Psychometric properties of the Child PTSD Symptom Scale in Latino children.

The Child PTSD Symptom Scale (Foa, Johnson, Feeny, & Treadwell, ) is a self-report measure of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms (PTSD) in children and adolescents. Despite widespread use of this measure, no study to our knowledge has examined its psychometric properties in Latino children. This study examined the factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent validity of the measure utilizing a sample of 161 Latino students (M = 11.42 years, SD = 0.70) at high risk of exposure to community violence. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that a 3-factor model consistent with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.; DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, ) provided the best fit to the data. Internal consistency of the total scale and subscales was high when completed in English or Spanish. All Child PTSD Symptom Scale scores were positively correlated with violence exposure. As additional evidence of convergent validity, scores evidenced stronger correlations with internalizing symptoms than with externalizing symptoms. Results supported the use of the Child PTSD Symptom Scale as a measure of PTSD severity in Latino children, but additional research is needed to determine appropriate clinical cutoffs for Latino youths exposed to chronic levels of violence. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.

Executive functioning in offspring at risk for depression and anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Executive functioning deficits (EFDs) have been found in adults with major depression and some anxiety disorders, yet it is unknown whether these deficits predate onset of disorder, or whether they reflect acute symptoms. Studies of at-risk offspring can shed light on this question by examining whether EFDs characterize children at high risk for depression and anxiety who are not yet symptomatic. METHODS: This study examined neuropsychological functioning in a sample of 147 children, ages 6-17 years (M age=9.16, SD=1.82), of parents with major depression (MDD) and/or panic disorder (PD) and of controls with neither disorder. Children were assessed via structured diagnostic interviews and neuropsychological measures. RESULTS: Although parental MDD and PD were not associated with neuropsychological impairments, presence of current offspring MDD was associated with poorer performance on several executive functioning and processing speed measures. Children with current generalized anxiety showed poorer verbal memory, whereas children with social phobia had more omissions on a continuous performance task. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that EFDs do not serve as trait markers for developing anxiety or depression but appear to be symptomatic of current disorder.

Did we see someone shake hands with a fire hydrant?: collaborative recall affects false recollections from a campus walk.

An experimenter presented familiar and bizarre action statements (e.g., "Rest on the fire hydrant" vs. "Shake hands with the fire hydrant") to a participant and confederate during a campus walk. They watched the experimenter perform half the actions and imagined the experimenter performing the other half. One day later, they took a second walk where actions were only imagined. Some actions from the first walk were repeated, and new actions were added. Two weeks later, the participant and confederate collaboratively recalled whether specific actions were presented in the first walk and, if so, whether they were imagined or performed. For different actions, the confederate was accurate, was inaccurate, or provided no information. When later tested individually, participants demonstrated imagination inflation by falsely remembering familiar and bizarre actions as performed on the first walk that were merely imagined on the second. These memory errors were greatly reduced if the confederate was accurate during collaborative recall.