Impacts on Children of a Policy to Promote Employment and Reduce Poverty for Low-Income Parents: New Hope After 5 Years.

The impacts of New Hope, a program to increase parent employment and reduce poverty, were measured 5 years after parents were randomly assigned to program or control groups. New Hope had positive effects on children's school achievement, motivation, and social behavior, primarily for boys, across the age range 6-16. In comparison to impacts measured 2 years after program onset, effects on achievement were robust, but effects on social behavior were reduced. The program produced improvements in family income and use of organized child care and activity settings, suggesting possible pathways by which the New Hope package of policies influenced children's behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissipation of retroactive interference in human infants.

In 3 experiments with 85 human 3-month-olds, the authors asked whether retroactive interference with their memory of the original training stimulus is temporary or permanent. Infants learned to move a mobile by kicking and then were exposed to a different mobile (Exp 1) or context (Exp 2) immediately or 3 days afterward (Exp 3). They were tested after increasing delays with the original stimulus, the exposed stimulus, or a completely novel stimulus. Retroactive interference was temporary and unrelated to the exposure delay. The data are consistent with a retrieval-based account of interference. Memory updating (i.e., responding to the interfering stimulus) was coincident with retroactive interference, suggesting that retroactive interference is an adaptive mechanism that facilitates memory updating within a narrow time window. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The expanding indications for clozapine.

Clozapine is increasingly being used for clinical indications in addition to treatment-resistant schizophrenia; this article reviews the relevant literature. The first section reassesses the risks associated with clozapine treatment, particularly agranulocytosis. The next section discusses its use for schizophrenia in patients who are treatment resistant, not treatment resistant, and intolerant of traditional drug treatments. Subsequent sections address its use in mood disorders, neurologic conditions, comorbid substance abuse, aggressive behavior, and childhood schizophrenia. Each includes the initial rationale for the use of clozapine in the disorder, a critical evaluation of the relevant literature, and theories as to why clozapine's unique pharmacodynamic profile may be efficacious for the specific condition. This body of literature suggests clozapine may be an effective treatment for a wide range of disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dating violence prevention with at-risk youth: A controlled outcome evaluation.

This study evaluated a community-based intervention to help at-risk teens develop healthy, nonabusive relationships with dating partners. Participants were 158 14-16-year-olds with histories of child maltreatment who were randomly assigned to a preventive intervention group or a no-treatment control group. They completed measures of abuse and victimization with dating partners, emotional distress, and healthy relationship skills at bimonthly intervals when dating someone. Intervention consisted of education about healthy and abusive relationships, conflict resolution and communication skills, and social action activities. Growth curve analyses showed that intervention was effective in reducing incidents of physical and emotional abuse and symptoms of emotional distress over time. Findings support involvement of youths in reducing the cycle of violence as they initiate dating in midadolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

It's about timing and change: Pubertal transition effects on symptoms of major depression among African American youths.

Effects of early physical maturation and accelerated pubertal changes on symptoms of major depression were examined in 639 African American children. Three rival hypotheses, early timing, off-time, and stressful change, were tested using 2 waves of data (mean ages = 11 and 13 years). The pubertal effect operates differently according to children's gender and age. For girls, early maturation was consistently associated with elevated levels of depressive symptoms. For boys, early maturers manifested elevated levels of depression only at age 11, but these symptoms subsided by age 13. Boys who experienced accelerated pubertal growth over time displayed elevated symptom levels. Results support the early timing hypothesis for girls and the stressful change hypothesis for boys. Time at assessment is critical when examining boys' pubertal transition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual identification of contextual attributes and infant memory retrieval.

The contribution of specific contextual attributes to recognition of a well-learned cue was examined in 4 experiments with 6-mo-olds. 24 hrs after learning to move a given mobile in a distinctive visual surround by kicking, recognition of the training cue was tested in either the original context or in one in which only a single contextual attribute was altered. Retrieval was completely disrupted by all form changes involving the deletion of angles and by a chromatic figure/ground reversal, but a discriminable change in form color had no effect. Although infants displayed partial retention in a degraded context after 1 day, they displayed no retention when a reminder was administered in the same degraded context after 20 days. These data reveal that infants do not encode contextual information holistically; moreover, they imply a privileged status for highly specific information about the incidental setting in which an event occurs. Unless this same highly specific information is perceptually identified at the time of testing, the memory of that event will not be retrieved. Data are consistent with the hypothesis that the visual context serves as an initial attention gate for memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Gestalt theory of healthy aggression in beyond-control youth.

Administered 6 tests (e.g., the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised [WISC—R], the Embedded Figures Test) to 30 runaway/incorrigible 14–16 yr old females and 30 age-, race-, socioeconomic status (SES)-, and IQ-matched females to test the Gestalt theory of healthy aggression. Results indicate that runaway/incorrigibles have difficulty taking apart or analyzing a situation in order to formulate an appropriate response. It is suggested that the task of growing to maturity is twofold. First, the adolescent must sharpen the ego functions—the discriminating, structuring, organizing, analyzing abilities—so that the range of the self or the figure/background process becomes more complex, various, and mature. In addition, as adolescents break confluence with parents, they must establish a healthy oneness in a mature love relationship, a profession, and all aspects of living. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aluminum Phosphates Derived from Alumina and Alumina-Sol–Gel Systems

Aluminum phosphate products formed by the reactions of alumina and alumina-gel systems with acidic phosphates were analyzed. Drying of alumina-gel to form microcrystalline boehmite and conversion to γ-alumina by thermal treatment was indicated by the appearance of octahedral, pentacoordinate, or tetrahedral sites, which were established using ²⁷Al magic-angle-spinning solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Crystalline aluminum phosphate products and amorphous material were identified using this technique. α-alumina and heat-treated alumina-gel that were reacted with phosphate in an Al:P ratio of 1:1 yielded dramatically different aluminum orthophosphate:aluminum metaphosphate product ratios of 8.2:1 and 1:1.1, respectively. When alumina-gel was heat-treated with phosphate, an abundance of aluminum orthophosphate, aluminum metaphosphate, and hydrated aluminum phosphate products were affected by varying conditions of temperature and time of heat treatment and by the amount of phosphate present. An α-alumina/alumina-gel composite sol–gel phase that was reacted with phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) in a Al:P ratio of 1:1 exhibited an increased quantity of aluminum metaphosphate products compared with an α-alumina:H₃PO₄ ratio of 1:1 and a higher percentage of reaction (79%) compared with the reactions of an α-alumina:H₃PO₄ ratio of 1:1 or an alumina-gel:H₃PO₄ ratio of 1:1. The morphologies of aluminum triphosphate hydrate and aluminum metaphosphate product phases were observed using scanning electron microscopy.     

Differential influence of adult and juvenile conspecifics on feeding by weanling rats (Rattus norvegicus): A size-related explanation.

Weanling Sprague Dawley rat pups (Rattus norvegicus) selected between 2 safe palatable diets in concordance with the preferences of either an adult or a juvenile conspecific model (Experiment 1). Nevertheless, weanlings chose to feed more in the vicinity of an adult than in the vicinity of a juvenile, thus fulfilling the prediction of an adaptive feeding strategy (Experiment 2). The weanlings' bias for feeding in the vicinity of an adult was eliminated by increasing the magnitude of pup stimulus to 3 pups (Experiment 3). Thus, weanlings do not possess a specialization rendering them more sensitive to adults than to pups as models for diet selection. By responding to stimulus magnitude, weanlings are more likely to feed with adult conspecifics, choose foods used by them, and derive the benefits correlated with the adults' successful feeding habits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time windows in cognitive development.

The problem of integrating new information with old is fundamental to the development of cognition. The solution to this problem underlies establishment of the knowledge base, learning, category formation and expansion, the modification and selective strengthening of memories, language acquisition, access to information after very long intervals, and individual differences in a number of different domains. This article introduces a new construct, the time window, that characterizes when and how such integration occurs. It describes the characteristics of time windows, evidence for them, factors that affect them, research illustrating their generality, and their theoretical and applied implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)