Courtney N. Baker

Enrollment and Attendance in a Parent Training Prevention Program for Conduct Problems

Low levels of enrollment and attendance in parent training programs present major problems for researchers and clinicians. The literature on enrollment and attendance in prevention programs is especially limited, and these constructs may be particularly difficult to address in this context. Further, most previous research has not made the distinction between enrollment and attendance. This study describes predictors of enrollment and attendance in a behavioral parent training program intended to prevent conduct problems in preschoolers. Information was gathered from 106 preschoolers, their parents, and their teachers. Parent socioeconomic status (SES), single parent status, ethnicity, child externalizing behavior, parent depressive symptoms, and parent social support were investigated as possible predictors of families’ enrollment and attendance. Only 48% of the families that had already provided informed consent and completed demographic questionnaires actually enrolled in the parent training program; parents with lower incomes and lower levels of social support were less likely to enroll. In addition, African-American and Puerto Rican families were less likely to enroll than Caucasian families. The average attendance rate for enrolled parents was 61%; dual parents and parents with children evidencing externalizing behavior problems attended more parent training sessions. Parent depression was not associated with enrollment or attendance. Significant relationships were maintained when controlling for other predictors including SES and when accounting for center-level variance. In addition, three distinct patterns of attendance were observed, which may have practical implications related to retention strategies.

Identifying Autism in a Brief Observation

BACKGROUND: Pediatricians, neurologists, and geneticists are important sources for autism surveillance, screening, and referrals, but practical time constraints limit the clinical utility of behavioral observations. We analyzed behaviors under favorable conditions (ie, video of autism evaluations reviewed by experts) to determine what is optimally observable within 10-minute samples, asked for referral impressions, and compared these to formal screening and developmental testing results. METHODS: Participants (n = 42, aged 15 to 33 months) were typically developing controls and children who screened positive during universal autism screening within a large community pediatric practice. Diagnostic evaluations were performed after screening to determine group status (autism, language delay, or typical). Licensed psychologists with toddler and autism expertise, unaware of diagnostic status, analyzed two 10-minute video samples of participants’ autism evaluations, measuring 5 behaviors: Responding, Initiating, Vocalizing, Play, and Response to Name. Raters were asked for autism referral impressions based solely on individual 10-minute observations. RESULTS: Children who had autism showed more typical behavior (89% of the time) than atypical behavior (11%) overall. Expert raters missed 39% of cases in the autism group as needing autism referrals based on brief but highly focused observations. Significant differences in cognitive and adaptive development existed among groups, with receptive language skills differentiating the 3 groups. CONCLUSIONS: Brief clinical observations may not provide enough information about atypical behaviors to reliably detect autism risk. High prevalence of typical behaviors in brief samples may distort clinical impressions of atypical behaviors. Formal screening tools and general developmental testing provide critical data for accurate referrals.

Developing measures of community-relevant outcomes for violence prevention programs: A community-based participatory research approach to measurement

Community-Based Participatory Research is a research paradigm that encourages community participation in designing and implementing evaluation research, though the actual outcome measures usually reflect the “external” academic researchers’ view of program effect and the policy-makers’ needs for decision-making. This paper describes a replicable process by which existing standardized psychometric scales commonly used in youth-related intervention programs were modified to measure indicators of program success defined by community partners. This study utilizes a secondary analysis of data gathered in the context of a community-based youth violence prevention program. Data were retooled into new measures developed using items from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire, the Hare Area Specific Self-Esteem Scale, and the Youth Asset Survey. These measures evaluated two community-defined outcome indicators, “More Parental Involvement” and “Showing Kids Love.” Results showed that existing scale items can be re-organized to create measures of community-defined outcomes that are psychometrically reliable and valid. Results also show that the community definitions of parent or parenting caregivers exemplified by the two indicators are similar to how these constructs have been defined in previous research, but they are not synonymous. There are nuanced differences that are important and worthy of better understanding, in part through better measurement.

Social cognitions, distress, and leadership self-efficacy: associations with aggression for high-risk minority youth

Urban ethnic minority youth are often exposed to high levels of aggression and violence. As such, many aggression intervention programs that have been designed with suburban nonethnic minority youth have been used or slightly adapted in order to try and meet the needs of high-risk urban youth. The current study contributes to the literature base by examining how well a range of social-cognitive, emotional distress and victimization, and prosocial factors are related to youth aggression in a sample of urban youth. This study utilized data gathered from 109 9- to 15-year-old youth (36.7% male; 84.4% African American) and their parents or caregivers. A series of hierarchical multiple regressions were fit predicting youth aggression from social-cognitive variables, victimization and distress, and prosocial variables, controlling for youth gender and age. Each set of variables explained a significant and unique amount of the variance in youth aggressive behavior. The full model including all predictors accounted for 41% of the variance in aggression. Models suggest that youth with stronger beliefs supportive of violence, youth who experience more overt victimization, and youth who experience greater distress in overtly aggressive situations are likely to be more aggressive. In contrast, youth with higher self-esteem and youth who endorse greater leadership efficacy are likely to be less aggressive. Contrary to hypotheses, hostile attributional bias and knowledge of social information processing, experience of relational victimization, distress in relationally aggressive situations, and community engagement were not associated with aggression. Our study is one of the first to address these important questions for low-income, predominately ethnic minority urban youth, and it has clear implications for adapting aggression prevention programs to be culturally sensitive for urban African American youth.

A Pilot Study Examining the Effectiveness of the PEERS Program on Social Skills and Anxiety in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Program for the Evaluation of the Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS), a social skills intervention for high functioning adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), has been proven efficacious in randomized control trials. However, the effectiveness of the PEERS program in community settings has not been studied. The present small-scale pilot study examined the effectiveness of the PEERS program in a community setting. Five adolescents and their caregivers participated in the PEERS intervention. Results indicated that the adolescents showed significant improvement in their social engagement, social cognition, social communication, social motivation, and knowledge of PEERS skills and concepts from pre- to post-intervention. Furthermore, adolescents showed significant reductions in their internalizing and autistic symptoms from pre- to post-intervention. The findings from this small-scale pilot study support the effectiveness of the PEERS program in community-based settings.

Erratum to: Enrollment and Attendance in a Parent Training Prevention Program for Conduct Problems

In the introduction of our manuscript (“Enrollment and Attendance in a Parent Training Prevention Program for Conduct Problems”) we wrote that: “the constructs of enrollment and attendance are often blended into one continuous measure, which washes out important distinctions between the constructs (e.g., Garvey et al. 2006; Gross et al. 2001).” The cited studies are examples of research that demonstrated the importance of separating these constructs by doing so; these were groundbreaking studies that were among the first to disentangle the two constructs. However, our wording was ambiguous, and could be interpreted as meaning the opposite. We feel badly that we potentially implied the reverse of what this important research accomplished.

An analysis of social justice research in school psychology

ABSTRACT The purpose of the current content analysis was to build upon previous empirical research both within school psychology and in other subdisciplines of psychology to refine the operationalized definition of social justice within school psychology research. Operationalizing the definition and substantiating it within the empirical literature is a critical next step for moving the discussion within the field of school psychology from the abstract to the concrete and measurable. We analyzed the research in school psychology to identify how much of the applied literature in school psychology journals between 2010 and 2013 had a social justice focus, what components of social justice were addressed, how they aligned with an established social justice framework from the literature, and what sociodemographic groups were represented. Of the 1,190 school psychology articles reviewed, 13% reported on applied research that included a focus on at least one component of our social justice definition. The majority of studies were conducted using elementary school-aged, English-speaking, White, and typically developing children as participants. Implications and future directions for school psychology research, practice, and training are discussed.

Components Analyses of a School-Based Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Youth Depression

The current study sought to build upon research on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as the first-line treatment for depressed youth by investigating the effects of the various components of a CBT treatment on changes in depressive symptoms in young female participants. Female participants 9–14 years of age (n = 40; M age = 10.58 years) with a diagnosis of a depressive disorder from the CBT-only treatment condition of a larger randomized clinical trial were included in the current study. Participants engaged in a 20-session, 11-week, school-based CBT group intervention (ACTION Treatment; Stark et al., 2006). Depressive symptoms were assessed pre- and posttreatment, and intervention components were coded based on review of audio recordings of treatment sessions. Data were examined using two-level mixed-effects models using hierarchical linear modeling with full maximum likelihood estimation. Results indicated that higher quality behavioral intervention components were associated with greater improvement in posttreatment depression scores, higher quality cognitive intervention components were marginally associated with worsening posttreatment depression scores, and relational intervention components were not associated with depression outcome. Age significantly moderated the relationships between intervention components and depression outcome, with younger female participants benefiting most from higher quality behavioral and relational intervention components. These findings provide preliminary evidence about the differential impact of CBT components on depression treatment outcome for young female participants, with consideration of age as a moderator. This study highlights the importance of continuing to dismantle CBT treatment components for youth depression, as such findings can be used to design more potent, developmentally tailored interventions.

The Implementation and Effect of Trauma-Informed Care Within Residential Youth Services in Rural Canada: A Mixed Methods Case Study.

Objective: The prevalence and associated risks of trauma have led youth-serving institutions to adopt trauma-informed care (TIC). A limited research base has linked TIC with improved outcomes. Associations between TIC and vicarious traumatization (VT) are even less commonly studied. The purpose of this case study is to evaluate the implementation and effect of TIC within 1 residential youth services division in rural Canada using the curriculum-based Risking Connection (RC; Saakvitne et al., 2001) and Restorative Approach (RA; Wilcox, 2012) trauma training programs, with a focus on VT. Method: We used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design and a participatory action research approach to evaluate the implementation and effect of RC and RA. Study 1, the quantitative program evaluation, used a prepost design to evaluate the effect of RC and RA on staff. Study 2, the qualitative study, used participant observations and interviews to develop a deeper understanding the quantitative findings. Results: This study replicated previous findings that RC improves attitudes favorable to TIC but found that staff experience of VT increased after TIC training. Qualitative findings suggested that the division was successfully implementing TIC and that increased awareness and discussion of VT were potentially responsible for increases in VT scores. Conclusions: This case study documents improvements in staff attitudes favorable to TIC post-RC and RA and presents an in-depth analysis of TIC implementation. The study also highlights the complicated relationship between TIC implementation and staff experience of VT. Finally, this study provides a blueprint for conducting program evaluations of TIC.