Contrasting Clients in Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: “Marie” and “Dean,” Two Cases with Different Alliance Trajectories & Outcomes

The Effects of Instructions on Mothers’ Ratings of Child Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms

Abstract

We examined whether instructional materials describing how to rate child ADHD symptoms would improve the accuracy of mothers’
ratings of ADHD symptoms presented in standard child behavior stimuli, and whether instructions would be equally effective
across a range of maternal depressive symptoms and family incomes. A community sample of 100 mothers with 5 to 12 year old
sons were randomly assigned to either receive or not receive the instructions. All mothers watched standard video recordings
of boys displaying nonproblem behavior, ADHD symptoms, ADHD plus oppositional behaviors, or ADHD plus anxious behaviors, and
then rated the ADHD symptoms of the boys in the videos. These ratings were compared to ratings of the boys’ ADHD symptoms
made by objective coders. Results indicated an interaction such that the instructional materials improved the agreement between
mothers’ and coders’ ratings, but only for mothers at lower family income levels. The instructional materials improved all
mothers’ open-ended responses regarding knowledge of ADHD. All mothers rated more ADHD symptoms in boys with comorbid oppositional
or anxious behaviors, and this effect was not reduced by the instructional materials. The potential utility of these instructions
to improve the accuracy of ratings of child ADHD symptoms is explored.

Content Type Journal Article
Pages 1-12
DOI 10.1007/s10802-011-9532-4
Authors
- Charlotte Johnston, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, B. C. V6T 1Z4, Canada
- Margaret Weiss, Children’s and Women’s Health Center of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C., Canada
- Candice Murray, Children’s and Women’s Health Center of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C., Canada
- Natalie Miller, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, B. C. V6T 1Z4, Canada

Journal Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
Online ISSN 1573-2835
Print ISSN 0091-0627

Prevalence of thinness in children and adolescents in the Seychelles: comparison of two international growth references

Background:
: Thinness in children and adolescents is largely under studied, a contrast with abundant literature on under-nutrition in infants and on overweight in children and adolescents. The aim of this study is to compare the prevalence of thinness using two recently developed growth references, among children and adolescents living in the Seychelles, an economically rapidly developing country in the African region.MethodS: Weight and height were measured every year in all children of 4 grades (age range: 5 to 16 years) of all schools in the Seychelles as part of a routine school-based surveillance program. In this study we used data collected in 16,672 boys and 16,668 girls examined from 1998 to 2004. Thinness was estimated according to two growth references: i) an international survey (IS), defining three grades of thinness corresponding to a BMI of 18.5, 17.0 and 16.0 kg/m2 at age 18 and ii) the WHO reference, defined here as three categories of thinness (-1, -2 and -3 SD of BMI for age) with the second and third named "thinness" and "severe thinness", respectively.
Results:
: The prevalence of thinness was 21.4%, 6.4% and 2.0% based on the three IS cut-offs and 27.7%, 6.7% and 1.2% based on the WHO cut-offs. The prevalence of thinness categories tended to decrease according to age for both sexes for the IS reference and among girls for the WHO reference.CONCLUSION: The prevalence of the first category of thinness was larger with the WHO cut-offs than with the IS cut-offs while the prevalence of thinness of "grade 2" and thinness of "grade 3" (IS cut-offs) was similar to the prevalence of "thinness" and "severe thinness" (WHO cut-offs), respectively.

Does central coherence relate to the cognitive performance of children with autism in dynamic assessments?

Central coherence refers to an in-built propensity to form meaningful links over a wide range of stimuli and to generalize over as wide a range of contexts as possible. In children with autism this ability is diminished, and the impact of central coherence deficits in children with autism have previously been observed using static measures of learning, such as reading comprehension test performance. In this study, the relationship between central coherence and more dynamic indicators of learning are investigated. The responses of 52 children with autism (mean age 9:10 years) on a test of central coherence and a dynamic assessment task were analysed. All the children showed significant improvements in dynamic assessment test scores after mediation; however, among those with below average nonverbal intelligence scores, weak central coherence was significantly associated with smaller gains in performance after teaching. Implications for the validity of dynamic assessments for children with autism are discussed.