The effects of postural threat on cognitive strategies used to maintain upright stance

It is well established that postural threat modifies postural control, although little is known regarding the underlying mechanism(s) responsible. It is possible that changes in postural control under conditions of elevated postural threat result from alterations in cognitive strategies. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of elevated postural threat on cognitive strategies and to determine the relationship between postural control, psychological, and cognitive measures. It was hypothesized that elevated postural threat would cause a shift to more conscious control of posture. It was also expected that a relationship between fear of falling and postural control would exist that could be explained by changes in conscious control of posture. Forty-eight healthy young adults stood on a force plate at two different surface heights: ground level (LOW) and 3.2m above ground level (HIGH). Center of pressure (COP) summary measures calculated to quantify postural control were the mean position (AP-COP MP), root mean square (AP-COP RMS) and mean power frequency (AP-COP MPF) in the anteriorposterior direction. Trunk sway measures calculated in the pitch direction were trunk angle and trunk velocity. Psychological measures including perceived balance confidence, perceived fear of falling, perceived anxiety, and perceived stability were self reported. As a physiological indicator of anxiety, electrodermal activity was collected. The cognitive strategies assessed were movement reinvestment and attention focus. A modified state-sp-ecific version of the Movement Specific Reinvestment Scale was used to measure conscious motor processing (CMP) and movement self-consciousness (MSC). An attention focus questionnaire was developed to assess the amount of attention directed to internal and external sources. An effect of postural threat on cognitive strategies was observed as participants reported more conscious control and a greater concern or worry about their posture at the HIGH postural threat condition as well as an increased internal and external focus of attention. In addition changes in postural control, psychological, and physiological measures were found. The participants leaned away from the edge of the platform, the frequency of their postural adjustments increased, and the velocity of their trunk movements increased. Participants felt less confident, more fearful, more anxious, and less stable with an accompanying increase in physiological anxiety. Significant correlations between perceived anxiety, AP-COP MP, and cognitive measures revealed a possible relationship that could be mediated by cognitive measures. It was found that with greater conscious motor processing, more movement self-consciousness, and a greater amount of attention focused externally there was a larger shift of the mean position away from the edge of the platform. This thesis provides evidence that postural threat can influence cognitive strategies causing a shift to more conscious control of movement which is associated with leaning away from the edge of the platform. Shifting the position of the body away from the direction of the postural threat may reflect a cognitive strategy to ensure safety in this situation due to the inability to employ a stepping strategy when standing on an elevated platform.

Mobile Books: Effect of Engagement on Students’ Motivation and Cognitive Strategy Use

This mixed methods research explores the role of reading engagement in 30 grade 1 students’ motivation to read mobile electronic storybooks (eBooks) and cognitive strategies used during eBook reading. Data collection comprised motivation and parent questionnaires, behavioural observation checklists, cognitive strategies rubric, and teacher interviews. Students’ emotional engagement with and enjoyment of mobile eBooks corresponded to 4 motivational aspects of intrinsic motivation: curiosity, control, choice, and challenge. Post-intervention results indicated that most student participants enjoyed answering eBook comprehension questions and preferred eBooks to print books; by the end of the study, all had access to a mobile device at home. A majority of participants were actively engaged during mobile eBook reading sessions and persisted in answering embedded eBook comprehension questions, which together reflected students’ behavioural engagement and time-on-task during mobile reading. Students’ off-task behaviours related to iPads’ accessibility features and inherent reader-friendliness. All participants successfully answered evaluative questions requiring them to activate prior knowledge, and experienced higher levels of difficulty with making personal connections. The study highlights the importance of making school-based literacy practices relevant to students’ outside worlds, and discusses implications for teacher educators, administrators, curriculum developers, and eBook and other digital developers concerning the need for greater collaboration in order to more closely align technology resources with national curriculum expectations.

A school-based cognitive behavior modification intervention strategy for learned helpless mentally retarded students

This study assessed the usefulness of a cognitive behavior modification (CBM) intervention package with mentally retarded students in overcoming learned helplessness and improving learning strategies. It also examined the feasibility of instructing teachers in the use of such a training program for a classroom setting. A modified single subject design across individuals was employed using two groups of three subjects. Three students from each of two segregated schools for the mentally retarded were selected using a teacher questionnaire and pupil checklist of the most learned helpless students enrolled there. Three additional learned helplessness assessments were conducted on each subject before and after the intervention in order to evaluate the usefulness of the program in alleviating learned helplessness. A classroom environment was created with the three students from each school engaged in three twenty minute work sessions a week with the experimenter and a tutor experimenter (TE) as instructors. Baseline measurements were established on seven targeted behaviors for each subject: task-relevant speech, task-irrelevant speech, speech denoting a positive evaluation of performance, speech denoting a negative evaluation of performance, proportion of time on task, non-verbal positive evaluation of performance and non-verbal negative evaluation of performance. The intervention package combined a variety of CBM techniques such as Meichenbaum's (1977) Stop, Look and Listen approach, role rehearsal and feedback. During the intervention each subject met with his TE twice a week for an individual half-hour session and one joint twenty minute session with all three students, the experimentor and one TE. Five weeks after the end of this experiment one follow up probe was conducted. All baseline, post-intervention and probe sessions were videotaped. The seven targeted behaviors were coded and comparisons of baseline, post intervention, and probe testing were presented in graph form. Results showed a reduction in learned helplessness in all subjects. Improvement was noted in each of the seven targeted behaviors for each of the six subjects. This study indicated that mentally retarded children can be taught to reduce learned helplessness with the aid of a CBM intervention package. It also showed that CBM is a viable approach in helping mentally retarded students acquire more effective learning strategies. Because the TEs (Tutor experimenters) had no trouble learning and implementing this program, it was considered feasible for teachers to use similar methods in the classroom.

The Relationship between athlete motivation, strategies used to cope with stress and affective outcomes in Canadian University athletes

Motivation to perform and coping with stress during performance are key factors in determining numerous outcomes of sporting performance. However, less evidence is in place assessing their relationship. The aim of this investigation was to assess the relationship between athlete motivation and the coping strategies used to deal with stress during their sporting performance, as well as the relationship between motivation and affect and coping and affect. One hundred and forty five university athletes completed questionnaires. Regressions revealed that two of the three self determined levels of motivation, identified and integrated regulation, predicted increased task-oriented coping strategies. Two of the three non-self determined levels of motivation, amotivation and external regulation, significantly predicted disengagement-oriented coping. Additionally, intrinsic motivation and task-oriented coping predicted increase positive affect. Increased disengagement-oriented coping predicted decreased positive affect. Disengagement-oriented coping significantly predicted increased negative affect. These findings increase understanding of motivations role in predicting athletes coping.

Investigation of motivation strategies used by school teachers for workplace engagement

The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies that elementary school teachers use to be engaged in their work. Participation was solicited from a random sample of schools stratified by location (i.e., urban, inner city, and rural) of a large school board. The study used an anonymous quantitative/qualitative questionnaire. The survey tool was based upon Kahn's (1990) psychological engagement framework, which presents the foundation of availability of self, meaningfulness of work, and safety while at work. Forty-one surveys were analyzed descriptively including a subgroup of self-rated highly engaged teachers. Teachers tended to favour physical and emotional strategies compared to cognitive type strategies, with the exception of the highly engaged subgroup. The theme of preferred strategies reflected a setting outside the school/workplace, that is, a preference for horne based strategies. The study's main contribution highlights the teachers' sense of importance for physical and emotional health in a profession that is heavily focused in the cognitive domain. This may influence administrative and teacher discourse regarding workplace engagement with strategies to help reduce stress and to maintain and increase teacher engagement.

Families with Children with Autism, Developmental Delay, and Typical Development: The Relationships of Parenting Self-Efficacy, Parenting Strategies, and Child Problem Behaviour

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental delays (DD) may experience more child problem behaviours, report lower parenting selfefficacy (PSE), and be more reactive than proactive in their parenting strategies than those who have children with typical development (TD). Differences in PSE and parenting strategies may also influence the extent to which child problem behaviours are experienced by parents who have children with ASD and DD, compared to those who have children with TD. Using a convenience sample of parents of children with ASD (n = 48), DD (n = 51), and TD (n = 72), this study examined group differences on three key variables: PSE, parenting strategies, and child problem behaviour. Results indicated that those in the DD group scored lower on PSE in preventing child problem behaviour than the ASD group. The TD group used fewer reactive strategies than the DD group, and fewer proactive strategies than both the ASD and DD groups. For the overall sample, higher reactive strategies use was found to predict higher ratings of child problem behaviour, while a greater proportion of proactive to reactive strategies use predicted lower ratings of child problem behaviour. PSE was found to moderate DD diagnosis and child problem behaviour. Implications for a behavioural (i.e., parenting strategies) or cognitive (i.e., PSE) approach to parenting are discussed.

Investigating Changes in Parent Knowledge about Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour Following Group Function-Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Children with High Functioning Autism

This study investigated improvements in parent knowledge of effective intervention strategies following participation in a group function-based CBT treatment (GFbCBT) package for children with comorbid OCD and ASD. Nineteen parents of children ages 7-12 years with High Functioning Autism (HFA) participated in the 9-week treatment program. Key components of treatment included psychoeducation and mapping, cognitive-behavioural skills training, function-based interventions and exposure and response prevention (ERP). Treatment sessions also included direct parent education, which followed a behavioural skills training model (Miltenberger, 2008). Parent knowledge (N = 19) was measured pre and post treatment using a vignette about a child demonstrating obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Results of a one-tailed pairwise t-test indicated statistically significant changes (p=.036) in overall parent knowledge following participation in treatment. Statistically significant changes were also found in parents’ ability to generate ERP and function-based intervention strategies. These results provide preliminary evidence that parents benefit from active involvement in the GFbCBT treatment package.

Autonomic and Electrophysiological Correlates of Cognitive Control in Aging

This thesis tested a model of neurovisceral integration (Thayer & Lane, 2001) wherein parasympathetic autonomic regulation is considered to play a central role in cognitive control. We asked whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a parasympathetic index, and cardiac workload (rate pressure product, RPP) would influence cognition and whether this would change with age. Cognitive control was measured behaviourally and electrophysiologically through the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe). The ERN and Pe are thought to be generated by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region involved in regulating cognitive and autonomic control and susceptible to age-related change. In Study 1, older and younger adults completed a working memory Go/NoGo task. Although RSA did not relate to performance, higher pre-task RPP was associated with poorer NoGo performance among older adults. Relations between ERN/Pe and accuracy were indirect and more evident in younger adults. Thus, Study 1 supported the link between cognition and autonomic activity, specifically, cardiac workload in older adults. In Study 2, we included younger adults and manipulated a Stroop task to clarify conditions under which associations between RSA and performance will likely emerge. We varied task parameters to allow for proactive versus reactive strategies, and motivation was increased via financial incentive. Pre-task RSA predicted accuracy when response contingencies required maintenance of a specific item in memory. Thus, RSA was most relevant when performance required proactive control, a metabolically costly strategy that would presumably be more reliant on autonomic flexibility. In Study 3, we included older adults and examined RSA and proactive control in an additive factors framework. We maintained the incentive and measured fitness. Higher pre-task RSA among older adults was associated with greater accuracy when proactive control was needed most. Conversely, performance of young women was consistently associated with fitness. Relations between ERN/Pe and accuracy were modest; however, isolating ACC activity via independent component analysis allowed for more associations with accuracy to emerge in younger adults. Thus, performance in both groups appeared to be differentially dependent on RSA and ACC activation. Altogether, these data are consistent with a neurovisceral integration model in the context of cognitive control.

Evaluating Knowledge of a Function-based Cognitive-Behavioural Treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have restricted and repetitive behaviours (RRBs) which may be similar to obsessions and compulsions in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). These behaviours can be intrusive and interfere in the lives of the child and their family. Preliminary studies have shown success in using adapted Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to treat these behaviors in children with high functioning ASD. Using a hypothetical vignette, this thesis attempted to examine procedural knowledge that the children and their parents gained while participating in a CBT treatment that was evaluated in a Randomized Controlled Trial. For both parents and children, there was a significant increase in number of strategies generated from pre to post-treatment. Further, children in the experimental group generated significantly more strategies than the treatment as usual (TAU) group post-intervention. There was no significant correlation between number of strategies generated and the child’s treatment success, age, or IQ.

The Beneficial Effects of Motivational Self-Talk on Endurance Performance and Cognitive Function in the Heat

The role of psychological strategies on endurance performance and cognitive function in the heat is unclear. This thesis tested the effects of a two-week motivational self-talk (MST) intervention - specific to heat stress - on endurance capacity and cognitive function in the heat (35°C 50% RH). The study utilized a pre-test / post-test design testing endurance capacity using a time to exhaustion test (TTE) after exercise-induced hyperthermia. Cognitive function (e.g executive function) was tested at baseline in thermoneutral (22°C 30% RH), before (R1) and after the TTE (R2). MST led to a significant improvement (~30%) in TTE and significantly faster completion time with fewer errors made on executive function tasks at baseline and R2, but not in R1, while there were no differences in the control group. Overall, these results indicate that using a top-down regulation strategy consisting of self-contextualized MST can improve physical and cognitive performance in the heat.