Complete eradication of Aspergillus fumigatus from the lung in an immunocompromised patient by oral itraconazole

Fifty-three deaf subjects with a history of prelingual profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, similar language habilitation with hearing aids, and normal velopharyngeal structures underwent a study protocol including speech evaluation, behavioral pure-tone audiometry, videonasopharyngoscopy, multiview videofluoroscopy, and electromyography of the velopharyngeal muscles. Subjects were divided into two groups: the first group included 13 subjects with normal nasal resonance or mild hypernasality (four normals and nine with mild hypernasality); the second group had subjects with severe hypernasality and severe articulation deficits. Pure-tone thresholds, velopharyngeal closure patterns, and electromyographic activity of velopharyngeal muscles were similar for both groups of subjects. However, in subjects with severe hypernasality, despite normal muscle activity as observed by electromyography, velopharyngeal valving activity lacked rhythm and strength during speech. It is concluded that deaf subjects may present a functional disorder of the velopharyngeal sphincter related to absence of auditory regulation during phonation. Visual biofeedback using videonasopharyngoscopy may be useful for treating this disorder.     

Sibling disability and children's reactivity to conflicts involving family members.

Although rarely considered, siblings may significantly affect families in ways that have implications for other children's functioning, especially when the siblings' problems pose special difficulties. This study examined how having a disabled sibling predicted children's reactions to the everyday stress of family-related conflicts. Thirty children with a disabled sibling (15 boys, 15 girls) and 30 with nondisabled siblings (15 boys, 15 girls) responded to a series of disputes involving other family members. Having a disabled sibling predicted sensitization to these everyday family stresses, including more emotional distress; more expected involvement, perceived threat, and personal responsibility; more active coping strategies; and lower thresholds of conflict intensity for responding. Children with disabled siblings also evidenced more adjustment problems. Although developmental outcomes of challenging family circumstances may vary considerably for individual children, these results demonstrate the potential significance of siblings to the functioning of other children in the family. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speech characteristics associated with the Furlow palatoplasty as compared with other surgical techniques

Reported here are the results of a retrospective study of the speech outcome for 63 cleft subjects who had Furlow repairs compared with 20 subjects who had other procedures. The two groups of children were similar in cleft type, sex, and race. The same two surgeons repaired the palates in both groups, and the same two speech pathologists with high reliability examined the children at least 5 years postoperatively using the Pittsburgh Weighted Values for Speech Symptoms Associated with VPI (velopharyngeal incompetence). Subjects who had had Furlow repairs were superior on measures of hypernasality, articulation, and total speech scores; and fewer pharyngeal flaps were required by Furlow subjects. These findings suggest the need for randomized, double-blind investigations comparing outcome of the Furlow procedure with the intravelar veloplasty, the V-Y pushback, and other specified procedures.     

Hurricane-related exposure experiences and stressors, other life events, and social support: Concurrent and prospective impact on children's persistent posttraumatic stress symptoms.

Objective: We investigated the influence of hurricane exposure, stressors occurring during the hurricane and recovery period, and social support on children's persistent posttraumatic stress (PTS). Method: Using a 2-wave, prospective design, we assessed 384 children (54% girls; mean age = 8.74 years) 9 months posthurricane, and we reassessed 245 children 21 months posthurricane. Children completed measures of exposure experiences, social support, hurricane-related stressors, life events, and PTS symptoms. Results: At Time 1, 35% of the children reported moderate to very severe levels of PTS symptoms; at Time 2, this reduced to 29%. Hurricane-related stressors influenced children's persistent PTS symptoms and the occurrence of other life events, which in turn also influenced persistent PTS symptoms. The cascading effects of hurricane stressors and other life events disrupted children's social support over time, which further influenced persistent PTS symptoms. Social support from peers buffered the impact of disaster exposure on children's PTS symptoms. Conclusions: The effects of a destructive hurricane on children's PTS symptoms persisted almost 2 years after the storm. The factors contributing to PTS symptoms are interrelated in complex ways. The findings suggest a need to close the gap between interventions delivered in the immediate and short-term aftermath and those delivered 2 years or more postdisaster. Such interventions might focus on helping children manage disaster-related stressors and other life events as well as bolstering children's support systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's avoidance of lexical overlap: A pragmatic account.

Children tend to choose an unfamiliar object rather than a familiar one when asked to find the referent of a novel name. This response has been taken as evidence for the operation of certain lexical constraints in children's inferences of word meanings. The present studies test an alternative–pragmatic–explanation of this phenomenon among 3-year-olds. In Study 1 children responded to a request for the referent of a novel label in the same way that they responded to a request for the referent of a novel fact. Study 2 intimated that children assume that labels are common knowledge among members of the same language community. Study 3 demonstrated that shared knowledge between a speaker and listener plays a decisive role in how children interpret a speaker's request. The findings suggest that 3-year-olds' avoidance of lexical overlap is not unique to naming and may derive from children's sensitivity to speakers' communicative intentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of mothers' gender-role stereotypic beliefs on mothers' and children's ability perceptions.

Examined the relation between mothers' gender stereotypic beliefs, their perceptions of their children's abilities, and their children's self-perceptions in 3 activity domains. Approximately 1,500 mothers and their 11- to 12-yr-old children responded to questions about the children's abilities in the math, sports, and social domains. It was predicted that mothers' beliefs about their children would be moderated by their gender stereotypic beliefs about the abilities of female and male people in general. As predicted, path analyses revealed that mothers' gender stereotypic beliefs interact with the sex of their child to influence their perceptions of the child's abilities. Mothers' perceptions, in turn, mediate the influence of past performance on children's self-perceptions in each domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ability mindsets influence the quality of mothers' involvement in children's learning: An experimental investigation.

This research examined the role of mothers' mindsets about the malleability of children's ability in the quality of their involvement in children's learning. Mothers (N = 79) of early elementary school children (mean age = 7.65 years) were induced to hold either an entity mindset, in which children's ability is seen as unchangeable, or an incremental mindset, in which children's ability is seen as changeable. Mothers and children were then observed as they worked on a set of challenging problems for 15 min. Unconstructive involvement (i.e., performance-oriented teaching, control, and negative affect) was more frequent among mothers induced to hold an entity mindset than those induced to hold an incremental mindset. Mothers with an entity (vs. incremental) mindset also responded to children's helplessness more unconstructively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conversational competence and peer response to mildly retarded children.

This study investigated the relationship between mildy retarded children's conversational competence and their acceptance by regular education students. Ninety-four elementary school students watched videotapes in which mildly retarded children displayed either skill or lack of skill at conversational management. Half of the students were told the retarded children's special education placement; half were not. Students responded more positively when the mildly retarded children displayed skill at managing conversations, projecting that they would be liked by others in their classrooms. When the mildly retarded children showed problems with conversational management, students projected that they would be rejected or isolated by peers. These findings support the position that language can play an important role in children's response to their handicapped peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of discrete emotions on young children's suggestibility.

Two experiments investigated the effects of sadness, anger, and happiness on 4- to 6-year-old children's memory and suggestibility concerning story events. In Experiment 1, children were presented with 3 interactive stories on a video monitor. The stories included protagonists who wanted to give the child a prize. After each story, the child completed a task to try to win the prize. The outcome of the child's effort was manipulated in order to elicit sadness, anger, or happiness. Children's emotions did not affect story recall, but children were more vulnerable to misleading questions about the stories when sad than when angry or happy. In Experiment 2, a story was presented and emotions were elicited using an autobiographical recall task. Children responded to misleading questions and then recalled the story for a different interviewer. Again, children's emotions did not affect the amount of story information recalled correctly, but sad children incorporated more information from misleading questions during recall than did angry or happy children. Sad children's greater suggestibility is discussed in terms of the differing problem-solving strategies associated with discrete emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The academic trajectories of children of immigrants and their school environments.

Data from approximately 14,000 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey--Kindergarten Cohort were analyzed to examine the associations between children's immigrant status and their academic trajectories from kindergarten to 3rd grade, with particular attention to the effects of school environments. Growth curve modeling results indicated that most children of Latin American origin improved their reading and math scores faster than non-Hispanic White children, thus narrowing their initial score gap and sometimes even surpassing White children by 3rd grade. In contrast, although they maintained higher reading and math scores, children from East Asia and India showed decreasing scores over time, which tended to narrow their initial score advantage over non-Hispanic White children. School-level factors accounted partially for these differences. Particularly in terms of the academic trajectories, children of Latin American origin responded more to school-level factors than did children of Asian origin, who responded more to child and family background, with the exception of children from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, who responded more to school-level factors. Simulation results point to the importance of school resources for the academic trajectories of children of immigrants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's goals and strategies in response to conflicts within a friendship.

Little is known about the skills required for friendship, as distinct from those required for peer acceptance. The present study examined whether children's goals and strategies in friendship conflict situations are predictive of their friendship adjustment, after accounting for level of peer acceptance. Fourth- and 5th-grade children (N?=?696) responded to 30 hypothetical situations in which they were having a conflict with a friend. Results indicated that children's goals were highly related to their strategies and that children's goals and strategies were predictive of their real-life friendship adjustment. Pursuing the goal of revenge toward a friend was the goal or strategy most strongly associated with lacking friends and having poor-quality friendships. Gender differences were also found for each goal and strategy, with girls displaying a more prosocial goal and strategy orientation than boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's and teachers' perspectives on children's self-control: The development of two rating scales.

Three teachers rated 28 4th graders on 15 self-control items using a 5-point frequency scale, and children responded to a yes/no format for each of their 11 self-control items. Both the teachers' and children's scales were factored based on responses of 763 4th and 5th graders from 36 classes. Children's IQ was assessed using the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Tests, psychosocial adjustment was evaluated using the Child Behavior Rating Scale, and verbal and quantitative academic achievement was measured by the Stanford Achievement Test. The teachers' scale consisted of 2 factors replicated across halved subsamples: (a) Behavioral/Interpersonal and (b) Cognitive/Personal Self-Control. The children's scale had 4 orthogonal factors: (a) Personal Self-Control, (b) Interpersonal Self-Control, (c) Self-Evaluation, and (d) Consequential Thinking. Full-scale and factor scores had high reliability. The validity of each scale was supported, although the 2 were only weakly related to each other. Self-control ratings by teachers and children related to naturalistic observations and to teacher ratings of frustration tolerance and acting-out/aggressive problems. Teachers' (but not children's) ratings of self-control related to IQ and achievement. Girls were rated as better self-controlled than boys by both groups. There were no grade-level differences. Uses of the scales in large-scale social-systems studies are discussed. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender schema, gender constancy, and gender-role knowledge: The roles of cognitive factors in preschoolers' gender-role stereotype attributions.

Investigated the influence of several cognitive components of children's gender-role development on their attributions of gender-role stereotypes to a particular sex. A total of 83 children (44 boys and 39 girls) completed a 2-part interview that assessed degree of gender schematization, gender-role knowledge, flexibility, and stage of gender constancy. Children also completed tasks assessing attributions of gender-role stereotypes to male and female figures. Results indicated that children's gender schematization and other cognitive gender schema factors were significantly associated with children's accuracy in attributing gender-role stereotypes to both males and females. In contrast, stage of gender constancy per se was not significantly correlated with any of children's gender-role stereotype attributions. The patterns of results offer further evidence of the importance of gender schemata in early gender-role development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of client preparation and problem severity on attitudes and expectations in child psychotherapy.

Assessed the effects of client preparation and problem severity on children's and parents' understanding, attitudes, and expectations of child psychotherapy. 38 children (aged 6–12 yrs) with 1 of their parents served as Ss. Half of the children and parents received preparation information, and the other half were not prepared. Following preparation vs no-preparation procedures, children and parents completed questionnaires assessing problem severity, knowledge of and attraction to therapy, and prognostic expectations. Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist, and therapists rated problem severity and expectations for treatment outcome. Results indicate that preparation increased children's and parents' knowledge of therapy, attraction–receptivity to therapists and treatment, and expectations for therapy outcome. Children and parents were found to be quite attracted and receptive to psychotherapy and to have very positive expectations for treatment outcome. Findings indicate that therapists saw the children's problems as more severe and had lower prognostic expectations than did children and parents. No relation was found between problem severity and attraction–receptivity to treatment or expectations for treatment outcome. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parent and child expressed affect and children's social competence: Modeling direct and indirect pathways.

This study examined links between parents' and children's expressed affect during parent–child play and children's social functioning with peers. A total of 116 kindergarten-age children and their parents (114 mothers, 102 fathers) were observed during physical play interactions and were coded on global measures of expressed positive and negative affect. Kindergarten and 1st-grade teachers and peers provided measures of social competence. Latent variable path analysis with partial least squares was used to examine models that included "direct" and "indirect" pathways. Relations between parental positive affect and children's social competence were mediated by children's expressed positive affect. Parental negative affect was associated with negative social outcomes in children; however, these relations were not mediated by children's negative expressions. The strongest support for the hypothesized models was found in same-sex dyads. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental monitoring and perceptions of children's school performance and conduct in dual- and single-earner families.

Relationships between parental monitoring and children's school performance and conduct were examined in 77 dual- and 75 single-earner families in which the eldest child was between 9 and 12 years old. During home interviews, mothers, fathers, and children reported on children's school grades, perceived academic competence, and perceived conduct. Parental monitoring (i.e., parents' knowledge about children's daily experiences) was assessed in 7 evening telephone interviews. Results indicated that less well-monitored boys received lower grades than did other children. Less well-monitored boys in dual-earner families perceived their conduct more negatively than did other children, a pattern corroborated by parents' reports. The findings are discussed with regard to the importance of examining family processes in contrasting family ecologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Origins of children's helpless and mastery achievement patterns in the family.

An exploratory study examined the origins of children's motivational patterns in the family by observing 3rd-grade children (10 helpless and 11 mastery-oriented) and their mothers performing a series of solvable and insolvable problem-solving tasks. Mothers of mastery children appeared to show sensitivity and responsiveness to their children's ability perceptions and requests for help. They also appeared to support mastery behaviors in their children by increasing task-focused teaching behaviors and maintaining high-positive affect during the insolvable puzzles. Furthermore, in the face of failures, they retrained their children's low-ability attributions and performance-goal statements, while promoting mastery or task-focused behaviors. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that mothers of mastery children may socialize their children's achievement motivation. However, because of the small sample size and other limitations, the results should be interpreted with caution. Several directions are outlined for future research on the familial origins of helpless and mastery patterns in children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial predictors of children's postoperative pain

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of psychosocial variables in the prediction of children's pain intensity following surgery. Forty-two children, ages 7 to 17 years (M = 12.26, SD = 3.06), completed an interview 1 week prior to surgery assessing anticipatory distress related to their forthcoming surgery and history of coping strategy use. Following surgery, children reported the intensity of their pain using visual analog scales. Findings demonstrated that the majority of children experienced moderate to severe postoperative pain. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that psychosocial variables added to the prediction of children's postoperative pain after controlling for the influence of surgery-related and demographic variables. These findings lend initial support for the inclusion of psychosocial assessment measures (e.g., anticipatory surgery distress) in the preoperative assessment of pediatric patients who may be at risk for excessive postsurgical pain.     

The role of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity in the positive illusory bias.

The present study examined the relationships among gender, inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, depressive symptoms, and biases in perceptions of scholastic competence in children. Participants were 38 children with predominantly inattentive symptoms (IA), 59 children with predominantly hyperactive/impulsive symptoms or a combination of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention (HICB), and 83 control (CTL) children. HICB children overestimated their scholastic competence more than IA children when reading and math achievement scores were used as criteria and more than CTL children when math achievement and teacher perceptions of children's competence were used as criteria. IA children generally did not differ from CTL children with regard to estimations of competence. Regression analyses suggested that positive illusory self- perceptions are associated with more severe hyperactivity/impulsivity, but not more severe inattention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family characteristics and school achievements of Type A children.

Examined the familial characteristics of Type A (coronary prone) children and the consequences of Type A behaviors for children's classroom achievements. A maximum of 156 boys and 190 girls in Grades 1–8 participated. Results show that Type A children were not more likely to have families with a history of cardiovascular-related diseases. Young Type A boys had Type A mothers and fathers. Competitive boys and girls and Type A girls had higher achievement test scores and grades than noncompetitive children and Type B (noncoronary prone) girls, respectively. Thus, the competitive aspect of Type A led to important early achievements, perhaps because caregivers and teachers responded to Type A behaviors of children by encouraging them to continue to strive to achieve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)