Transition to adulthood as a parent-youth project: Governance transfer, career promotion, and relational processes.

This study determined how youth (ages 17-21) and their parents jointly constructed and acted on goals and strategies pertinent to the transition to adulthood. Twenty parent-youth dyads were followed over an 8-month period using the qualitative action-project method. Data included their joint conversations, video recall of internal processes, self-monitoring logs, and researcher telephone monitoring. Detailed and repeated analysis of elements, functional steps, and goals resulted in the identification of an explicit joint project for each dyad that the participants saw as pertinent to the transition to adulthood. These projects referred broadly to the youth development of identity and social inclusion in the adult world and included the specific projects of career promotion, governance transfer, and parent-youth relational processes. The findings illustrate the complexity of the transition-to-adulthood process as well as its joint construction by parent and youth. Implications for practice include identifying and following the joint parent-youth transition project. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rasch analysis of a new construct: functional caregiving for adult children with intellectual disabilities

This research examined empirical evidence for a new construct, Functional Caregiving, which is a theory about mothers' caregiving of their adult children with intellectual disabilities. A sample of 108 biological mothers and primary caregivers rated survey items about their confidence to perform caregiving tasks. Rasch rating scale analysis found 61 items defined an empirical construct with three caregiving levels: Advocacy, Personal Caregiving, and Community. Results show item separation was 3.11 with high reliability, .91, and mother separation was 2.93 and reliability, .90. Both items and mothers showed adequate INFIT and OUTFIT values. Item invariance was confirmed between older and younger mothers, and principle components analysis of item residuals did not reveal any major dimensionality threats. Item decomposition analysis showed FC content theory to account for 58 percent of item calibration variance (R2 = .58, F = 42.3, p < .001). These results have important practical implications for health and social services, as well as family caregiving, interdisciplinary practices, and health policy development.     

Automatic processing in spider phobia: Implicit fear associations over the course of treatment.

This study evaluates the cognitive model of anxiety by investigating treatment-related changes in automatic associations to evaluate schematic processing. Spider-phobic participants (n=31) and healthy controls (n=30) completed fear-based Implicit Association Tests (IATs), which are reaction-time measures that tap implicit associations without requiring conscious introspection. The specific tasks involved classifying pictures of snakes and spiders along with semantic categorizations (good vs. bad, afraid vs. unafraid, danger vs. safety, and disgusting vs. appealing). Phobic individuals were assessed before and after group-based exposure treatment and 2 months later; controls were assessed at matched time points. Results supported clinical applications for implicit fear associations, including prediction of phobic avoidance, and treatment sensitivity of the fear- and disgust-specific automatic associations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual abuse treatment for persons with developmental disabilities.

Recent research by the Sexual Abuse and Disability Project at the University of Alberta included a survey of 119 sexual abuse (SA) victims with developmental disabilities (DDs). Their responses indicated that SA treatment services for people with DDs are typically inaccessible, unavailable, and inappropriate. Inadequate treatment services appear to be due to the paucity of qualified professionals in the area of SA and DDs coupled with the slow development of appropriate SA treatment approaches. The application of adapted therapy approaches for people with DDs and examples of adapted SA treatment for children and women abused as children are presented. SA treatment issues for the developmentally disabled are discussed for practitioners' considerations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of a collective kitchens program: using the Population Health Promotion Model.

To evaluate the impact of the Calgary Health Region Collective Kitchen Program on various Population Health Promotion Model health determinants, data were collected through mail-in questionnaires that examined the members' (n=331) and coordinators' (n=58) perspectives of the program. Seventy-nine members (24%) and 26 coordinators (45%) were included in the study. Three incomplete questionnaires (from prenatal program members) were discarded. Sixty-one percent of members who reported income level and family size (n=61) had incomes below the low-income cut-off. Fifty-eight members (73%) reported improvements in their lives because of the program. Sixty-four members (81%) perceived they learned to feed their families healthier foods. The members reported their fruit and vegetable consumption before and since joining a collective kitchen, and the proportion of those consuming at least five fruit and vegetable servings a day rose from 29% to 47%. The most common reasons for joining this program concerned social interactions and support. Over 90% of the coordinators perceived that they were competent to coordinate a kitchen. The results indicate that the collective kitchens program addresses several health determinants, and may increase members' capacity to attain food security and to achieve improved nutritional health.     

Effectiveness of the Woodruff School Doctoral Teaching Intern Program

This article discusses a unique teaching internship program that has been in place in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology since 1990. The objective of the program is to provide doctoral students who are considering an academic career an opportunity to gain teaching experience under the tutelage of a faculty member. This article summarizes the major findings from student evaluations and from surveys of former student and faculty participants and discusses the apparent need and benefit of such a doctoral teaching intern program. Benefits and drawbacks of participation are discussed from the intern, faculty mentor, and student points of view. Conclusions are drawn about the overall effectiveness of the program and recommendations are made for implementing a successful teaching internship program.     

Nonessential fatty acids in formula fat blends influence essential fatty acid metabolism and composition in plasma and organ lipid classes in piglets

The online version of the original article can be found at     

Randomized trial of contingent prizes versus vouchers in cocaine-using methadone patients.

Contingency management (CM) interventions frequently utilize vouchers as reinforcers, but a prize-based system is also efficacious. This study compared these approaches. Seventy-four cocaine-dependent methadone outpatients were randomly assigned to standard treatment (ST), ST plus a maximum of $585 in contingent vouchers, or ST plus an expected average maximum of $300 in contingent prizes for 12 weeks. CM participants achieved longer durations of abstinence (LDA) than ST participants, and CM conditions did not differ significantly in outcomes or amount of reinforcement earned. Although long-term abstinence did not differ by group, LDA during treatment was the best predictor of abstinence at 9 months. Thus, reinforcement with prizes was similar to voucher CM in promoting LDA, which is associated with posttreatment benefits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Multiple objective shift allocation model

This paper is concerned with a production planning problem of allocating production items to production shifts on production lines in a multiple objective decision environment. The problem is modeled and solutions are generated using integer goal programming techniques. Objectives are formulated not only in terms of minimizing the sum of deviations from goal target levels, but also in terms of minimizing the maximum deviation. Test results indicate that the model structure and solution process utilized can provide decision makers with a good set of representative solutions in a rather complex multiple objective decision environment.     

Dear Sheila: An experimental study of the effectiveness of written communication as a form of psychotherapy.

42 college students who responded to an announcement for a writing therapy study were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups. The writing therapy group wrote letters describing their problems to a psychotherapist whose written replies contained behaviorally oriented responses. Reassuring responses were written to the problem letters of Ss in a reassurance control group. A 2nd control group was asked to count the frequency of occurrence of specific problem behaviors and mail them to the therapist, who did not reply. 10 Ss in the writing therapy group and 8 in each of the control groups completed the 4-mo treatment period. The decrease in the number of problems (as measured by the Mooney Problem Check List) was significantly greater in the writing therapy group than in the 2 control groups. Analysis of demographic data revealed that more males than females dropped out of the study, and a significantly greater proportion of the dropouts were from lower-class families. It is concluded that writing therapy may be useful and appeal to students who do not feel able to use traditional student counseling services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)