Behavioral and Electrophysiological Indices of Memory in Typically Developing and Hypoxic‐Ischemic Injured Infants

Behavioral and electrophysiological indices of memory were examined in 12‐month‐old typically developing control infants (CON) and infants with history of perinatal hypoxic‐ischemic injury (HII) across 2 days. Using a visual paired comparison (VPC) procedure, novelty preference was tested immediately after a familiarization period and then after delays of 2 min and 24 h. Both groups showed a significant novelty preference only for the no‐delay condition. On day two, event‐related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while infants viewed the VPC familiar face, a more recently familiarized face, and a novel face, and mean amplitude for components thought to reflect memory (positive slow wave, PSW) and attention (negative central, Nc) were computed. In temporal regions, HII showed a diminished Nc and enhanced PSW to the recently familiarized face, while CON showed a similar trend for the PSW only. Overall, infants showed the largest PSW over left scalp regions. Finally, a positive correlation between VPC novelty preference after 24 h and PSW was found in CON, and preliminary results suggest that this association differs as a function of group. Therefore, in comparison with CON, HII showed both similarities and differences on individual tasks of memory as well as potentially disparate relations between the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying memory performance.     

Hope,Coping, and Relationship Quality in Mothers of Children With Down Syndrome

Parenting a child with Down syndrome may pose unique challenges for parents’ relationship quality. This study used structural equation modeling with a sample of 351 mothers of children with Down syndrome to test if hope mediated the association between mothers’ various coping behaviors and mothers’ relationship quality. Hope was defined as a generalized positive state that comes from a personal sense of agency. Results indicated a greater degree of religious coping and internal coping were each significantly associated with more hope, whereas support seeking was not related with more hope. Higher hope was significantly associated with greater relationship quality. Bootstrapped indirect effects from both religious coping and internal coping to hope, and then hope to relationship quality, were identified. Implications for therapists and future research are described.     

Communicatively Constructing Birth Family Relationships in Open Adoptive Families: Naming,Connecting, and Relational Functioning

Open adoption (i.e., involving ongoing communication between birth and adoptive families) has become the predominant form of private domestic adoption. As such, an understanding of the communicative structures that create and sustain these families is needed. Grounded in discourse dependent family theorizing, we explored open adoptive parents’ (n = 298) construction of the birth family relationship through naming and connecting. Thematic analysis illuminated six address terms: identical derivative, familiar, cultural derivative, parallel derivative, first name, and no address term. Cluster and discriminant function analysis revealed four open adoption contact types: controlled, social, constant, and concise, which predict relational functioning.     

Becoming a Transracial Family: Communicatively Negotiating Divergent Identities in Families Formed Through Transracial Adoption

Guided by intergroup and discourse dependence theorizing, the present study explored how divergent identities are communicatively negotiated in transracial adoptive families. Specifically, we examined how adoptive parents’ understandings of their child’s race and culture changed after adopting transracially and how adoptive parents navigated racial and cultural differences through talk. Results from 21 interviews revealed that adoptive parents reported an increased awareness of race and culture, such that a new appreciation for their child’s race and culture developed yet simultaneously amplified ambivalence. Results further indicated parents utilized narrating, naming, ritualizing, discussing, normalizing, and praising to communicatively negotiate racial and cultural identity differences. Findings contribute to transracial adoptive family research by illuminating how parents make sense of differing social identities within the family. Results also advance discourse-dependence theorizing by demonstrating the context-specific nature of internal boundary management strategies and by giving voice to the prevalence of border work in transracial adoptive families.     

Fostering homeless children and their parents too: the emergence of whole-family foster care.

Children should not be placed in out-of-home care simply because their families lack the means to provide for their basic needs, yet this practice continues nationwide. A new program based in St. Paul, MN, gives county social service departments the placement option of whole-family foster care. The target population is adult parents and minor children without stable residences, where the children are at risk of placement in out-of-home care. Although the parents and children may have special needs, there are no safety risks that would necessitate separating children and parents. The program's design is described and policy questions discussed.     

Analysing change in clinical trials using quasi-likelihoods

In clinical trials, investigations focus upon whether a treatment affects a measured outcome. Data often collected include pre- and post-treatment measurements on each patient and an analysis of the change in the outcome is typically performed to determine treatment efficacy. Absolute change and relative change are frequently selected as the outcome. In selecting from these two measures, the analyst makes implicit assumptions regarding the mean and variance-mean relationship of the data. Some have provided ad hoc guidelines for selecting between the two measures. We present a more rigorous means of investigating change using quasi-likelihoods. We show that both absolute change and relative change are special cases of the specified quasi-likelihood model. A cystic fibrosis example is provided.     

Systemic traumatic stress: the couple adaptation to traumatic stress model

Research traditionally has focused on the development of symptoms in those who experienced trauma directly but overlooked the impact of trauma on the families of victims. In recent years, researchers and clinicians have begun to examine how individual exposure to traumatic stress affects the spouses/partners, children, and professional helpers of trauma survivors. However, empirically supported, theory-based literature that identifies the mechanisms by which interpersonal or "secondary trauma" occurs in response to traumatic events is limited. Here, we present the Couple Adaptation to Traumatic Stress Model, a systemic model of the development of interpersonal symptoms in the couple dyad based on empirical literature. Potential mechanisms and clinical vignettes are included to describe the systemic processes that occur with trauma couples. Areas for future research and clinical implications also are identified.     

Systemic effects of trauma in clinic couples: an exploratory study of secondary trauma resulting from childhood abuse

Clinical literature suggests that those close to a trauma survivor may experience intrapersonal and interpersonal distress because of indirect or secondary effects of the trauma. The focus of this study is on the association between reported childhood physical and sexual abuse and current individual stress symptoms, relationship satisfaction, and family adjustment. The participants included 96 clinic couples who reported a history of childhood physical or sexual abuse in one or both partners and 65 clinic couples in which neither partner reported such abuse. Couples in which one or both partners reported childhood abuse reported significantly lower marital satisfaction, higher individual stress symptoms, and lower family cohesion than couples with no abuse history. No significant differences were found between individuals who reported a history of abuse and their partners who reported no history of childhood abuse, suggesting support for secondary trauma theory. Clinical and future research implications are discussed.