Prenatal anticipatory stress: Baby preparation and worry scale-revised in the Dutch context.

BACKGROUND: Prenatal distress encompasses a range of different emotions, worries, and experiences of stress. The Baby Preparation and Worry Scale (Baby-PAWS) was recently developed to target anticipatory worries during pregnancy about the postnatal period. However, the Baby-PAWS questionnaire was only examined in the United States of America, limiting the questionnaire's generalizability to different countries. To address this issue, we performed a psychometric evaluation of the questionnaire in a Dutch sample and examined associations between the Baby-PAWS questionnaire and established measures of maternal distress (i.e., EPDS, STAI, PRAQ-R) and infant temperament (i.e., IBQ-R). METHODS: Healthy pregnant women (N = 521) completed questionnaires during their third trimester and postnatally, including the Baby-PAWS and distress measures. A subsample of mothers (N = 194) also reported on infant temperament at 12 weeks postpartum. RESULTS: Exploratory factor analysis suggested a four-factor structure for the 16-item questionnaire in our Dutch sample, as compared to the expected three-factor structure found in the original psychometric evaluation with the American sample. The total Baby-PAWS score was related to pre-and postnatal depression, anxiety, stress, and specific scales of infant temperament. American women scored higher on the Baby-PAWS items than Dutch women. LIMITATIONS: Our participants had higher-than-average socioeconomic status, limiting the generalizability of the findings. CONCLUSION: The current analyses indicate good validity of the Baby-PAWS in a Dutch sample. Furthermore, our results highlight cross-cultural differences in perinatal mental health and show the importance of examining instrument structure of context-dependent constructs, such as prenatal worries.

The Impacts of Burn Severity and Frequency on Erosion in Western Arnhem Land, Australia.

Wildfires are pivotal to the functioning of many ecosystems globally, including the magnitude of surface erosion rates. This study aims to investigate the relationships between surface erosion rates and wildfire intensity in the tropical north savanna of Australia. The occurrence of fires in western Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia was determined with remotely sensed digital datasets as well as analogue erosion measurement methods. Analysis was performed using satellite imagery to quantify burn severity via a monthly delta normalised burn ratio (dNBR). This was compared and correlated against on-ground erosion measurements (erosion pins) for 13 years. The dNBR for each year (up to +0.4) displayed no relationship with subsequent erosion (up to ±4 mm of erosion/deposition per year). Poor correlation was attributed to low fire severity, patchy burning, significant time between fires and erosion-inducing rainfall. Other influences included surface roughness from disturbances from feral pigs and cyclone impacts. The findings here oppose many other studies that have found that fires increase surface erosion. This accentuates the unique ecosystem characteristics and fire regime properties found in the tropical Northern Territory. Scenarios of late dry season fires with high severity were not observed in this study and require more investigations. Ecosystems such as the one examined here require specialised management practices acknowledging the specific ecosystem functions and processes. The methods employed here combine both analogue and digital sensors to improve understandings of a unique environmental system.

The development of place value concepts: Approximation before principles.

Place value concepts were measured longitudinally from kindergarten (2017) to first grade (2018) in a diverse sample (n = 279; Mage  = 5.76 years, SD = 0.55; 135 females; 41% Black, 38% White, 8% Asian, 12% Latino). Children completed three syntactic tasks that required an explicit understanding of base-10 symbols and three approximate tasks that could be completed without this explicit understanding. Approximate performance was significantly better in both age groups. A factor analysis confirmed that syntactic and approximate tasks tapped separate latent variables in kindergarten, but not in first grade. Path analyses indicated that only kindergarten approximate performance predicted overall first-grade place value understanding. These findings suggest that explicit understanding of base-10 principles develops from implicit, partial knowledge of multidigit numbers.

Developmental changes in episodic memory across early- to mid-childhood: insights from a latent longitudinal approach.

Episodic memory is a cornerstone ability that allows one to recall past events and the spatiotemporal context in which they occur. In an effort to characterise the development of this critical ability, many different tasks have been used independently to assess age-related variations in episodic memory. However, performance on memory tasks is multiply determined, and the extent to which different tasks with varying features relate to each other and represent episodic memory as a latent cognitive construct across childhood is unclear. The present study sought to address this question by exploring the feasibility of using four different laboratory-based tasks to characterise changes in episodic memory ability during early- to mid-childhood in 200 typically developing children (4-8 years). Using longitudinal data and a structural equation modeling framework, results suggest that multiple tests of episodic memory can be utilised to indicate a comparable latent construct of episodic memory ability over this period of development, and that this ability improves consistently between 4 to 8 years. Overall, results highlight that episodic memory measured as a construct increases at a similar rate over early- to mid-childhood and demonstrate the benefits of using multiple laboratory tasks to characterise developmental changes in episodic memory.

Predictors and moderators of treatment efficacy in reducing custodial grandmothers' psychological distress.

It is increasingly recommended that hypothesis-generating studies be conducted after initial RCTs in order to identify moderators of differential treatment efficacy on individual outcomes. Such analyses are important because they help clarify the best inclusion and exclusion criteria or choice of stratification for maximizing power in subsequent RCTs, reduce the chances of discarding interventions that may appear to lack efficacy when only average treatment effects are taken into consideration, and facilitate the matching of individual clients to treatment alternatives. We identified predictors and moderators of treatment-related change in psychological distress among custodial grandmothers (n = 343) assigned within a prior RCT to behavior parent training (BPT), cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), or information only control (IOC) conditions. Latent change scores in psychological distress were estimated for each grandmother across pre-test to post-test and pre-test to six months, as indicated by self-reported and clinical ratings of depression and anxiety symptoms. These estimates served as outcomes in classification and regression tree analyses conducted separately within the CBT and BPT conditions to identify predictors of treatment efficacy. Matched groups based upon identified predictors were then formed across all RCT conditions, and Predictor × RCT Condition interactions were computed to test for moderation of differential treatment efficacy. Grandmother age was the only predictor and moderator of BPT efficacy at both measurement points, whereas multifaceted predictors and moderators emerged for CBT which varied by time since treatment.

Oh No! They Cut My Funding! Using "Post Hoc" Planned Missing Data Designs to Salvage Longitudinal Research.

Having one's funding cut in the course of conducting a longitudinal study has become an increasingly real challenge faced by developmental researchers. The main purpose of the current work is to propose "post hoc" planned missing (PHPM) data designs as a promising solution in such difficult situations. This study discusses general guidelines that can be followed to search for viable PHPM designs within a given budget restriction. Illustrative examples across different longitudinal research contexts are provided, each showing how PHPM data designs can help salvage longitudinal studies when an unexpected funding cut occurs mid-study. With the illustrative examples, the article also shows how developmental researchers can conveniently identify viable designs using the R package simPM.

Reading Achievement of Deaf Students: Challenging the Fourth Grade Ceiling.

Historically it has been reported that deaf students do not achieve age-appropriate outcomes in reading, with this performance often being characterized in terms of a fourth grade ceiling. However, given the shifts in the field during the past 20 years (e.g., widespread implementation of newborn hearing screening, advances in hearing technologies), it would be timely to question whether this continues to serve as a meaningful benchmark. To this end, the purpose of this study was to investigate reading outcomes of a Canadian cohort of school-aged deaf learners (N = 70) who all used listening and spoken language as the primary mode of communication. Specifically, the goal was to establish whether their achievement approached that of their hearing age peers and to identify demographic factors influencing performance (i.e., gender, unilateral/bilateral hearing loss, personal amplification, level of auditory functioning, grade placement, additional disabilities, home language). Results indicate that participants obtained standard scores in the average range on both the Basic Reading and Reading Comprehension clusters of the Woodcock Johnson III-Diagnostic Reading Battery (Woodcock et al., 2004), surpassing the fourth grade reading achievement ceiling often reported for this population.

Modeling development of frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry: Sex differences and links with temperament.

Asymmetric patterns of frontal brain electrical activity reflect approach and avoidance tendencies, with stability of relative right activation associated with withdrawal emotions/motivation and left hemisphere activation linked with approach and positive affect. However, considerable shifts in approach/avoidance-related lateralization have been reported for children not targeted because of extreme temperament. In this study, dynamic effects of frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) power within and across hemispheres were examined throughout early childhood. Specifically, EEG indicators at 5, 10, 24, 36, 48, and 72 months-of-age (n = 410) were analyzed via a hybrid of difference score and panel design models, with baseline measures and subsequent time-to-time differences modeled as potentially influencing all subsequent amounts of time-to-time change (i.e., predictively saturated). Infant sex was considered as a moderator of dynamic developmental effects, with temperament attributes measured at 5 months examined as predictors of EEG hemisphere development. Overall, change in left and right frontal EEG power predicted declining subsequent change in the same hemisphere, with effects on the opposing neurobehavioral system enhancing later growth. Infant sex moderated the pattern of within and across-hemisphere effects, wherein for girls more prominent left hemisphere influences on the right hemisphere EEG changes were noted and right hemisphere effects were more salient for boys. Largely similar patterns of temperament prediction were observed for the left and the right EEG power changes, with limited sex differences in links between temperament and growth parameters. Results were interpreted in the context of comparable analyses using parietal power values, which provided evidence for unique frontal effects.

The effectiveness of helping skills training for undergraduate students: Changes in ethnocultural empathy.

Using the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy, we examined pre-post changes in empathy directed toward people from different racial/ethnic cultural groups than one's own for 189 undergraduate students from 20 sections of helping skills classes. We hypothesized that racial minority students and women would score higher than their respective counterparts in ethnocultural empathy at the beginning of the semester. We also expected that White students would grow more than racial minority students in ethnocultural empathy by the end of the semester. Using latent growth modeling, we found that racial minority women tended to report significantly higher initial levels than racial minority men and White students on all dimensions of ethnocultural empathy. In addition, race predicted ethnocultural empathy changes by the end of the semester, such that White women and men on average showed (a) more growth on the Empathic Feeling and Expression subscale than did racial minority women and men and (b) more growth on the Empathic Perspective Taking subscale than did racial minority women. Findings suggest that helping skills training may be particularly effective for helping White students gain empathic understanding and expression for individuals from different racial/ethnic backgrounds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Role of Health Literacy in Family Planning Use among Senegalese Women.

Health communication has contributed to an increase in family planning use through education and mass media as a means to increase health literacy. In this research, we investigate health literacy as an auxiliary component of health communication. We test the validity of the Health Literacy Skills Framework by examining the correlation of health literacy indicators to family planning use among Senegalese women in the 2014 Demographic Health Survey. We found that increased family planning use was most strongly associated with hearing family planning messages through television and radio. Other health literacy indicators, including access to printed family planning messaging, textual literacy, and knowledge of ovulatory cycles did not strengthen family planning use, even when performing a subgroup analysis of women who could read. The implications are that the Health Literacy Skills framework can measure health literacy's ability (assessed through proxy indicators of health literacy) to predict modern family planning use among Senegalese women and that audio and visual health literacy measures are most strongly associated with increased family planning use.

Latent Growth Models with Floors, Ceilings, and Random Knots.

In longitudinal/developmental studies, individual growth trajectories are sometimes bounded by a floor at the beginning of the observation period and/or a ceiling toward the end of the observation period (or vice versa), resulting in inherently nonlinear growth patterns. If the trajectories between the floor and ceiling are approximately linear, such longitudinal growth patterns can be described with a linear piecewise (spline) model in which segments join at knots. In these scenarios, it may be of specific interest for researchers to examine the timing when transition occurs, and in some occasions also to examine the levels of the floors and/or ceilings if they are not known and fixed. In the current study, we propose a reparameterized piecewise latent growth curve model so that a direct estimation of the random knots (and, if needed, a direct estimation of random floors and ceilings) is possible. We derive the model reparameterization using a 4-step structured latent curve modeling approach. We provide two illustrative examples to demonstrate how the proposed reparameterized models can be fitted to longitudinal growth data using the popular SEM software Mplus and we supply the full coding for applied researchers' reference.

Protracted hippocampal development is associated with age-related improvements in memory during early childhood.

The hippocampus is a structure that is critical for memory. Previous studies have shown that age-related differences in specialization along the longitudinal axis of this structure (i.e., subregions) and within its internal circuitry (i.e., subfields) relate to age-related improvements in memory in school-age children and adults. However, the influence of age on hippocampal development and its relations with memory ability earlier in life remains under-investigated. This study examined effects of age and sex on hippocampal subregion (i.e., head, body, tail) and subfield (i.e., subiculum, CA1, CA2-4/DG) volumes, and their relations with memory, using a large sample of 4- to 8-year-old children. Results examining hippocampal subregions suggest influences of both age and sex on the hippocampal head during early childhood. Results examining subfields within hippocampal head suggest these age effects may arise from CA1, whereas sex differences may arise from subiculum and CA2-4/DG. Memory ability was not associated with hippocampal subregion volume but was associated with subfield volume. Specifically, within the hippocampal head, relations between memory and CA1 were moderated by age; in younger children bigger was better, whereas in older children smaller was superior. Within the hippocampal body, smaller CA1 and larger CA2-4/DG contributed to better memory performance across all ages. Together, these results shed light on hippocampal development during early childhood and support claims that the prolonged developmental trajectory of the hippocampus contributes to memory development early in life.

Positive Affectivity and Fear Trajectories in Infancy: Contributions of Mother-Child Interaction Factors.

Fear and positive emotionality were considered in a growth modeling context. Mothers, primarily Caucasian (91.9%) and of middle socioeconomic status, participated in play interactions with infants at 4 months (N = 148). Infant fear and positive affectivity were evaluated at 6, 8, 10, and 12 months of age. A linear trajectory was superior in explaining growth for parent report and observation-based indicators of positive affectivity and parent report of fearfulness; a piecewise model explained the nonlinear growth of observation-based fear. Responsiveness in mother-infant interactions emerged as a significant predictor of the fear trajectory, with higher sensitivity predicting lower levels of observed fear. Reciprocity, tempo, emotional tone, and intensity of mother-infant interactions also made significant contributions to temperament development; however, analyses addressing these were exploratory.

The Thorny Relation Between Measurement Quality and Fit Index Cutoffs in Latent Variable Models.

Latent variable modeling is a popular and flexible statistical framework. Concomitant with fitting latent variable models is assessment of how well the theoretical model fits the observed data. Although firm cutoffs for these fit indexes are often cited, recent statistical proofs and simulations have shown that these fit indexes are highly susceptible to measurement quality. For instance, a root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value of 0.06 (conventionally thought to indicate good fit) can actually indicate poor fit with poor measurement quality (e.g., standardized factors loadings of around 0.40). Conversely, an RMSEA value of 0.20 (conventionally thought to indicate very poor fit) can indicate acceptable fit with very high measurement quality (standardized factor loadings around 0.90). Despite the wide-ranging effect on applications of latent variable models, the high level of technical detail involved with this phenomenon has curtailed the exposure of these important findings to empirical researchers who are employing these methods. This article briefly reviews these methodological studies in minimal technical detail and provides a demonstration to easily quantify the large influence measurement quality has on fit index values and how greatly the cutoffs would change if they were derived under an alternative level of measurement quality. Recommendations for best practice are also discussed.

The influence of social norms on flu vaccination among African American and White adults.

Adult influenza vaccination rates remain suboptimal, particularly among African Americans. Social norms may influence vaccination behavior, but little research has focused on influenza vaccine and almost no research has focused on racially-specific norms. This mixed methods investigation utilizes qualitative interviews and focus groups (n = 118) and national survey results (n = 1643) to assess both descriptive and subjective norms surrounding influenza vaccination. Qualitative results suggest a perceived descriptive norm that 'about half' of the population gets vaccinated. Participants describe differing norms by race and vaccine behavior. Quantitative results confirm a perceived descriptive norm that 40-60% of the population gets vaccinated. Both African Americans and Whites accurately identified race-specific vaccination rates relative to the general population. Individuals who report that a majority of people around them want them to be vaccinated were significantly more likely to be vaccinated, suggesting subjective norms are influential for both White and African American adults. While perceived descriptive norms are somewhat accurate (mirroring the actual influenza vaccination rate), emphasizing a suboptimal vaccination rate may not be beneficial. Health promotion efforts, particularly those targeting African Americans, may benefit from focusing on subjective norms and encouraging friends and family members to talk about the benefits of influenza vaccination.

Latent growth factors as predictors of distal outcomes.

A currently overlooked application of the latent curve model (LCM) is its use in assessing the consequences of development patterns of change-that is as a predictor of distal outcomes. However, there are additional complications for appropriately specifying and interpreting the distal outcome LCM. Here, we develop a general framework for understanding the sensitivity of the distal outcome LCM to the choice of time coding, focusing on the regressions of the distal outcome on the latent growth factors. Using artificial and real-data examples, we highlight the unexpected changes in the regression of the slope factor which stand in contrast to prior work on time coding effects, and develop a framework for estimating the distal outcome LCM at a point in the trajectory-known as the aperture-which maximizes the interpretability of the effects. We also outline a prioritization approach developed for assessing incremental validity to obtain consistently interpretable estimates of the effect of the slope. Throughout, we emphasize practical steps for understanding these changing predictive effects, including graphical approaches for assessing regions of significance similar to those used to probe interaction effects. We conclude by providing recommendations for applied research using these models and outline an agenda for future work in this area. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A Randomized Clinical Trial of Online Social Intelligence Training With Custodial Grandmothers.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: In this study, we investigated the efficacy of a self-administered, online Social Intelligence Training (SIT) program aimed at enhancing psychological and relational well-being among a nationwide U.S. sample of custodial grandmothers. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A two-arm randomized clinical trial (RCT) was conducted, where 349 grandmothers raising grandchildren aged 11-18 years were assigned to either SIT or an attention control condition (ACC). Participants self-completed online surveys at baseline and immediately postintervention, in addition to follow-ups at 3-, 6-, and 9-month postintervention. First-order latent difference score models were used to compare SIT to ACC, across all times of measurement, along key indicators of psychological and relational well-being on an intent-to-treat basis. RESULTS: Although SIT was largely superior to ACC at yielding positive results, it appears that it attenuated longitudinal declines that occurred among ACC participants. SIT also exerted stronger effects on relational than psychological outcomes, with perceived relations with grandchildren being the most positively affected. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Given that the historical time of this RCT unpredictably corresponded with the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, we suspect that SIT helped offset declines in psychological and relational well-being that are widely documented to have resulted from the pandemic. Our overall positive findings support future use of the inexpensive and easily delivered SIT program under normal environmental conditions, with the vulnerable and geographically disperse population of custodial grandmothers. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03239977.

"My Blood, You Know, My Biology Being out There ": Consent and Participant Control of Biological Samples.

The widespread and persistent underrepresentation of groups experiencing health disparities in research involving biospecimens is a barrier to scientific knowledge and advances in health equity. To ensure that all groups have the opportunity to participate in research and feel welcome and safe doing so, we must understand how research studies may be shaped to promote inclusion. In this study, we explored the decision to participate in hypothetical research scenarios among African American adults (n = 169) that varied on the basis of four attributes (form of consent, reason for research, institutional affiliation and race of the researcher). Findings indicate that participants were largely willing to contribute to biobanks but significantly preferred opportunities where they had control over the use of their biological samples through tiered or study-specific forms of consent. Broad consent procedures, although common and perhaps preferred by participants with high trust in researchers, may amount to an exclusionary practice.

Implementing instruction in the alphabetic principle within a sign bilingual setting.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the results of implementing remedial instruction in the alphabetic principle with deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students educated in a sign bilingual setting. Data were analyzed in 2 phases, with the first using paired-sample t tests and Pearson correlations and the second phase employing structural equation modeling. Results indicate that study participants (N = 127) from a range of grade placements, with various degrees of hearing loss, and including those with additional disabilities, can acquire an understanding of the alphabetic principle, apply this knowledge to the reading of words, and demonstrate generalization of skills through a pseudo word decoding task. Given the ongoing debates regarding the relevance of phonologically based instruction for DHH learners, the findings of this investigation will also serve to address some of the misconceptions regarding the instructional methods and strategies employed in interventions of this type.