Oculomotor Exploration of Impossible Figures in Early Infancy

Previous studies have revealed that young infants can distinguish between displays of possible or impossible figures, which may require detection of inconsistent depth relations among local line junctions that disrupt global object configurations. Here, we used an eye‐tracking paradigm to record eye movements in young infants during an object discrimination task with matched pairs of possible and impossible figures. Our goal was to identify differential patterns of oculomotor activity as infants viewed pictures of possible and impossible objects. We predicted that infants would actively attend to specific pictorial depth cues that denote shape (e.g., T‐junctions), and in the context of an impossible figure that they would fixate to a greater extent in anomalous regions of the display relative to other parts. By the age of 4 months, infants fixated reliably longer overall on displays of impossible versus possible cubes, specifically within the critical region where the incompatible lines and irreconcilable depth relations were located, implying an early capacity for selective attention to critical line junction information and integration of local depth cues necessary to perceive object coherence.     

Training Social Workers in Personal Finance: An Exploratory Study

Social workers have opportunities to help individuals and families with their financial problems in a variety of practice settings, yet receive no formal training to do so. Using data from an online survey of social workers and other human service professionals (N?=?56) who completed or expressed interest in a financial social work certification program, we found that respondents were able to apply what they learned to help their clients and valued the practical and interactive nature of program content. We also found that respondents were not immune from experiencing some of the same financial problems that confront their clients. Implications for educating BSW and MSW students about household finance are presented and discussed.     

What’s a Parent to Do? How Parents Respond to Notification of a Child’s Police Detention

The current qualitative study involved in-depth semistructured interviews with parents whose children had been taken into custody. Their initial emotional reactions, cognitive processing, and behavioral responses to their child’s detention were examined. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) Parents try to defer immediate interactions with the child rather than react out of emotion; (2) Parents feel anger toward their child, but disappointment and shock are more strongly expressed emotional responses; (3) Parents do not accept the behavior but do not reject their child; (4) Police behaviors communicate the seriousness of the act; and (5) The entire family suffers consequences from the child’s act. Findings highlight the experiences of the parents as they interacted with the juvenile justice system.     

Cultural Issues in the Intellectual Assessment of Children from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds

Cultural factors impact on the intellectual assessment of children from diverse backgrounds. Given this fact, psychologists and educators should become culturally competent. In this article, a modified format for culturally competent intellectual assessment is discussed. The interaction between culture and language, and their impact on the development of specific cognitive competencies is explored. Practical suggestions for testing children of color are provided.     

Children’s Mental Health Providers’ Perceptions of Mental Health Literacy Among Parents and Caregivers

Mental health disorders are prevalent among children, yet many do not receive treatment. Parents and caregivers play a vital role in recognizing mental health disorders in children and accessing treatment. But a substantial number of parents lack essential knowledge of children’s mental health disorders, including risk factors, symptom recognition, and treatment options. Little focus has been given to parents in the children’s mental health literacy literature. The purpose of this article is to begin filling that gap by using a survey to describe the perceptions of child and family mental health providers’ perceptions regarding the amount, accuracy, and origin of mental health literacy in the parents of the children they treat. The impact of those perceptions on the work of providers is also explored. Eighty-seven mental health providers completed a survey to assess their perceptions of parent mental health literacy in the area of children’s mental health. Providers perceived parent mental health literacy as low, inaccurate, and inconsistent. In addition, providers indicated that parents rely on informal sources of support, such as friends and family for information about children’s mental health. Implications for social work researchers, practitioners, and the children and families they serve are discussed.     

Are Males and Females Sexually Abused As Children Socially Anxious Adults?

It is well documented that childhood sexual abuse is associated with deleterious outcomes in the areas of anxiety, depression, and sexual functioning. However, very little research has been conducted to specifically investigate childhood sexual abuse's relationship to adult social anxiety in both males and females. Participants included 250 undergraduate students from a large metropolitan university. Results indicated that almost one-third of males and a little over a third of females reported being sexually abused as a child or adolescent. Although a large portion of the sample exhibited socially anxious symptomology, childhood sexual abuse did not place males and females at increased risk for social anxiety. The use of a nonclinical, college student sample may provide researchers the opportunity to investigate resiliency in individuals with a history of childhood sexual abuse.     

The Idealized Cultural Identities Model on Help-Seeking and Child Sexual Abuse: A Conceptual Model for Contextualizing Perceptions and Experiences of South Asian Americans

In this paper, we propose an interdisciplinary framework to study perceptions of child sexual abuse and help-seeking among South Asians living in the United States. We integrate research on social marginality, intersectionality, and cultural psychology to understand how marginalized social experience accentuates South Asian immigrants' desire to construct a positive self-identity. Using model minority ideology as an example of such a construction, we highlight its role in silencing the topic of child sexual abuse within this immigrant community as well as its impact on attitudes towards professional mental health services. We contend that our framework, the idealized cultural identities model on help-seeking and child sexual abuse, provides a unique analytical model for clinicians and researchers to understand how South Asian Americans process, experience, and react to child sexual abuse.     

A Short Form of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children

A short form of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Young Children was derived from the original 90 items. An exploratory factor analysis of each factor identified the four items from each of the original factors with the highest eigenvalues. These items were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis. The best fit was obtained for an 8-factor, 32-item model. The short form evidenced good convergent validity with parent ratings obtained from the Child Behavior Checklist, the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory, and the University of California at Los Angeles Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index (UCLA PTSD RI). Norms (t-scores and percentiles based on raw scores) were calculated by age and by gender. The short form has promise as a screening measure with parents in settings like a child advocacy center.     

Coping,Emotion Regulation,and Self-Blame as Mediators of Sexual Abuse and Psychological Symptoms in Adult Sexual Assault

This study examined whether coping, emotion regulation, and self-blame mediate relationships of trauma histories with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in adult sexual assault victims (N = 1863). A path analysis showed that theorized mediators partially mediated associations between trauma history variables and psychological symptoms. Specifically, child sexual abuse severity was related to greater post-traumatic stress disorder and depression indirectly through maladaptive coping and decreased emotion regulation but not self-blame. Other traumas had direct relationships with symptoms and partially mediated effects through maladaptive coping and emotion regulation. Child sexual abuse was unrelated to self-blame, but other traumas were related to greater self-blame. Results differed according to whether women had counseling post-assault. Implications are drawn for future research and clinical treatment of adult sexual assault victims.     

A Single-Case Study of Resiliency After Extreme Incest in an Old Order Amish Family

This exploratory research brief presents a single case study of the resiliency of “Mary B.” She grew up in an Old Order Amish family where isolation, secrecy, and patriarchy masked repeated sexual assaults by her older brothers that began at age 7. By the age of 20, Mary alleged she had been raped on more than 200 separate occasions by members of her Amish family. After years of pleading with her mother and church officials to intervene, she sought therapy outside the Amish community. This led to three of her brothers being incarcerated. Her family disowned her and she was banned from the Amish community, leaving with an 8th grade education and little more than the clothes she was wearing. In less than 2 years, Mary had moved to a new town, completed her GED, obtained a car and driving license, maintained a small home, and worked as a certified nursing assistant. She consented to tape recorded interviews and completed several quantitative diagnostic measures. Scores on the diagnostic measures placed her within the normal range on self-esteem, competency, depression, stress, social support, and life skills. Analysis of interviews revealed Mary rebounded from her past by reframing her experiences. Themes identified within the interviews supported 6 of the 7 types of resiliencies (insight, independence, initiative, relationships, humor, and morality) outlined in the therapeutic Challenge Model.