students is unknown. Aim and objectives: To examine whether or not fundamental undergraduate children’s nursing textbooks include spiritual care content. Methods: Five hundred and nineteen books were sampled from the Nursing and Midwifery Core Collection list (UK) using a survey, the Spirituality Textbook Analysis Tool (STAT) to collect data. Analysis and Results: 519 books were included in the study using the STAT and 13 books included content on children’s spirituality. There were a variety of textbooks in the audit of those that made reference to the search terms in the STAT, it was found that content mainly addressed only two areas; religious faiths and the dying child. Recommendations: Children’s nurses require education about children’s spiritual developmental stage and age appropriate spiritual assessment. A lack of detailed information in core children’s nursing textbooks means that this area of nursing practice may be taught as an adjunct to care and not as an element of holistic care which is the gold standard that children’s nurses should strive for.     

Implementation of Cognitive Therapy for PTSD in routine clinical care: Effectiveness and moderators of outcome in a consecutive sample

ObjectiveTrauma-focused psychological treatments are recommended as first-line treatments for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but clinicians may be concerned that the good outcomes observed in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) may not generalize to the wide range of traumas and presentations seen in clinical practice. This study investigated whether Cognitive Therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD) can be effectively implemented into a UK National Health Service Outpatient Clinic serving a defined ethnically mixed urban catchment area.MethodA consecutive sample of 330 patients with PTSD (age 17–83) following a wide range of traumas were treated by 34 therapists, who received training and supervision in CT-PTSD. Pre and post treatment data (PTSD symptoms, anxiety, depression) were collected for all patients, including dropouts. Hierarchical linear modeling investigated candidate moderators of outcome and therapist effects.ResultsCT-PTSD was well tolerated and led to very large improvement in PTSD symptoms, depression and anxiety. The majority of patients showed reliable improvement/clinically significant change: intent-to-treat: 78.8%/57.3%; completer: 84.5%/65.1%. Dropouts and unreliable attenders had worse outcome. Statistically reliable symptom exacerbation with treatment was observed in only 1.2% of patients. Treatment gains were maintained during follow-up (M = 280 days, n = 220). Few of the selection criteria used in some RCTs, demographic, diagnostic and trauma characteristics moderated treatment outcome, and only social problems and needing treatment for multiple traumas showed unique moderation effects. There were no random effects of therapist on symptom improvement, but therapists who were inexperienced in CT-PTSD had more dropouts than those with greater experience.ConclusionsThe results support the effectiveness of CT-PTSD and suggest that trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy can be successfully implemented in routine clinical services treating patients with a wide range of traumas.