Posttraumatic stress disorder and general psychopathology in children and adolescents following a wildfire disaster

Objective: To report on the use of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (PTSD-RI) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in identifying children and adolescents who may require psychological interventions following exposure to a wildfire disaster. Method: Six months after a wildfire disaster, we conducted a school-based program to screen for wildfire-related events, such as exposure to and perception of threat, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and general psychopathology. Results: The screening battery was completed by 222 children (mean age 12.5 years, SD 2.48; range 8 to 18 years). Severe or very severe PTSD was reported by 9.0% of students, while 22.6% scored in the abnormal range on the Emotional Symptoms subscale of the SDQ. Younger children and individuals with greater exposure to and perception of threat experienced higher levels of PTSD and general psychopathology. Female students reported a greater perception of threat but did not report higher levels of PTSD or other symptoms. Conclusions: Screening was well received by students, parents, and staff and proved feasible in the postdisaster environment. The PTSD-RI and SDQ demonstrated different individual risk associations and functioned as complementary measures within the screening battery. The identification of children at greatest risk of mental health morbidity enabled service providers to selectively target limited mental health resources.

Why children and adults sometimes (but not always) compute implicatures

Noveck (2001) argued that children even as old as 11 do not reliably endorse a scalar interpretation of weak scalar terms (some, might, or) (cf. Braine & Rumain, 1981; Smith, 1980). More recent studies suggest, however, that children's apparent failures may depend on the experimental demands (Papafragou & Musolino, 2003). Although previous studies involved children of different ages as well as different tasks, and are thus not directly comparable, nevertheless a common finding is that children do not seem to derive scalar implicatures to the same extent as adults do. The present article describes a series of experiments that were conducted with Italian speaking subjects (children and adults), focusing mainly on the scalar term some. Our goal was to carefully examine the specific conditions that allow the computation of implicatures by children. In so doing, we demonstrate that children as young as 7 (the youngest age of the children who participated in the Noveck study) are able to compute implicatures in experimental conditions that properly satisfy certain contextual prerequisites for deriving such implicatures. We also present further results that have general consequences for the research methodology employed in this area of study. Our research indicates that certain tasks mask children's understanding of scalar terms, not only including the task used by Noveck, but also tasks that employ certain explicit instructions, such as the training task used by Papafragou & Musolino (2003). Our findings indicate further that, although explicit training apparently improves children's ability to draw implicatures, children nevertheless fail to achieve adult levels of performance for most scalar terms even in such tasks, and that the effects of instruction do not last beyond the training session itself for most children. Another relevant finding of the present study is that some of the manipulations of the experimental context have an effect on all subjects, whereas others produce effects on just a subset of children. Individual differences of this kind may have been concealed in previous research because performance by individual subjects was not reported. Our general conclusions are that even young children (7-year olds) have the prerequisites for deriving scalar implicatures, although these abilities are revealed only when the conversational background is natural.

Seclusion of children and adolescents: Psychopathological and family factors

This paper describes the use of seclusion in a child and adolescent inpatient unit, including precipitating events, management strategies, details of seclusion episodes and individual and family risk factors. Inpatient ward documentation of seclusion episodes, demographic data and measures of individual psychopathology and impairment, parent mental health, life events and family functioning were used to compare secluded, non-secluded and outpatient groups. Secluded individuals had elevated psychopathology compared with non-secluded inpatients and outpatients. Their families reported poorer parental mental health and family functioning and more recent stressful life events. The results indicate that seclusion is most common among high-risk inpatients.

Media influence on the body image of children and adolescents

To study the media messages portrayed to children, 925 students, from 9 to up to 14 years of age, completed “The Sociocultural Influences Questionnaire.” The media section is the focus of this paper, and the responses from three questions were selected to examine the media's influence to be slimmer, increase weight, or increase muscle size. While the girls and boys exhibited different levels of agreement with each media influence, both genders disagreed that media messages were implying they should gain weight. This is in agreement with the belief that the media perpetuates the ideal of thinness and there is a negative stigma associated with being overweight.

Examination of emotional priming among children and young adolescents: Developmental issues and its association with anxiety

An affective priming task was used to examine bias in the processing of threat-related material in 25 clinically anxious compared to 25 matched, non-anxious control children and young adolescents. No significant differences were found between anxious and non-anxious children in terms of priming effects. However, age-related differences were found depending upon the valence of the target, independent of anxiety status. Both younger (7-10 years) and older (11-14 years) children showed faster response times to pleasant targets when they were preceded by a congruent compared to incongruent stimulus, consistent with a traditional priming effect. For threat target stimuli, older children showed no difference in response latency according to the congruency of the prime-target valence. Younger children, in contrast, showed a reverse priming effect for threat target stimuli, with slower response times for threat-congruent trials than for threat targets preceded by a pleasant prime. Possible explanations for developmental differences in the processing of threat-related material are discussed.

Long-term outcomes of an Australian universal prevention trial of anxiety and depression symptoms in children and youth: An evaluation of the friends program

This study evaluated the long-term effectiveness of the FRIENDS Program in reducing anxiety and depression in a sample of children from Grade 6 and Grade 9 in comparison to a control condition. Longitudinal data for Lock and Barrett's (2003) universal prevention trial is presented, along with data from 12-month follow-up to 24- and 36-month follow-up. Results of this study indicate that intervention reductions in anxiety reported in Lock and Barrett were maintained for students in Grade 6, with the intervention group reporting significantly lower ratings of anxiety at long-term follow-up. A significant Time times Intervention Group times Gender Effect on Anxiety was found, with girls in the intervention group reporting significantly lower anxiety at 12-month and 24-month follow-up but not at 36-month follow-up in comparison to the control condition. Results demonstrated a prevention effect with significantly fewer high-risk students at 36-month follow-up in the intervention condition than in the control condition. Results are discussed within the context of prevention research.

Non-eating disorders psychopathology in children and adolescents with eating disorders: Implications for malnutrition and symptom severity

Objectives: To compare the general psychopathology in an eating disorders (ED) and a child mental health Outpatient sample and investigate the implications of comorbidity on psychological and physical measures of ED severity. Methods: One hundred thirty-six children and adolescents with a DSM-IV ED diagnosis were compared with age- and gender-matched controls. Measures included the Eating Disorders Examination and the Child Behavior Checklist. Results: The ED group had lower general and externalizing psychopathology scores and no difference in internalizing (anxiety-depression) symptoms. Of the anorexia nervosa group, 49% experienced comorbid psychopathology. This group had significantly higher ED psychopathology, longer duration of illness, and more gastrointestinal symptoms, but no difference in malnutrition status. Eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNos) group measures were less influenced by comorbidity status. Conclusions: Anxiety-depressive symptoms are very common in children and adolescents with EDs. Comorbidity status influences illness severity, especially in the anorexia nervosa group. The management implications of these findings are discussed. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Quality-of-life in children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis managed in both regional outreach and cystic fibrosis center settings in Queensland

To assess the health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) of children/adolescents with cystic fibrosis (CF) and compare HRQOL in children managed by cystic fibrosis outreach service (CFOS) with those treated in a cystic fibrosis center (CFC). To compare HRQOL of children with CF in Queensland with previously published HRQOL data from the United States and examine the relationship between HRQOL scores and pulmonary function. Study design: Participants were children/adolescents with CF and their parents managed by the Royal Children’s Hospital Queensland at a CFC or CFOS. Two HRQOL surveys were used: PedsQL™ and Cystic Fibrosis Questionnaire (CFQ). Results: There were 91 CFC and 71 CFOS participants with similar demographics. PedsQL™ total summary score was statistically higher in CFOS, P = .05. There was no significant difference in CFQ scores between groups. Queensland parents reported lower HRQOL for their children compared with US parents (P

Testing the protracted lexical restructuring hypothesis: The effects of position and acoustic-phonetic clarity on sensitivity to mispronunciations in children and adults

Although developmental increases in the size of the position effect within a mispronunciation detection task have been interpreted as consistent with a view of the lexical restructuring process as protracted, the position effect itself might not be reliable. The current research examined the effects of position and clarity of acoustic-phonetic information on sensitivity to mispronounced onsets in 5- and 6-year-olds and adults. Both children and adults showed a position effect only when mispronunciations also differed in the amount of relevant acoustic-phonetic information. Adults' sensitivity to mispronounced second-syllable onsets also reflected the availability of acoustic-phonetic information. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the lexical restructuring hypothesis. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Early intervention for children and their parents following paediatric accidental injury

This study was undertaken to develop and evaluate the efficacy of an early intervention for children who had been injured in an accident. The aim of the intervention was to prevent the development of longterm psychological consequences. Brochures were developed for children, adolescents, and their parents. These brochures detailed common responses to trauma (and normalized such responses), and suggestions for minimizing any post-trauma distress. Participants were children aged 7-15 admitted to hospital for traumatic injury. The intervention was delivered to one of two hospitals, within 72 hours of the trauma. 103 children and parents participated in the study. The parents and children completed structured interviews and questionnaires 2 weeks, 4-6 weeks and 6 months post-trauma. Outcome analyses also indicated that the intervention reduced parental distress at 4-6 weeks post-trauma. The intervention did not impact significantly on child adjustment over this time period. Results of the 6 month follow-up suggested that the intervention resulted in an amelioration of child anxiety from one to six months post-trauma, whereas the controls exhibited an increase in anxiety over this time period. Overall, it was concluded that the early intervention is a simple, practical, and cost-effective method of reducing child and parent distress post-trauma.