Laércia Abreu Vasconcelos

Transtorno do déficit de atenção e hiperatividade em crianças: uma revisão interdisciplinar

This article critically reviews the broad scope of literature related to diagnostic criteria, the etiological basis as well as the pharmacological and behavioral treatments of the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children. The electronic databases Medline, LILACS, PsycINFO and PubMed of the last three decades were consulted. The results of this review indicated a predominance of diagnostic criteria based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the necessity of an increased interaction between biological and behavioral variables in understanding the etiological basis and treatment of this disorder. Suggestions to maximize the effectiveness of this interaction are presented and discussed.

Publicidade de alimentos e escolhas alimentares de crianças

The effect of cartoon videos with advertisements of healthy and unhealthy food versus neutral videos on food choices was assessed in 24 children from a public school. The videos were presented in 5 sessions. Each group was exposed to a specific sequence of advertisement. After the exposure of the videos, the child chose food figures for daily meals. Within and between subject analyses, performed by repeated measures ANCOVA, showed that with change of videos, the children altered by up to 13% their choices of healthy or unhealthy food. The increase of healthy food advertising and the decrease of unhealthy food advertising may contribute for healthy food and weight.

Efeitos da radiação ionizante sobre comportamentos mantidos por contingências operantes

Pesquisas de laboratorio com animais sao tentativas para suprimir lacunas deixadas pelas metodologias utilizadas nos estudos com humanos sobre os fenomenos comportamentais que acompanham uma exposicao a radiacao. Neste trabalho,tratamos de estudos sobre comportamentos mantidos por diferentes tipos de contingencias operantes e de variaveis radiogenicascomo a dosagem de radiacao. Os efeitos observados com esquemas simples de reforcamento mostram reducao nas taxas de resposta. Esses efeitos sao dose-dependentes e interagem com outras variaveis tais como o tipo de linha de base, taxa de respostas na linha de base e tipo de estimulo reforcador. Alem disso, em esquemas concorrentes os efeitos sao seletivos,segundo os componentes do esquema. Dados obtidos em procedimentos de aquisicao repetida indicam uma interacao da radiacao com o tipo de tarefa em execucao. As implicacoes dos estudos com animais para a compreensao das manifestacoescomportamentais observadas em individuos expostos a eventos radioativos sao discutidas.

Análise de interações familiares: um estudo de caso

The current study analyzed the interactions of one family, in a laboratory context, by means of interviews with the parents and of family members participation in tasks similar to those in everyday life - Lunch, Poster, Play and Organization of the Room. An ABACA design was employed. Condition A was baseline. The independent variable was a written text describing behaviors of a traditional family (Condition B) and of a contemporary family (Condition C). Based on the categorization of all participants interactions and the partial interval recording, it was observed that family interactions differed more among the tasks, independent of the condition, than between the baseline and experimental conditions. The results indicated that the behavior of the participants were similar to those observed in the natural environment.