Multicomponent Co-Occurring Disorders Treatment and Wraparound Services for Individuals Experiencing Chronic Homelessness.

Individuals experiencing chronic homelessness have high rates of persistent co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (COD), and they often have difficulty with service engagement and retention, resulting in symptom exacerbation and housing loss. This study pilot tested Maintaining Independence and Sobriety Through Systems Integration, Outreach and Networking (MISSION), a multicomponent wraparound treatment approach to improve COD symptoms and housing stability among individuals experiencing chronic homelessness and persistent COD. This open pilot study enrolled and assessed 109 individuals with a COD experiencing chronic homelessness and offered one year of MISSION. Statistically significant improvements were observed in behavioral health symptoms and functioning, days of illicit drug use, and housing stability. By treatment completion, 85% of participants were referred to social and behavioral supports. This pilot study demonstrates that MISSION helped to successfully engage participants in treatment, reduce substance use and mental health symptoms, and improve housing outcomes.

Impact of tablet use on young children's inhibitory control and error monitoring.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive impacts of tablet use on young children's inhibitory control and error monitoring. A total of 70 children (35 boys) aged 3.5 to 5 years completed an age-appropriate go/no-go task and were then randomly assigned to a technology group or a comparison group. In the technology group, children completed a cooking task on a tablet for 15 min. In the comparison group, children completed a similarly structured cooking task with toys for the same length of time. Children then completed the go/no-go task again. Compared with children in the comparison group, children in the technology group demonstrated poorer inhibitory control as evidenced by lower accuracy on no-go trials after the cooking task. However, both groups displayed post-error reaction time slowing. Collectively, these results suggest that brief tablet use can impose selective impairment on young children's cognitive abilities for a short period of time following use.

Parenting and Children's Executive Function Stability Across the Transition to School.

When children transition to school between the ages of 4 and 6 years, they must learn to control their attention and behavior to be successful. Concurrently, executive function (EF) is an important skill undergoing significant development in childhood. To understand changes occurring during this period, we examined the role of parenting in the development of children's EF from 4 to 6 years old. Participants were mother and child dyads (N = 151). Children completed cognitive tasks to assess overall EF at age 4 and age 6. At both time points, mothers and children completed interaction tasks which were videotaped and coded to assess various parenting dimensions. Results indicated that children with high EF at age 4 were more likely to have high EF at age 6. In addition, results suggested that higher levels of positive parenting across the transition to school promote stability of individual differences in EF.

Television use and its effects on sleep in early childhood.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of television (TV) viewing and bedroom TV presence on young children's sleep as measured by actigraphy. DESIGN: Analyses of covariance were run to examine differences in sleep duration and quality among children based on the presence of TVs in their bedrooms and the amount of TV watched. SETTING: Recruited in preschools in Massachusetts; recorded ambulatory (in home, environs). PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 470 children between 33 and 71 months of age (M = 51.02). MEASUREMENTS: Children were instructed to wear an actigraph watch for 16 days. Caregivers reported demographic information, completed behavior questionnaires, and answered questions regarding their child's TV use. RESULTS: Children who watched more TV and had TVs in their bedroom displayed significantly shorter sleep duration and worse sleep, but they also napped significantly longer in the daytime. Nonetheless, total 24-hour sleep was shorter for those who watched more TV and had TVs in their bedroom compared to those who did not have TVs in their bedrooms or watch TV frequently. Children who had TVs in their bedrooms watched TV later at night, watched more adult TV programs, and had higher negative affect than children without TVs in their bedrooms. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that TV use in young children does impact sleep duration and quality as measured by actigraphy, and daytime napping does not offset these negative impacts.