Featured Article: Comparison of Diabetes Management Trajectories in Hispanic versus White Non-Hispanic Youth with Type 1 Diabetes across Early Adolescence.

OBJECTIVE: Ethnic minority youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D) often have poorer glycemic control and lower rates of adherence compared to White Non-Hispanic (WNH) youth. Variables such as family conflict, autonomy support, and youth regimen responsibility have been shown to change over adolescence and impact diabetes management. However, these factors have been investigated in predominantly White samples. Few studies have examined potential differences in these variables and their trajectories for Hispanic youth over early adolescence. METHODS: Youth with T1D (178 WNH and 33 Hispanic youth participants), as well as their maternal caregivers (174 WNH and 32 Hispanic maternal caregivers), completed measures of diabetes-specific autonomy support, diabetes-related family conflict, regimen responsibility, and blood glucose monitoring frequency at 4 timepoints over a 3-year period. RESULTS: At baseline, Hispanic youth had significantly poorer glycemic control, more family conflict, and fewer blood glucose checks on average compared to WNH youth. Similar to WNH youth, Hispanic youth have increasing independence for regimen tasks and decreasing parent autonomy support during this developmental period. However, while Hispanic youth had worsening diabetes management during early adolescence (as did WNH youth), Hispanic parents reported a more gradual change in youth's diabetes management over early adolescence. CONCLUSIONS: This study presents an important contribution to the existing literature on youth with T1D. Findings suggest potential strengths and targets for Hispanic youth navigating diabetes management during the adolescent period. It is important to continue to investigate the trajectories of ethnic minority youth with diabetes.

Predictors and Moderators of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy Outcomes for OCD: A Patient-Level Mega-Analysis of Eight Sites.

Cognitive (CT) and behavioral treatments (BT) for OCD are efficacious separately and in combination. Tailoring treatment to patient-level predictors and moderators of outcome has the potential to improve outcomes. The present study combined data from eight treatment clinics to examine the benefits of BT (n = 125), CT (n = 108), and CBT (n = 126), and study predictors across all treatments and moderators of outcome by treatment type. All three methods led to large benefits for OCD and depression symptoms. Residual gain scores for OCD symptoms were marginally smaller for BT compared to treatments containing CT. For depression, significantly more gains were evident for CBT than BT, and CT did not differ from either. Significantly fewer BT participants (36%) achieved clinically significant improvement compared to CT (56%), and this was marginally evident for CBT (48%). For all treatments combined, no predictors were identified in residual gain analyses, but clinically improved patients had lower baseline depression and stronger beliefs about responsibility/threat and importance/control of thoughts. Moderator analyses indicated that higher baseline scores on depression adversely affected outcomes for BT but not CT or CBT, and lower OCD severity and more education were associated with positive outcomes for CT only. A trend was evident for higher responsibility/threat beliefs to moderate clinical improvement outcomes for those receiving cognitive (CT and CBT), but not behavioral (BT) treatment. Medication status and comorbidity did not predict or moderate outcomes. Findings are discussed in light of models underlying behavioral and cognitive treatments for OCD.

A method to establish stimulus control and compliance with instructions.

We evaluated a unique procedure to establish compliance with instructions in four young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who had low levels of compliance. Our procedure included methods to establish a novel therapist as a source of positive reinforcement, reliably evoke orienting responses to the therapist, increase the number of exposures to instruction-compliance-reinforcer contingencies, and minimize the number of exposures to instruction-noncompliance-no reinforcer contingencies. We further alternated between instructions with a high probability of compliance (high-p instructions) with instructions that had a prior low probability of compliance (low-p instructions) as soon as low-p instructions lost stimulus control. The intervention is discussed in relation to the conditions necessary for the development of stimulus control and as an example of a variation of translational research.

Effects of signaled and unsignaled alternative reinforcement on persistence and relapse in children and pigeons.

Three experiments explored the impact of different reinforcer rates for alternative behavior (DRA) on the suppression and post-DRA relapse of target behavior, and the persistence of alternative behavior. All experiments arranged baseline, intervention with extinction of target behavior concurrently with DRA, and post-treatment tests of resurgence or reinstatement, in two- or three-component multiple schedules. Experiment 1, with pigeons, arranged high or low baseline reinforcer rates; both rich and lean DRA schedules reduced target behavior to low levels. When DRA was discontinued, the magnitude of relapse depended on both baseline reinforcer rate and the rate of DRA. Experiment 2, with children exhibiting problem behaviors, arranged an intermediate baseline reinforcer rate and rich or lean signaled DRA. During treatment, both rich and lean DRA rapidly reduced problem behavior to low levels, but post-treatment relapse was generally greater in the DRA-rich than the DRA-lean component. Experiment 3, with pigeons, repeated the low-baseline condition of Experiment 1 with signaled DRA as in Experiment 2. Target behavior decreased to intermediate levels in both DRA-rich and DRA-lean components. Relapse, when it occurred, was directly related to DRA reinforcer rate as in Experiment 2. The post-treatment persistence of alternative behavior was greater in the DRA-rich component in Experiment 1, whereas it was the same or greater in the signaled-DRA-lean component in Experiments 2 and 3. Thus, infrequent signaled DRA may be optimal for effective clinical treatment.