Psychotherapy and recovery from schizophrenia: A review of potential applications and need for future study.

Recovery from schizophrenia has been conceptualized to involve not only symptom remission of symptoms and achievement of psychosocial milestones but also subjective changes in how persons appraise their lives and the extent to which they experience themselves as meaningful agents in the world. In this article we review the potential of individual psychotherapy to address these more subjective aspects of recovery. Literature on the effectiveness of psychotherapy for persons with schizophrenia is discussed, and two different paths by which psychotherapy might modify self-experience are described. First, we detail how psychotherapy could be conceptualized and tailored to help persons with schizophrenia to construct richer and fuller narrative accounts of their lives, including their strengths, challenges, losses, and hopes. Second, we explore how psychotherapy could target the capacity for metacognition or thinking about thinking, assisting persons with psychosis to become able to think about themselves and others in a generally more complex and flexible manner. The needs for future research are discussed along with a commentary on how current evidence- and skill-based treatments may contain key elements that could be considered psychotherapeutic. (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)     

Ash particulate formation from pulverized coal under oxy-fuel combustion conditions

Aerosol particulates are generated by coal combustion. The amount and properties of aerosol particulates, specifically size distribution and composition, can be affected by combustion conditions. Understanding the formation of these particles is important for predicting emissions and understanding potential deposition. Oxy-fuel combustion conditions utilize an oxygen-enriched gas environment with CO(2). The high concentration of CO(2) is a result of recycle flue gas which is used to maintain temperature. A hypothesis is that high CO(2) concentration reduces the vaporization of refractory oxides from combustion. A high-temperature drop-tube furnace was used under different oxygen concentrations and CO(2) versus N(2) to study the effects of furnace temperature, coal type, and gas phase conditions on particulate formation. A scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) and aerodynamic particle sizer (APS) were utilized for particle size distributions ranging from 14.3 nm to 20 μm. In addition, particles were collected on a Berner low pressure impactor (BLPI) for elemental analysis using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy. Three particle size modes were seen: ultrafine (below 0.1 μm), fine (0.1 to 1.0 μm), and coarse (above 1 μm). Ultrafine mass concentrations were directly related to estimated particle temperature, increasing with increasing temperature. For high silicon and calcium coals, Utah Skyline and PRB, there was a secondary effect due to CO(2) and the hypothesized reaction. Illinois #6, a high sulfur coal, had the highest amount of ultrafine mass and most of the sulfur was concentrated in the ultrafine and fine modes. Fine and coarse mode mass concentrations did not show a temperature or CO(2) relationship. (The table of contents graphic and abstract graphic are adapted from ref 27.).     

Developmental trajectories in toddlers' self-restraint predict individual differences in executive functions 14 years later: A behavioral genetic analysis.

We examined whether self-restraint in early childhood predicted individual differences in 3 executive functions (EFs; inhibiting prepotent responses, updating working memory, and shifting task sets) in late adolescence in a sample of approximately 950 twins. At ages 14, 20, 24, and 36 months, the children were shown an attractive toy and told not to touch it for 30 s. Latency to touch the toy increased with age, and latent class growth modeling distinguished 2 groups of children that differed in their latencies to touch the toy at all 4 time points. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we decomposed the 3 EFs (measured with latent variables at age 17 years) into a Common EF factor (isomorphic to response inhibition ability) and 2 factors specific to updating and shifting. Less-restrained children had significantly lower scores on the Common EF factor, equivalent scores on the Updating-Specific factor, and higher scores on the Shifting-Specific factor than did the more-restrained children. The less-restrained group also had lower IQ scores, but this effect was entirely mediated by the EF components. Twin models indicated that the associations were primarily genetic in origin for the Common EF variable but split between genetics and nonshared environment for the Shifting-Specific variable. These results suggest a biological relation between individual differences in self-restraint and EFs, one that begins early in life and persists into late adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlates of victimization in Chinese children's peer groups.

This study reports a cross-sectional investigation of the behavioral and academic correlates of victimization in Chinese children's peer groups. The participants were 296 children (161 boys and 135 girls; mean age?=?11.5 years) from Tianjin, China. Multi-informant assessments (peer nominations, teacher ratings, and self-reports) of peer victimization, aggression, submissiveness-withdrawal, assertiveness-prosociability, and academic functioning were obtained. Structural equation models indicated that peer victimization was associated with poor academic functioning, submissive-withdrawn behavior, aggression, and low levels of assertive-prosocial behavior. These findings suggest that there is considerable similarity in the social processes underlying peer group victimization across Chinese and Western cultural settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing daily management in childhood diabetes.

168 patients (aged 6–19 yrs) with childhood diabetes and their parents participated in 24-hr recall interviews concerning daily diabetes management behavior. Data were used to construct measures of 13 adherence behaviors. Parent–patient agreement was good to excellent for most of the 13 behaviors. Agreement was influenced by the patient's age, with the most consistently high parent–child agreement found in the 10–25 yr age group. Adherence in childhood diabetes appears to be a complex construct, consisting of at least 5 components unrelated to each other. Teenagers in the present study were less adherent than their younger counterparts on most of the adherence measures studied. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The heritability of inhibited and uninhibited behavior: A twin study.

Young children who respond to the unfamiliar with wariness and avoidance belong to a temperamental category called behaviorally inhibited; sociable children who approach the unfamiliar are called uninhibited. This study assessed the heritable nature of these 2 categories. The longitudinal sample consisted of 178 same-sex twin pairs seen at 14 mo and 162 pairs seen at 20 and 24 mo. An aggregate inhibition index was constructed at each of the 3 ages by averaging standard scores for observed laboratory behaviors indicative of wariness. The index had relatively high internal consistency at all ages. Analyses of data from selected twin pairs suggest that extremely inhibited behaviors are heritable. Results of longitudinal genetic correlation analyses provide evidence for substantial genetic contributions to continuity and change from 14 to 24 mo. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outcome assessment for carpal tunnel surgery: the relative responsiveness of generic, arthritis-specific, disease-specific, and physical examination measures

Clinical evaluation of outcome after treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome has not been standardized. To assess the value of various clinical and questionnaire measures for the assessment of outcome after carpal tunnel surgery, we surveyed 22 patients 1 day before and 3 months after carpal tunnel release with the following measures: the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item short form health survey, the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale, the Brigham and Women's Hospital carpal tunnel questionnaire, wrist range of motion, power pinch grip strength, pressure sensibility, and dexterity. Significant changes, all in the direction of improved health status postoperatively, were noted in the following scales or measures: the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scale pain, satisfaction, health perception, arthritis impact, and symptom scales; the Brigham and Women's Hospital symptom and function scales; the short form health survey's physical role, emotional role, and bodily pain scales; and the measurement of dexterity. In this study, standardized questionnaires were more sensitive to the clinical change produced by carpal tunnel surgery than many commonly performed physical measures of outcome. The condition-specific questionnaire was more sensitive to change than were more generic questionnaires.     

Type I, Type II, and other types of errors in pattern analysis.

C. J. Krauskopf (1991) is to be commended for calling attention to the fact that pattern analysis is subject not only to Type I errors but also Type II errors, which were not even mentioned by A. B. Silverstein (1982). There are, however, a number of points on which the authors still differ. Most notably, Krauskopf's recommendation not only fails to solve the multiple-comparisons problem, it exacerbates that problem. Other possibilities are considered, including the possibility that the assumption on which pattern analysis is based, clinical meaningfulness, is itself an error. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)