Parenting Strategies to Deal with Children’s Anxiety: Do Parents Do What They Say They Do?

Parents’ perceptions about their strategies to deal with children’s anxiety have been minimally explored. Based on a mixed-method approach, the current study compared the strategies that parents said they use more frequently to deal with their child’s anxious behaviors and the strategies they actually used during two mildly anxiogenic interactions with their child. Forty-two parents of children with anxiety disorders, aged 9–12 years, participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews were administered to identify parental perceptions about their strategies to deal with their children’s anxiety. Subsequently dyadic interactions were observed and coded by two independent coders. We found discrepancies relating to four strategies. Significantly more parents used strategies based on overinvolvement and anxious behavior during the interactions than had been reported by them in the interviews. In contrast, reassurance and reinforcement of avoidance/dependence were used in interactions by fewer parents than would be expected, according to the interviews. Relevant implications for assessment and intervention with families of anxious children are suggested.     

Do Children and Adolescents With ADHD Respond Differently to Atomoxetine?

OBJECTIVE: Controversy exists over changes in tolerability and response to medications across the life span. Here the authors report data contrasting the efficacy and tolerability of atomoxetine between children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). METHOD: Data were analyzed for children ages 6-11 (510 atomoxetine, 341 placebo) and adolescents ages 12-17 (107 atomoxetine, 69 placebo) with DSM-IV-defined ADHD enrolled in similarly designed, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials. Efficacy measures included response rates, times to response, and mean changes from baseline to endpoint in the ADHD Rating Scale, Conners' Parent Rating Scale, and Clinical Global Impressions. RESULTS: Adolescents had lower baseline ADHD scores compared with children. There were no statistically significant differences in the overall effects on ADHD symptoms, response rates, or time to response between age groups. Children, but not adolescents, had higher rates of somnolence and headache relative to placebo. No other clinically meaningful treatment differences were seen in adverse event rates, vital signs, weight, height, laboratory values, or ECG between children and adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Acute atomoxetine treatment appears to be equally effective and tolerated in children and adolescents. These findings suggest that pharmacological differences in tolerability or ADHD symptom response are negligible between children and adolescents.     

Beyond an Autism Diagnosis: Children’s Functional Independence and Parents’ Unmet Needs

High demand has resulted in gaps in autism service provision. Our objective was to explore the association between children’s functioning and parents’ perceived unmet needs. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 97 families of school-aged children with an autism spectrum disorder. Log binomial regression was used to examine the relative risk for unmet need. Families of children with high functional independence had lower unmet need than families of children with moderate functional independence (RR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.67-0.99). Those who experienced greater impact of the child’s disability had greater unmet need (RR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.03–1.45). The child’s functioning and its impact on the family provide insight into unmet need which may inform service planning.     

The Relationship Between Parents’ and Children’s Automatic Thoughts in a College Student Sample

Research demonstrates the importance of early social interactions in the development of schemas and automatic thoughts. It does not appear, however, that the existing research examines intergenerational correlations in automatic thoughts. As a result, this study explores the relationship between the automatic thoughts of parents and those of their college-age children in a sample of 252 college students and their mothers and fathers. Results of this study suggest that there are significant relationships between parents’ and college students’ positive automatic thoughts. Different trends by gender also are noted in the relationships among variables for male and female college students with their mothers and fathers. Further, mothers’ positive ATs predicted the positive ATs of their college students, with mothers’ ratings of their own communication with their college students mediating partially this relationship. Finally, college students’ anxiety and self-esteem is predicted significantly by their mothers’ anxiety and self-esteem (respectively) as well as their own positive and negative ATs. These findings suggest the possibility that ATs play a role in the intergenerational transmission of certain domains of psychological functioning.     

Relationships Among Parents’ Economic Stress,Parenting, and Young Children’s Behavior Problems

In a time of economic recession, identifying how economic stress may be related to parenting stress, to the parenting behaviors used by mothers and fathers, and to young children’s behavior problems may provide insight into interventions that may best assist families through their own economic crises. As part of this study, 124 culturally diverse parents with young children who ranged in age from 2- to 6-years rated their own economic, life, and parenting stress; their parenting behaviors; and their young children’s behavior problems. Hierarchical regression analyses suggested that negative economic events and parenting stress provide unique incremental variance in predicting young children’s internalizing problems, whereas life stress and parenting stress provide unique incremental variance in predicting young children’s externalizing problems. With closer examination, parenting stress fully mediated the relationship between parents’ financial cutbacks and young children’s internalizing problems and the relationship between parents’ negative economic events and young children’s externalizing problems. These findings suggested that these variables are important to examine collectively.     

Predictors of Perceived Memory Impairment: Do They Differ in Alzheimer’s Disease Versus Normal Aging?

Predictors of perceived memory impairment were investigated in 40 elderly normal adults and 28 individuals with Alzheimer's disease. Measures of perceived memory impairment, global cognitive functioning, memory, use of memory strategies, memory strategy efficacy, and depressive symptomatology were obtained for all participants. The elderly normal and Alzheimer's disease groups did not differ in the extent to which they reported perceived memory impairment. For both participant groups, more frequent use of memory strategies and lower perceived memory strategy efficacy were significant predictors of perceived memory impairment. Depressive symptomatology was an additional, significant determinant of perceived memory impairment for the elderly normal group.     

Reliability and Validity of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale for Parents in Mainland Chinese Children and Adolescents

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale for Parents (SCAS-P) in 1943 father-mother dyads and 1785 students. Results of confirmatory factor analyses for SCAS-P were in favour of the original model with six correlated factors. The internal consistency of SCAS-P was acceptable (α = .63–.91), and the test–retest reliability was acceptable (r = .46–.72). The convergent and divergent validity of SCAS-P was supported by significant correlations with an internalizing subscale to a greater extent than with an externalizing subscale. Congruent validity was supported by significant correlations between father and mother reports (r = .60–.71) and child and parent reports (r = .25–.42). Significant differences between community and clinical samples supported the discriminant validity. Adolescents showed higher anxiety levels than children, and girls showed higher anxiety levels than boys. Our findings suggest that the SCAS-P is a suitable parent instrument to measure child anxiety symptoms in Mainland Chinese children and adolescents.     

Do Child Psychotherapists Treat Girls and Boys Differently?

The role of sex of child and sex and discipline of therapist in psychotherapy was investigated by questionnaires sent to psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers. Sex of child and therapist operated as significant variables in a few therapy incidents. The professional discipline of therapists provided the most significant findings. Overall more encouraging responses tended to be given to boys than to girls; male therapists tended to give more encouraging responses than female therapists; and social workers gave significantly more encouraging responses than psychologists and psychiatrists.     

Do Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Benefit from Structural Alignment When Constructing Categories?

Individuals with ASD seem to construct categories via processes different to typically developing individuals. We examined whether individuals with ASD engage in structural alignment of exemplars when constructing categories. We taught children with ASD and typically developing children novel nouns for either single or multiple exemplars, and then examined their extensions of the learned nouns to objects that were either a perceptual or conceptual match to the original exemplar(s). Results indicated that, unlike typically developing participants, those with ASD gained no benefit from seeing multiple exemplars of the category and, thus, did not appear to engage in structural alignment in their formation of categories. However, they demonstrated superior performance compared to typically developing children when presented with a single exemplar.     

The Role of Parents,Parenting and the Family Environment in Children’s Post-Disaster Mental Health

There is widespread support for the hypothesis that, post-disaster, children’s mental health is impacted—at least in part—via the impact on parents, parenting, parent-child interactions, and the family environment. To some degree, the enthusiasm with which this hypothesis is held outstrips the evidence examining it. The current paper critically evaluates the empirical evidence for this hypothesis and concludes that although limited (both in terms of number of existing studies and methodological flaws), the extant literature indicates some parent-related variables, as well as some aspects of the family environment are likely to constitute risk or protective factors for children. Given that parenting is modifiable, it is proposed that the identified parent- and family-related factors represent important therapeutic targets, and a universal post-disaster parenting intervention (Disaster Recovery Triple P) is described.     

Children’s Depression Inventory in Estonia

The aim of study was to estimate the score of symptoms of depression with the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) among Estonian schoolchildren aged 7–13-year-old, according to age and gender differences, and to identify the components in factor analysis characterising self-reported childhood symptoms of depression. The applicability of the CDI in 7-year-old children was also estimated. The number of subjects in the study was 725 (342 girls and 383 boys), and the mean age was 10.2 (SD 1.7). The mean total score of the CDI for the whole sample was 9.96 (SD = 6.3, range 0–39, median 9.0). The mean scores of symptoms of depression among children did not differ by gender or age. There were no significant differences in the CDI mean scores between 7-year-old compared to older schoolchildren in the present study. Factor analysis obtained five factors: anhedonia, ineffectiveness, negative self-esteem, negative mood and interpersonal problems. Significant gender and age differences were found: girls reported more symptoms of anhedonia and negative self-esteem, and boys reported more symptoms of ineffectiveness. Younger children reported more symptoms of anhedonia and ineffectiveness, and older children negative self-esteem. The study serves as baseline data before intervention of the EC project “European Alliance Against Depression”.     

Does Nutritional Intake Differ Between Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Children with Typical Development?

Consumption of macro- and micronutrients and food group servings by children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs; n = 46) and typical development (n = 31) were compared using 3-day diet records. Children with ASDs consumed significantly more vitamin B6 and E and non-dairy protein servings, less calcium, and fewer dairy servings (p < .05). The significantly lower dairy serving intake persisted after controlling for child age and sex and parental dietary restrictions, and excluding children on the gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) diet. Large proportions of children in both groups did not meet national recommendations for daily intake of fiber, calcium, iron, vitamin E, and vitamin D.     

New Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s

Amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) accumulation is a key characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease (AD); therefore, mouse models of AD exhibiting Aβ pathology are valuable tools for unraveling disease mechanisms. However, the overexpression of Aβ precursor protein (APP) used in previous mouse models may cause Aβ-independent artifacts that influence data interpretation. To circumvent these problems, we used an APP knock-in (KI) strategy to introduce mutations to the mouse APP gene to develop a new generation of AD mouse models. These new models, termed APP^NL-F and APP^NL-G-F, have endogenous APP levels and develop robust Aβ amyloidosis, which induce synaptic degeneration and memory impairments. Thus, we suggest that these novel APP KI mice will serve as important tools to elucidate molecular mechanisms of AD.     

A Unified Model Exploring Parenting Practices as Mediators of Marital Conflict and Children’s Adjustment

We examined positive and negative parenting practices and psychological control as mediators of the relations between constructive and destructive marital conflict and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems in a unified model. Married mothers of 121 children between the ages of 6 and 12 completed questionnaires measuring marital conflict, parenting practices, and child adjustment. Analyses revealed significant direct paths from destructive marital conflict to negative parenting practices, psychological control, and both children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior. In addition, psychological control was found to partially mediate relations between destructive marital conflict and children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior.     

Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsies: Do Sporadic and Familial Cases Differ?

PURPOSE: Genetic factors are the only identified cause of idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGEs), but the majority of cases do not have affected first-degree relatives. Here we investigate whether subjects with sporadic and familial IGE differ in terms of antecedent events and clinical and EEG features. Differences would support the hypothesis of a different etiology for sporadic cases, which has implications for choice of subjects for genetic association studies. METHODS: We analyzed 98 patients with IGE, diagnosed on clinical and EEG criteria. All patients and, if possible, one relative were interviewed, with special emphasis on potential antecedent events and family history. Patients with first-degree relatives affected with epileptic seizures were regarded as "familial," and the other patients were regarded as "sporadic." RESULTS: Of the 98 IGE patients, 32 (33%) patients were familial. The risk for seizures was 13.2% for siblings, and 7.7% for parents. The distribution of the IGE subsyndromes, the presence of antecedent events, and other electroclinical features did not differ between familial and sporadic IGE groups. CONCLUSIONS: No differences were found between familial and sporadic IGE patients. This does not the support the hypothesis that sporadic and familial IGE cases have separate etiologies.