Cultural socialization in families with internationally adopted children.

Cultural socialization attitudes, beliefs, and parenting behaviors were examined in families with internationally adopted children. The authors hypothesized that parents with lower color-blind racial attitudes would be more likely to engage in enculturation and racialization parenting behaviors because they hold stronger beliefs in the value and importance of cultural socialization. Using data from the Minnesota International Adoption Project, the results support this mediation model of cultural socialization. Individual variations in cultural socialization also are discussed in terms of child development and shifting adoption attitudes and practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of placement instability on adopted children's inhibitory control abilities and oppositional behavior.

This study assessed relations among placement instability, inhibitory control, and caregiver-rated child behavior. The sample included 33 adopted children who had experienced placement instability, 42 adopted children who had experienced 1 stable placement, and 27 children never placed in foster care. Five- and 6-year-old children completed the day-night task, which requires children to inhibit a prepotent response, and a control task that presents similar memory demands but does not require inhibition (C. L. Gerstadt, Y. J. Hong, & A. Diamond, 1994). Adopted children who had experienced placement instability performed worse on the inhibition task than did both other groups of children, when the authors controlled for age, verbal intelligence (as measured with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence--Revised; D. Wechsler, 1989; or the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Third Edition; L. M. Dunn & L. M. Dunn, 1997), and control task performance (p.05). These results suggest that placement instability may adversely affect the social-emotional development of adopted children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The behavioral development of Korean children in institutional care and international adoptive families.

In this study, the authors compared the behavioral development of 4- to 8-year-old South Korean children placed in institutional care (n = 230) or adopted internationally (n = 382), with age of entry, parental status, reason for institutionalization, and postinstitutionalization parental contact as risk factors for institutionalized children. There was a placement effect of adoption and support for age of entry and parental status as risk factors. Relinquished children institutionalized before age 2 fared the poorest across groups. Children institutionalized after age 2 with deceased/unknown parents fared best among institutionalized children. Institutionalization due to family disruption was a risk for relinquished children only, whereas parental contact did not increase the risk for behavioral problems. The unique sample population and other limitations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Brain correlates of self-rated originality of ideas: Evidence from event-related power and phase-locking changes in the EEG.

In the present study, we contrast oscillatory brain activity during the production of subjectively more versus less original ideas. A sample of 26 participants worked on two verbal creativity problems and subsequently rated the produced ideas with respect to their originality. On the basis of these self-ratings, ideas were divided into a more and a less original list within each participant. Cortical activity was assessed by means of event-related changes in EEG power (synchronization and desynchronization) and phase locking in two alpha bands. Analyses revealed that more, as compared with less, original ideas elicited a stronger event-related synchronization of alpha activity (power increases from the pre-stimulus reference to the activation interval) and higher phase coupling in the right hemisphere. These findings corroborate the importance of right-hemispheric cortical networks in creative idea generation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Foster placement disruptions associated with problem behavior: Mitigating a threshold effect.

Objective: Placement disruptions have adverse effects on foster children. Identifying reliable predictors of placement disruptions might assist in the allocation of services to prevent disruptions. There were two objectives in this study: (a) to replicate a prior finding that the number of daily child problem behaviors at entry into a new foster home predicts subsequent placement disruptions in foster preschoolers and (b) to determine whether this association is mitigated by a treatment foster care intervention. Method: Problem behavior and placement disruptions were examined in 60 children in regular foster care (age range = 3.10–5.91 years [M = 4.34, SD = 0.83], 58.3% male, 93.4% Caucasian) and 57 children in a treatment foster care program (age range = 3.01–6.78 years [M = 4.54, SD = 0.86], 49.1% male, 82.5% Caucasian). Using the Parent Daily Report Checklist (Chamberlain & Reid, 1987), a brief telephone interview, foster caregivers reported problem behavior 6 times over 3 months. Placement disruptions were tracked over 12 months. Results: The regular foster care children with 5 or fewer problem behaviors were at low risk for disruption, but their risk increased 10% for each additional behavior (p = .013). The intervention appeared to mitigate this “threshold effect”; number of problem behaviors did not predict risk of placement disruption in the treatment foster care group (p = .63). Conclusions: These findings replicate previous evidence linking child problem behavior to placement disruptions and further highlight the need for early preventative interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in health-promoting behavior following diagnosis with HIV: Prevalence and correlates in a national probability sample.

Diet, exercise, smoking, and substance use patterns affect the course of illness and quality of life for people with HIV. In interviews with a national probability sample of 2,864 persons receiving HIV care, it was found that most had made health-promoting changes in one or more of these behaviors since diagnosis. Many reported increased physical activity (43%) and improved diet (59%). Forty-nine percent of cigarette smokers quit or cut down; 80% of substance users did so. Desire for involvement in one's HIV care and information seeking-positive coping were the most consistent correlates of change. Other correlates varied by health practice but included health status, emotional well-being, demographics, and attitudes toward other aspects of HIV care. Most people with HIV improve their health behavior following diagnosis, but more might be helped to do so by targeting these behaviors in future interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining the neural correlates of choice behavior in a gambling task using steady state topography.

The present study investigated the behavioral and neuropsychological characteristics of decision-making behavior during a gambling task as well as how these characteristics may relate to the Somatic Marker Hypothesis and the Frequency of Gain model. The applicability to intertemporal choice was also discussed. Patterns of card selection during a computerized interpretation of the Iowa Gambling Task were assessed for 10 men and 10 women. Steady State Topography was employed to assess cortical processing throughout this task. Results supported the hypothesis that patterns of card selection were in line with both theories. As hypothesized, these 2 patterns of card selection were also associated with distinct patterns of cortical activity, suggesting that intertemporal choice may involve the recruitment of right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for somatic labeling, left fusiform gyrus for object representations, and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for an analysis of the associated frequency of gain or loss. It is suggested that processes contributing to intertemporal choice may include inhibition of negatively valenced options, guiding decisions away from those options, as well as computations favoring frequently rewarded options. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

WISC performance in acting-out and delinquent children with and without EEG abnormality.

To evaluate the relationship between EEG status and intelligence test performance, the WISC scores of 139 nondefective, acting-out and delinquent children referred for psychiatric evaluation were examined. The distribution of Verbal IQ-Performance IQ (VIQ-PIQ) discrepancies was compared with that reported for the WISC standardization population. Girls did not differ significantly from the standardization population, but boys showed a significantly larger proportion with PIQ > VIQ than in the standardization population. Neither boys nor girls showed significant differences in scores between groups with abnormal EEGs and those with normal and borderline EEGs. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neurological correlates of reward responding in adolescents with and without externalizing behavior disorders.

Opposing theories of striatal hyper- and hypodopaminergic functioning have been suggested in the pathophysiology of externalizing behavior disorders. To test these competing theories, the authors used functional MRI to evaluate neural activity during a simple reward task in 12- to 16-year-old boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or conduct disorder (n = 19) and in controls with no psychiatric condition (n = 11). The task proceeded in blocks during which participants received either (a) monetary incentives for correct responses or (b) no rewards for correct responses. Controls exhibited striatal activation only during reward, shifting to anterior cingulate activation during nonreward. In contrast, externalizing adolescents exhibited striatal activation during both reward and nonreward. Externalizing psychopathology appears to be characterized by deficits in processing the omission of predicted reward, which may render behaviors that are acquired through environmental contingencies difficult to extinguish when those contingencies change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complexity of adult verbal behavior in a dyadic situation with retarded children.

The purpose of the study was to observe the verbal behavior of young normal adults assembled with retarded children characterized in advance as either high (H) or low (L) with a standardized language test. Each adult was asked to "interview" 1 child at a time for ? hr. 6 adults interviewed 4 different H children and the 6 other adults interviewed 4 different L children. A measure of the child's verbal output during the interview confirmed usefulness of the language test to classify children in advance. Adults assembled with L children had a significantly lower average type-token ratio than those assembled with H children. Measures of the complexity and number of adult questions did not show any significant differences between H and L children. Possible implications of adult reactions to retarded children were briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A tale of two methods: Comparing regression and instrumental variables estimates of the effects of preschool child care type on the subsequent externalizing behavior of children in low-income families.

We apply instrumental variables (IV) techniques to a pooled data set of employment-focused experiments to examine the relation between type of preschool childcare and subsequent externalizing problem behavior for a large sample of low-income children. To assess the potential usefulness of this approach for addressing biases that can confound causal inferences in child care research, we compare instrumental variables results with those obtained using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. We find that our OLS estimates concur with prior studies showing small positive associations between center-based care and later externalizing behavior. By contrast, our IV estimates indicate that preschool-aged children with center care experience are rated by mothers and teachers as having fewer externalizing problems on entering elementary school than their peers who were not in child care as preschoolers. Findings are discussed in relation to the literature on associations between different types of community-based child care and children's social behavior, particularly within low-income populations. Moreover, we use this study to highlight the relative strengths and weaknesses of each analytic method for addressing causal questions in developmental research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Plea for a measure of understanding: The importance of intensive psychotherapy in the treatment of children with ADHD.

Clinicians working with children and adolescents diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder can help these patients by interpreting unacknowledged or forgotten feelings as well as by considering conscious and unconscious family dynamics. Adverse psychosocial events and the awful feelings produced by them as well as conflicting and frightening internal states should not be overlooked or underestimated. Current treatment models may be perpetuating a child's sense of not being understood. It is not surprising that a therapist's empathic understanding and interpretation is an essential part of helpful treatment and necessary to help these patients take over their own affect-regulating functions. For this to come about, the short-term, symptom-oriented models dictated by current practices need to be reconsidered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal work early in the lives of children and its distal associations with achievement and behavior problems: A meta-analysis.

This meta-analysis of 69 studies (1,483 effect sizes) used random effects models to examine maternal employment during infancy/early childhood in relation to 2 major domains of child functioning: achievement and behavior problems. Analyses of studies that spanned 5 decades indicated that, with a few exceptions, early employment was not significantly associated with later achievement or internalizing/externalizing behaviors. The exceptions were for teacher ratings of achievement and internalizing behaviors: Employment was associated with higher achievement and fewer internalizing behaviors. Substantial heterogeneity among the effect sizes prompted examination of moderators. Sample-level moderator analyses pointed to the importance of socioeconomic and contextual variables, with early employment most beneficial when families were challenged by single parenthood or welfare status. Maternal employment during Years 2 and 3 was associated with higher achievement. Some moderator analyses indicated negative effects of employment for middle-class and 2-parent families and for very early employment (child's first year). Associations also differed depending on whether effect sizes were adjusted for contextual variables. Only 1 study-level moderator (sex of first author) was significant after adjusting for other moderators. The small effect size and primarily nonsignificant results for main effects of early maternal employment should allay concerns about mothers working when children are young. However, negative findings associated with employment during the child's first year are compatible with calls for more generous maternal leave policies. Results highlight the importance of social context for identifying under which conditions and for which subgroups early maternal employment is associated with positive or negative child outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neighborhood disadvantage moderates associations of parenting and older sibling problem attitudes and behavior with conduct disorders in African American children.

Data from 296 sibling pairs (mean ages 10 and 13 years), their primary caregivers, and census records were used to test the hypothesis that African American children's likelihood of developing conduct problems associated with harsh parenting, a lack of nurturant-involved parenting, and exposure to an older sibling's deviance-prone attitudes and behavior would be amplified among families residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods. A latent construct representing harsh-inconsistent parenting and low levels of nurturant-involved parenting was positively associated with younger siblings' conduct disorder symptoms, as were older siblings' problematic attitudes and behavior. These associations were strongest among families residing in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Future research and prevention programs should focus on the specific neighborhood processes associated with increased vulnerability for behavior problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)