Elucidating factors associated with adherence to treatment for physical and mental health conditions is important, given well-documented associations between non-adherence and poor treatment outcomes. Researchers have worked to identify such factors; however, most studies focus on adherence to medical, rather than, psychological treatments. Clarifying variables that predict adherence to psychotherapy is particularly important for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for whom treatment, which typically involves exposure to trauma-related stimuli and imagery, can be aversive. It may consequently be associated with high nonadherence rates, even though studies indicate that greater adherence to PTSD treatment relates to better treatment outcomes. Research needs to identify factors that increase or decrease the likelihood that affected individuals will enter and complete therapy. Although several studies to date have examined adherence to treatment for PTSD, this literature is limited on several fronts. First, studies on psychotherapy adherence have identified few consistent predictors of treatment adherence. Second, adherence to psychotherapy is rarely a central focus of treatment-related research; more typically, researchers treat adherence as secondary in importance to treatment outcomes. Third, little research on psychotherapy adherence has been theoretically driven. Fourth, little adherence research has focused on combat veterans with PTSD, who tend to have particularly poor treatment outcomes. Especially lacking is knowledge about predictors of adherence in veterans who have recently returned from combat; most research focuses on veterans of the Vietnam War, many of whom were initially traumatized decades earlier. The study tested the hypothesis that elevated reports of a specific type of PTSD symptom--avoidance/emotional numbing-- predicted poorer adherence to treatment in 160 veterans who received psychotherapy. No significant associations between avoidance and emotional numbing symptoms and adherence were found. However, emotional numbing was negatively related to psychotherapy adherence. Other variables typically related to PTSD and treatment outcomes were found to be important predictors of psychotherapy adherence and completion/noncompletion of therapy.

This study investigates whether the parent-adolescent relationship is related to the academic, social, and personal-emotional expectations of adjustment and actual adjustment to college during the transition to college. The mother-adolescent relationship was more consistently linked to college adjustment than the father-adolescent relationship both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and students identified their parents and especially their mother amongst the first people who they go to for support. More African Americans than students from other ethnic backgrounds and more dormitory residents than commuters identified their mother as their first supportive figure, suggesting that the students’ living arrangements and their cultural backgrounds need to be taken under consideration when studying this transitional period.

The current study examined the effects of parenting congruence on child outcome behaviors. Participants were 144 African American families with a child between 9 and 12 years old. Mothers and fathers provided self report on their behavior regarding monitoring, positive parenting, and parental beliefs. Children provided self report regarding child problem behavior, and sexual intentions. Results revealed the more congruent parents were on positive parenting behaviors the more boys thought about sex; however, results for girls were not significant. Additionally, moderation trends suggested when both parents are high on monitoring behaviors girls have thought about sex less, whereas boys think about sex less when both parents are low on monitoring behaviors. Another trend suggested the more conservative both parents are regarding attitudes about dating, the less likely boys are to have thought about sex. Thus, the combined behavior of both parents on specific parenting factors can affect boys and girls differently.

This study investigated how emotion-regulation would moderate the relationship between shyness and joint engagement and how joint engagement would mediate the relationship between shyness and language skills. Fifty-three mother-child dyads were observed in the laboratory according to the Communication Play Protocol (Adamson & Bakeman, 1999) when the toddlers were 24 and 30 months of age. Mothers completed the Temperament Behavior Assessment Questionnaire-Revised (Rothbart & Goldsmith, unpublished). Toddlers also completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT; Williams, 1997). The relationship between shyness and the percentage of time spent in non-symbol-infused coordinated joint engagement was moderated by a toddler’s ability to self-soothe. Shyer toddlers had significantly lower receptive language scores than less shy toddlers, and this relationship was partially mediated by the percentage of time toddlers spent in symbol-infused supported and coordinated joint engagement states. INDEX WORDS: Temperament, Shyness, Emotion-regulation, Language Skills, Joint Engagement

Distraction is an effective pain management intervention and children’s coping styles are important to consider when designing interventions. The purpose of this study was to examine two movie distractions in children 3 to 11 years old receiving venipunctures and to evaluate the relations between the effectiveness of the interventions and coping styles. Results revealed no interaction and no main effects of condition or coping style. However, coping on caregiver-report of child pain approached significance. T-tests revealed significant differences between approach and avoidance coping styles, with children with an approach coping style experiencing significantly less pain compared to children with an avoidance coping style. Descriptive statistics revealed the presence of a mixed coping style, suggesting that children’s coping styles may be continuous. This study highlights the importance of examining coping styles in the context of pediatric painful medical procedures and the need to further examine the effectiveness of distraction interventions.

The Brofenbrenner(1979) ecological theory was applied to examine the relationship between parent and child depressive mood and the moderation of relational quality at two levels; 1) parent-child (within family) and 2) family-social support (outside family) levels. It was hypothesized that both levels would buffer the predictive association of parent to child depressive mood. At the first level, the parent-child depressive mood association was qualified by an interaction with relatedness (categorized as inadequate and adequate) that approached a conventional level of significance, R2 = .023, F(1,101) = 2.77, p = .099. At the second level, the addition of social support as a moderator yielded a R2 =.028, F(1,101) = 3.11, p = .081. Exploratory analyses were performed to clarify each moderation. The findings suggest that relational quality within and outside the family have the potential to serve as protective factors in regards to depressive symptoms for children with asthma.

The present study examined the relation between self-report mindfulness and performance on tasks measuring abilities for three aspects of attention: sustained, selective, and attention switching. Because attention regulation has been described as a core component of mindfulness, and past research suggests that experience with mindfulness meditation is associated with improved attentional skills, the present study predicted that higher self-report mindfulness would be positively related to performance on tasks of attention. Fifty undergraduate students completed self-report mindfulness questionnaires and completed a battery of attention tasks. There was mixed support for the relation between mindfulness scores and sustained attention, such that higher mindfulness scores as measured by the MAAS and CAMS-R were negatively related to target omissions on the CPT-II, but were not related to RT variability on the CPT-II or PASAT performance. Findings are discussed in the context of the measurement of self-report mindfulness, and directions for future research are considered.

Elliot and McGregor’s (2001) 2x2 model of achievement motivation (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach and performance-avoidance) was used among 143 Latino adolescents to examine how achievement motivation relates to demographic factors (immigration age, gender, grade), perception of academic climate, and academic outcomes and how these associations change over time. Girls reported higher levels of mastery-avoidance achievement motivation and 8th graders reported a greater increase in mastery-approach achievement motivation over time. Perception of a task-focused academic climate moderated the association between mastery-approach achievement motivation and teacher-rated academic outcomes. The findings suggest 1) that Latino adolescents’ gender and grade level relate significantly to their achievement motivation 2) that perception of a task-performance focused academic climate plays an important role in their academic achievement.

Current research indicates that parents of children with developmental disabilities experience more parental stress than parents of typically developing children, yet most are able to successfully cope with the additional care giving demands. There has been little research however, on the role of the communication ability of children with developmental disabilities on parental stress. This study examined the effects of a parent-implemented language intervention on parental stress and its relation to parental perceptions of communication development in young toddlers (N = 59) and their parents. Results indicate that parent stress did not decrease significantly following language intervention. Parents’ perceptions about the severity of their child’s communication deficits partially mediated the relationship between expressive language at baseline and parent stress at post-intervention. In addition, exploratory results begin to support the idea that parents who are initially high in parent stress are able to decrease their overall parent stress following language intervention.

There are myriad definitions of the terms race, ethnicity and culture in social sciences literature. Often these terms are used interchangeably with no conceptual rationale. This study aims to contribute to our greater understanding of the similarities and differences between the conceptualization and use of race and culture as they are experienced by African American adolescents. Multiple regression analyses and factor analysis were conducted for 223 African American high school aged students who completed a survey about racial and ethnic identity and a variety of positive youth development outcomes. Results showed preliminary support for race and culture being distinguishable yet intricately related. Results are also presented that compares the relationship of either a racial or cultural orientation on various youth development outcomes.