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Communication between sexual partners is an important component of HIV prevention and occurs within a broader context of socio-culturally defined gender norms and dynamics. We analyzed cross-sectional data from a community-based random sample of men and women living in Kisarawe, Tanzania to understand factors related to partner communication about HIV. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses, disaggregated by gender, included variables at the individual-, relational-, and community-levels. Individuals who knew their HIV-positive status prior to the study were excluded as the focus was on risk communication, not HIV status disclosure. Of 524 participants, 129 women (43.3%) and 96 men (42.5%) reported HIV-related communication with their most recent sexual partner. For women but not men, individual-level socioeconomic factors-including education, possession of a household radio, and employment-and relational-level factors-including partner age and type-were significantly associated with partner communication. At the community level, being socially engaged was positively correlated with partner communication across genders (aOR = 2.02, 95% CI 1.05-3.89, p = 0.03 for men and aOR = 1.74, 95% CI 1.03-2.95, p = 0.04 for women). For women, having less discriminatory attitudes toward people living with HIV and favorable perceived norms of HIV-related communication were significantly associated with partner communication. For men, agreeing that women should be allowed to work outside the home was significantly correlated with partner communication (aOR = 6.02, 95% CI 2.23-16.24, p < 0.001). Findings suggest a link between gender dynamics and partner communication, with individual and relational factors being associated with communication for women and community-level factors being associated with communication for both genders.

Intimates often discuss the causes of, and solutions to, their relationship problems with their partners, and this information can shape partners' behavior and thus facilitate problem resolution. Partners' ability to encode and later recall such discussions should lead to greater declines in the severity of those problems. This brief report presents the results from a broader longitudinal study in which newlywed couples completed tasks assessing their working memory capacity (WMC), engaged in problem-solving discussions, recalled those discussions after a short delay, and then reported the severity of the problems discussed over the course of a year. Greater WMC among partners was associated with greater declines in the severity of a relationship problem, mediated by partners' recall of the discussion of that problem, suggesting that WMC facilitated the long-term memory encoding of the problem discussion. This study is among the first to suggest that individual differences in basic cognitive abilities may affect conversation processing and recall, and thereby close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Earlier research studying the effects of social threat on the experience and expression of pain led to mixed results. In this study, female participants (N = 32) came to the lab with 2 confederates. Both confederates administered a total of 10 painful electrocutaneous stimuli to the participant. The framing of the administration was manipulated in a within-subjects design: In the low social threat condition the participant was told that the confederate could choose between 10 and 20 pain stimuli, thus they believed that this confederate chose to administer the minimum allowed number of pain stimuli. In the high social threat condition the confederate had a choice between 1 and 10 stimuli, thus they believed that this confederate chose to administer the maximum allowed number of stimuli. Participants reported on the intensity, unpleasantness, and threat value of the painful stimuli, and their facial expression was recorded. Moreover, aggression and empathy toward the confederates were assessed. As hypothesized, participants reported increased pain intensity, unpleasantness, and threat in the high social threat condition compared to the low social threat condition, but showed less facial pain expression. Finally, participants exhibited increased aggression and reduced empathy toward the confederate in the high social threat condition. PERSPECTIVE: Social threat reduces painful facial expression, but simultaneously increases pain reports, leading to a double burden of the person in pain. Additionally, social threat affected social relationships by increasing aggression and reducing empathy for the other., (Copyright © 2019 United States Association for the Study of Pain, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This study measured automatic walking synchronization and how it associates with social impression. Previous studies discovered positive social consequence of motor synchrony with ecological paradigms (e.g. body movement synchrony between therapists and patients in clinical sessions, and the synchrony of side-by-side walkers). However, most studies of joint movement with high ecological validity face the same challenge, namely that conversations between participants might be the main or a partial contributor to the observed social benefits, as conversation is well documented to promote understanding and motor synchronization. We addressed this issue by using a novel paradigm to remove the conversation component and examined how synchrony per se interacted with social impression. Participants were paired to walk side by side in silence (i.e. without conversation) and their social impression toward each other was rated before/after the paired walk. Our results showed that walkers' first impression was positively associated with their step synchronization rate in the silent paired walk. Together with past findings, the bi-directional relation between body entrainment and social functions suggests that implicit nonverbal communication plays a significant role in providing a basis for interpersonal interaction., Competing Interests: Affiliation NTT corporation does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Recent studies have revealed significant cultural modulations on face scanning strategies, thereby challenging the notion of universality in face perception. Current findings are based on screen-based paradigms, which offer high degrees of experimental control, but lack critical characteristics common to social interactions (e.g., social presence, dynamic visual saliency), and complementary approaches are required. The current study used head-mounted eye tracking techniques to investigate the visual strategies for face scanning in British/Irish (in the UK) and Japanese adults (in Japan) who were engaged in dyadic social interactions with a local research assistant. We developed novel computational data pre-processing tools and data-driven analysis techniques based on Monte Carlo permutation testing. The results revealed significant cultural differences in face scanning during social interactions for the first time, with British/Irish participants showing increased mouth scanning and the Japanese group engaging in greater eye and central face looking. Both cultural groups further showed more face orienting during periods of listening relative to speaking, and during the introduction task compared to a storytelling game, thereby replicating previous studies testing Western populations. Altogether, these findings point to the significant role of postnatal social experience in specialised face perception and highlight the adaptive nature of the face processing system.

Recent research indicates that interpersonal communication is noisy, and that people exhibit considerable insensitivity to problems in communication. Using a dyadic referential communication task, the goal of which is accurate information transfer, this study examined the extent to which interlocutors are sensitive to problems in communication and use other-initiated repairs (OIRs) to address them. Participants were randomly assigned to dyads (N = 88 participants, or 44 dyads) and tried to communicate a series of recurring abstract geometric shapes to a partner across a text-chat interface. Participants alternated between directing (describing shapes) and matching (interpreting shape descriptions) roles across 72 trials of the task. Replicating prior research, over repeated social interactions communication success improved and the shape descriptions became increasingly efficient. In addition, confidence in having successfully communicated the different shapes increased over trials. Importantly, matchers were less confident on trials in which communication was unsuccessful, communication success was lower on trials that contained an OIR compared to those that did not contain an OIR, and OIR trials were associated with lower Director Confidence. This pattern of results demonstrates that (a) interlocutors exhibit (a degree of) sensitivity to problems in communication, (b) they appropriately use OIRs to address problems in communication, and (c) OIRs signal problems in communication., (© 2020 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.)

Digital communication can mitigate some of the challenges inherent in face-to-face communication; however, it is unclear whether this communication format is preferred among youth with emerging psychosis. Therefore, we examined characteristics of face-to-face and digital communication in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR; n = 19) or in the first episode of psychosis (FEP; n = 57), as well as age-matched community comparisons (n = 51). Participants completed a 25-item self-report questionnaire to assess between- and within-group differences in the frequency of, satisfaction with, and barriers to face-to-face and digital communication. Compared to controls, both clinical groups endorsed a lower frequency of face-to-face and digital interactions across a range of communication partners. Controls reported higher satisfaction and fewer challenges with both communication formats than CHR and FEP groups. No between-group differences were identified among clinical participants in characteristics of face-to-face and digital interactions. Youth at clinical high risk for, or in the first episode of, psychosis exhibited similar communication patterns and perceptions that significantly diverged from community controls. These findings highlight that reductions in the quality and quantity of social interactions extend to digital contexts, and that both communication formats are relevant clinical targets in the high risk and early stages of psychosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Within the past three years, C.R.B. has served as a consultant for Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, and Lundbeck, and has received grant support from Pfizer, Lundbeck and Takeda. In-Kind Research Support has been provided by Scientific Brain Training, and royalties from Oxford University Press. All other authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Desirable interpersonal interactions require literacy competence and social and emotional competencies, which are closely related to empathy. This study aimed to investigate whether social and emotional competencies and empathy predict literacy competence in Primary Education, assessing students' socio-educational characteristics., Method: The three variables were analysed in a sample consisting of 516 Primary Education children from six schools in Spain., Results: competence was higher in girls and students from the ethnic-cultural majority. Empathy and social and emotional competencies were related to literacy competence., Conclusions: Literacy competence could be improved by targeting social and emotional development. New intervention programs could be based on the results.

Self-disclosure happens between people and lies at the heart of almost all relationships. It elicits a dynamic process that shapes and is shaped by, relationships. We review theoretical and empirical milestones in our understanding of how and why disclosure develops, is maintained, and unravels in relationships. We show that people use their and their partners' disclosure to discern relationship quality and negotiate relationship development., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Electronic cigarette use among youth and young adults has reached an epidemic proportion of growth. This study examined the direct and indirect effects of the breadth of media scanning about e-cigarette use on subsequent vaping behavior through interpersonal communication and changes in descriptive norm perceptions. We conducted a nationally representative longitudinal phone survey of 13- to 25-year-olds from June 2014 to March 2017, with 11,013 respondents who completed a baseline survey, among which 3,212 completed a follow-up 6 months later. The results from both cross-sectional and lagged analyses provided robust evidence to suggest that passive routine exposure to e-cigarette use content from more media outlets predicted increased likelihood of vaping among youth and young adults. High scanners were about twice as likely to vape as non-scanners (17% versus 9%). Mediation models using bootstrapping procedures found that breadth of scanning predicted higher descriptive norm perceptions which were associated with subsequent vaping; in addition, interpersonal communication mediated the relationship between breadth of scanning and changes in descriptive norm perceptions. These findings highlight the important roles of scanning, norm perceptions and interpersonal discussions in shaping cognition and behavior changes. The results also suggest an overall pro-e-cigarette public communication environment, which warrants further examination.

A strong interpersonal relationship after stroke is important for the well-being of survivors and family caregivers. However, as many as 54% of families experience relationship problems after stroke and as many as 38% of couples experience overt conflict. The purpose of this study is to enhance understanding about relationship challenges among stroke dyads and to identify implications for direct practice in social work. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with N = 19 care dyads. Qualitative data were analyzed through an interpretive description lens. Seven themes about relationship challenges were identified. Findings highlight areas to consider in promoting strong relationships between survivors and family caregivers. Social workers may have the opportunity to assist dyads with disrupting negative communication cycles, strengthening empathy and collaboration, and achieving a balance so that each person's needs are met.

Background: The Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) is a widely used conceptual practice model in Finland. Therefore, Finnish translations of valid and reliable MOHO assessments are needed. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Finnish translation of the Assessment of Communication and Interaction Skills (ACIS-FI) using the many-facet Rasch model approach. Methods and Materials: Twenty-eight occupational therapists completed an in-person training workshop on the ACIS-FI and participated as raters in this study. One hundred and forty-eight clients were rated using the ACIS-FI. Rating scale functioning, unidimensionality, person validity and rater severity, item targeting, and item and person separation statistics were examined. Results: The rating scales demonstrated adequate functioning; the rating category 'deficit' was infrequently adopted by the raters. The ACIS-FI had satisfactory construct validity, as confirmed by all items exhibiting unidimensionality within a single construct (i.e. communication and interaction skills), and appropriate item fit. Validity was further confirmed through low person misfit (6%) and low rater misfit (3.6%). No ceiling or floor effects were found. The ACIS-FI was able to separate clients into four levels of communication and interaction skills. Conclusions: This study offers evidence for the validity of the ACIS-FI as a measure of communication and interaction skills in occupational therapy. Significance: The ACIS-FI offers Finnish practitioners and researchers a valid tool to measure communication and interactions skills that is theoretically grounded in the MOHO.

Background: Communication partner training could be employed to train people working in the community to facilitate interaction with individuals who live with a variety of communication disorders. However, current evidence syntheses are limited to a single disorder (e.g., aphasia) and focus on a variety of familiar and unfamiliar communication partners. An understanding of the scope of literature across the evidence-base of acquired neurological populations may provide a better basis to develop interventions and future research tailored for community workers., Aims: To explore the scope of literature on paid worker and unfamiliar partner communication training for acquired neurogenic communication disorders with a focus on describing: 1) the types of communication disorders addressed by interventions; 2) the types of learners who received the interventions; 3) the nature of the interventions; and 4) the reported effects on trainees and people with a communication disorder., Methods & Procedures: A scoping review was conducted. Studies were selected by a systematic keyword search, undertaken through four databases. Eligibility criteria included studies that: (i) reported an intervention directed at paid workers or unfamiliar partners where the primary goal was to improve communication with people with acquired neurogenic communication disorders, (ii) reported original results, (iii) contained quantitative or qualitative data on the effects of the intervention, (iv) were written in English or French and (v) were published in a peer-reviewed journal. The PRISMA-ScR was used to guide design and reporting of the scoping review., Results: Seventy publications met the inclusion criteria. Interventions were mostly disorder-specific and addressed communication with people with dementia, aphasia or traumatic brain injury. 15/70 studies examined training programs that were not restructured to a specific population (e.g., aphasia). Learners were mostly working or studying in the healthcare field and only 2/70 studies included community workers without primarily health training. Sixty different interventions were reported and were mostly delivered by speech-language pathologists. Training varied in terms of duration (a few minutes to 46 h) and content, but many shared training methods (e.g., presentation of theory on communication disorders). Nearly all studies demonstrated positive results, 23/26 studies suggested that paid worker and unfamiliar partner communication training may increase the knowledge of trainees, 24/26 studies suggested that it could improve their confidence when interacting with people with a communication disorder and 44/46 studies suggested that it could improve the trainees' communication abilities., Conclusion: A small developing evidence-base exists for communication training programs for paid and unfamiliar communications partners that focuses beyond a single diagnosis or disorder. However, there is very limited knowledge on interventions for community workers from non-health professions. Future research should focus on the evaluation of existing programs tailored to, or explicitly designed for this context with the aim of identifying active ingredients that lead to improved and sustainable outcomes., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Improved conflict handling is important to reduce relational discord. Touch potentially has beneficial effects on three important characteristics of conflict discussions, i.e., physiological reactivity, affect and communication behavior. We studied effects of hand-holding between partners during conflict discussions ( N  = 47 student couples) and after conflict discussions ( N  = 53 student and N  = 45 clinical couples). During conflict discussions hand-holding caused lower heart rate reactivity, higher positive affect and improved communication in men, and in women lower positive affect but improved communication. After conflict discussions hand-holding resulted in lower heart rate reactivity and higher heart rate variability in student couples and higher positive affect in student and clinical couples. Touch seems a promising add-on intervention in couple therapy.

Parents in the USA struggle to maintain their sexual and relational health over time. The current study aimed to investigate the impact of positive communication and partner appraisals on sexual and relationship satisfaction in a sample of 93 mixed sex couples ( N  = 186) with children living in the home on a full-time basis. Results indicated that for men and women, positive communication scores predicted higher levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction and more positive partner appraisals predicted higher levels of relationship satisfaction. Significant results were also found at the couple-level. Findings have clinical and educational implications for parents.

Background: Positive and effective staff-resident interactions are imperative to adequately assess and meet the needs of cognitively impaired residents in nursing homes and optimize their quality of life., Aim: The purpose of this study was to quantify, describe, and analyze the interaction between staff and cognitively impaired residents in nursing homes, using the Quality of Interaction Schedule (QuIS)., Method: This descriptive analysis utilized baseline data from the first 2 cohorts in a randomized clinical trial including 341 residents from 35 nursing homes., Results: Five hundred fifty-six staff-resident interactions were evaluated; majority were positive (n = 466, 83.8%) and the remaining were either neutral (n = 60, 10.8%) or negative (n = 30, 5.4%). The quality of interactions varied by interaction location, interpersonal distance, and resident participation., Conclusion: Future research should focus on decreasing the negative/neutral interactions and explore staff characteristics (eg, gender, level of experience) and facility factors (eg, size, ownership) that might influence the quality of interactions.

Previous neuroscience studies exploring the neural mechanisms of social deficits of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have mainly examined single participants' brain responses to pictures or video-clips displayed on a monitor from the perspective of a passive observer. The present study examined inter-brain communication between children with ASD and their parents in a socio-interactive context. We used a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning technique to simultaneously measure the prefrontal activations in 16 pairs of children with ASD and their parents in a two-person key-press task. The children's task was to press a key together with their parents in a cooperation condition when a "go" signal was present or to press a key as fast as possible under the observation by their parents in a single-person condition. We also measured children's severity of autism symptoms.We found that children with ASD showed increased interpersonal neural synchronization in the frontal cortex when engaging in cooperative interactions with their parents than when performing solo and non-interactive behaviors. Furthermore, this neural synchronization was modulated by the children's autism symptoms, which also covaried with their cooperation task performance. That is, children with severer autism symptoms showed lower level of action and neural synchronization with their parents during cooperation. Our study moved a major step forward in understanding the neural correlates underlying social deficits in ASD and provided important implications for the treatment and behavioral training of ASD.

This article makes the case for a sociological focus on the communicative, relational and interactional dimensions of nonsuicidal self-injury. While current research tends to be dominated by highly individual and intrapsychic models, it is increasingly observed that such models leave a social dimension to the practice unexplained. A burgeoning sociological literature has begun to address this paradox of the social in self-injury; however, we argue that the role of the social must be considered beyond the issues of aetiology, social learning and social construal/construction that are typically covered in this literature. Specifically, we argue that, since the lived meanings of self-injury directly implicate the interactional along with the intrapsychic, a more systematic focus on the role of social relations and social communication is vital. To illustrate this conceptual argument and embed it in the lived experiences of self-injury, we draw on two case studies taken from pilot research conducted by the authors. The more thoroughly sociological approach to self-injury that we present here offers an important compliment to the existing evidence base by reframing the absent presence of social communication contained within it, and suggesting important future directions for research., (© 2019 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for SHIL.)

Aim: To determine development curves of communication and social interaction from childhood into adulthood for individuals with cerebral palsy (CP)., Method: This Pediatric Rehabilitation Research in the Netherlands (PERRIN)-DECADE study longitudinally assessed 421 individuals with CP, aged from 1 to 20 years at baseline, after 13 years (n=121 at follow-up). Communication and social interactions were assessed using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. We estimated the average maximum performance limit (level) and age at which 90% of the limit was reached (age 90 ) using nonlinear mixed-effects modeling., Results: One-hundred individuals without intellectual disability were aged 21 to 34 years at follow-up (39 females, 61 males) (mean age [SD] 28y 5mo [3y 11mo]). Limits of individuals without intellectual disability, regardless of Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level, approached the maximum score and were significantly higher than those of individuals with intellectual disability. Ages 90 ranged between 3 and 4 years for receptive communication, 6 and 7 years for expressive communication and interrelationships, 12 and 16 years for written communication, 13 and 16 years for play and leisure, and 14 and 16 years for coping. Twenty-one individuals with intellectual disability were between 21 and 27 years at follow-up (8 females, 13 males) (mean age [SD] 24y 7mo [1y 8mo]). Individuals with intellectual disability in GMFCS level V showed the least favourable development, but variation between individuals with intellectual disability was large., Interpretation: Individuals with CP and without intellectual disability show developmental curves of communication and social interactions similar to typically developing individuals, regardless of their level of motor function. Those with intellectual disability reach lower performance levels and vary largely in individual development., What This Paper Adds: Communication and social interactions in individuals with cerebral palsy without intellectual disability develop similarly to typically developing individuals. Communication and social interactions of individuals with intellectual disability develop less favourably and show large variation., (© 2019 The Authors. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Mac Keith Press.)

Selecting good sources of information is a critical skill to navigate our highly social world. To evaluate the epistemic reputation of potential sources, the main criterion should be the relevance of the information they provide us. In two online experiments ( N = 801), we found that receivers are more thankful toward, deem more competent, and are more likely to request information in the future from sources of more relevant messages-if they know the message to be accurate or deem it plausible. To prevent sources from presenting information as more relevant than it is in order to improve their reputation, receivers lower the reputation of sources sending messages that are more relevant-if-true, if they know the message to be inaccurate. Our research sheds light on the reputational trade-offs involved in choosing what information to communicate and helps explain transmission patterns such as rumors diffusion.

This article is a systematic methodological literature review with the goal of understanding how and why health communication researchers are using mixed methods research (MMR) to better understand interpersonal communication between diabetes patients, their loved ones, and health care professionals. First, we provide a brief overview of MMR, followed by a discussion of the appropriateness of using MMR in health research. We then explain our search procedures for identifying MMR studies about interpersonal diabetes communication and describe our analysis of the identified studies. We then offer a brief, quantitative summary of our findings and provide details of exemplar studies to illustrate the unique value added by using MMR. We conclude the article with a discussion of implications and recommendations for the use of MMR in diabetes communication research.

The amount of time adolescents spend communicating via digital technologies such as smartphones has led to concerns that computer-mediated communication (CMC) is displacing face-to-face (FtF) interactions and disrupting social development. Although many studies have examined CMC in adolescents' relationships with friends, few studies have examined the role of CMC in adolescents' renegotiation of closeness and autonomy with parents. To examine this issue, we administered an online daily diary with 169 U.S. adolescents to estimate the time they spend in CMC and FtF interactions and the number of texts they exchange with friends and parents. On the last day of the survey, we asked adolescents about their emotional closeness to friends and parents and their balance of closeness and volition with parents. Overall, we found more evidence for social stimulation than displacement effects of CMC. Texts and CMC time with friends predicted friend closeness after accounting for FtF time with friends; texts with parents predicted parent closeness after accounting for FtF time with parents. We also found support for our hypothesis that CMC would be associated with greater adolescent volition. CMC time with parents predicted greater volitional dependence (volition plus closeness) whereas texts with friends predicted greater independent decision-making (volition plus distance). We discuss how communication technologies are integrated into U.S. adolescents' relationships with friends and parents and how CMC can facilitate, rather than stifle, adolescents' adjustment of autonomy-relatedness with parents and their construction of emotional closeness with friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Whereas there is evidence that interpersonal communication, or conversation, influences predictors of alcohol consumption, the role of involvement in conversation effects remains unclear. This study explored how three aspects of involvement (topical relevance, or how relevant the topic of alcohol is; conversational relevance, or how relevant a conversation about alcohol is; and conversational effort, or how much effort people put into such a conversation), influence conversation effects. After assessing topical relevance, 46 same-sex dyads were requested to talk about the negative consequences of heavy drinking. Within each dyad, one participant was asked to take on an active talking role and the other participant a passive listening role. Next, conversational relevance, effort, and predictors of heavy drinking were measured. Results showed that participants who drank more alcohol found the topic of heavy drinking more relevant. This topical relevance increased conversational relevance and conversational effort. Conversational effort further increased when a talking role was assigned. Furthermore, participants who put more effort in the conversation and found it more relevant had more positive norms, identified more strongly with alcohol, and had higher intentions to drink. These findings suggest that more involvement in an alcohol-related conversation does not always lead to desirable outcomes.

Vulvodynia affects about 8% of women, many of whom report a negative impact on their ability to have sexually satisfying relationships. In this study, we examined predictors of sexual satisfaction in 207 women with clinically confirmed vulvodynia. We adapted a model examining resilience in chronic pain patients originally developed by Sturgeon and Zautra to include resilience factors (communication with partner about sexual health and coping strategies) and vulnerable factors (abuse history, pain intensity, rumination). These variables were regressed onto sexual satisfaction. In the full model, only emotion-based rumination was predictive of sexual satisfaction. Thus, focusing on emotion-based rumination in clinical intervention may improve sexual satisfaction.

Background: Self-management of heart failure (HF) is often a joint venture between patients and their friends and family ("framily"). However, this joint experience is often overlooked in clinical care., Objectives: The aim of this study was to understand the cognitive, emotional, and relational elements affecting the experience of patient-framily member dyads managing HF., Methods: Participants were patients with HF receiving care at a university hospital and their framily. Dyads participated in 30- to 45-minute semistructured interviews before their clinic visit. Transcribed interviews were analyzed using thematic analyses. Interviews were coded independently and checked for interrater agreement before the final coded data set was developed. Participants were recruited until thematic saturation was attained., Results: A total of 16 patient-framily member dyads and 1 triad (n = 35) participated in the study; 47.1% of patients and 77.8% of framily members were female. Patients were 66 years old (SD, 14 years) and framily members were 59 years old (SD, 12.3 years). Three aspects of the dyadic experience emerged in the themes: (1) health beliefs of dyads were characterized by acceptance and optimism, but also pessimism; (2) negative emotions influenced the dyadic experience; (3) the closeness of their interpersonal relationships influenced their contributions to managing HF., Conclusions: Our study suggests that greater attention to the experience and interpersonal relationships of dyads has the potential for improving HF self-management and facilitating patient-centered care.

Communication through social media characterizes modern lifestyles and relationships, including family interactions. The present study aims at deepening the role that parents' perceptions about social media effects on family systems can exert within their family functioning, specifically referring to the relationship between collective family efficacy and open communications within family systems with adolescents. A questionnaire to detect the openness of family communications, the collective family efficacy and the perceptions about the impacts of social media on family systems was administered to 227 Italian parents who had one or more teenage children, and who use Facebook and WhatsApp to communicate with them. From the results, these perceptions emerge as a mediator in the relationship between the collective family efficacy and the openness of communications, suggesting that it is not only the actual impact of social media on family systems that matters but also parents' perceptions about it and how much they feel able to manage their and their children's social media use without damaging their family relationships. Thus, the need to foster parents' positive perceptions about social media's potential impact on their family relationships emerges. A strategy could be the promotion of knowledge on how to functionally use social media.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly prevalent neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social reciprocity and communication together with restricted interest and stereotyped behaviors. The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is considered a 'gold standard' instrument for diagnosis of ASD and mainly depends on subjective assessments made by trained clinicians. To develop a quantitative and objective surrogate marker for ASD symptoms, we investigated speech features including F0, speech rate, speaking time, and turn-taking gaps, extracted from footage recorded during a semi-structured socially interactive situation from ADOS. We calculated not only the statistic values in a whole session of the ADOS activity but also conducted a block analysis, computing the statistical values of the prosodic features in each 8s sliding window. The block analysis identified whether participants changed volume or pitch according to the flow of the conversation. We also measured the synchrony between the participant and the ADOS administrator. Participants with high-functioning ASD showed significantly longer turn-taking gaps and a greater proportion of pause time, less variability and less synchronous changes in blockwise mean of intensity compared with those with typical development (TD) (p<0.05 corrected). In addition, the ASD group had significantly wider distribution than the TD group in the within-participant variability of blockwise mean of log F0 (p<0.05 corrected). The clinical diagnosis could be discriminated using the speech features with 89% accuracy. The features of turn-taking and pausing were significantly correlated with deficits of ASD in reciprocity (p<0.05 corrected). Additionally, regression analysis provided 1.35 of mean absolute error in the prediction of deficits in reciprocity, to which the synchrony of intensity especially contributed. The findings suggest that considering variance of speech features, interaction and synchrony with conversation partner are critical to characterize atypical features in the conversation of people with ASD., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Referring to the notion of "possible worlds", the paper aims to investigate an intriguing aspect of children's thinking: the function that play narrative scenarios in sharing with other partners (peers and adults) the child's understanding of the physical and social reality. The idea of possible worlds to which this work relates, can be considered in some way as the legacy of Piaget's pioneering research on symbolic thinking, currently referred in Harris's perspective as "work of imagination". Over the past few decades now, the notion of possible worlds has supported a new representation of the child's thinking that is based on the idea that imagination allows children to explore alternative and multiple versions of reality. Among other things, imagination permits to the child to use sophisticated forms of causal reasoning and understanding of the rules of social life. By reconsidering a part of the literature on "possible worlds" and presenting two empirical observations, this paper wants to draw attention to the central role played by explorative thinking in child's argumentative activities. Angelo, the three-year-old who is the protagonist of the episode reported, is a child like many: constantly relating to the social world, attentive to what is happening around him and, in particular, to the events in which he finds himself involved. Surprisingly equipped to position himself and act in the routines that he knows, but also capable of adopting effective strategies with respect to events that he cannot foresee and that are built constantly, and in a manner situated during interpersonal events. From a certain point of view, he acts in a competent way in the present, but thanks to previous experiences he seems equally ready to anticipate the activities that follow each other in the many scenarios of reality and fiction of which his daily experience is made up. In the example above, Angelo shows a precise interpretation of the situation (evidently based on previous experiences) and provides a solidly argued answer to his mother's request. The reference to the socio-material context fully supports his argument with the use of a perceptive fact that is difficult to contest. As highlighted by the short sequence presented, the dialogue between Angelo and his mother undoubtedly takes on the characteristics of an argumentative activity. As in a court debate, the child/lawyer explores the relationships with the other participants, offering to the jury "material" evidence. This will allow him both to challenge his mother's point of view and to defend his own authoritatively. To give an account of the variety of thinking strategies that Angelo exhibits and also to illustrate the exploratory function of argumentation in children, this paper will explore the idea that during social interaction each participant builds narrative versions of the world from his own point of view. As Bruner (2002) wrote, possible worlds offer the possibility of throwing new light on the "real" world. On a theoretical level, this rapid exchange in the family can be defined as an illustration of sophisticated thinking activities (partly argumentative) in a three-year-old child. In fact, only a few sequences of observation of the unstoppable activities of Angelo are sufficient, as they are of any other child in everyday life situations, to obtain a large number of useful elements to understand the active role of younger generations in challenging the rules of social worlds and in reproducing and creating new cultural forms during social interactions (Corsaro 1997). More specifically, this paper aims to showcase firstly how this way of acting in the physical and social reality emerges early in children's development, especially in situations where they have to defend their point of view or try to convince someone to do something. Secondly, it wants to show that these early thinking strategies are displayed by children mainly as activities of exploration of narrative scenarios (possible worlds) that emerge during social interactions. In order to answer these central questions for the study of thinking in children, this paper will a) analyse the notion of "possible worlds" as Bruner refers to it, b) present two transcripts of social interactions that allow clear examples of the children's thinking activity, and c) discuss studies that support the acceptance of early cognitive activity in children and the multipurpose and flexible nature of child's learning capacities (Gopnik and Meltzoff 1998).

In a recent article published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP; Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson, & Gino, 2017), we reported the results of 2 experiments involving "getting acquainted" conversations among strangers and an observational field study of heterosexual speed daters. In all 3 studies, we found that asking more questions in conversation, especially follow-up questions (that indicate responsiveness to a partner), increases interpersonal liking of the question asker. Kluger and Malloy (2019) offer a critique of the analyses in Study 3 of our article. Though their response is a positive signal of engaged interest in our research, they made 3 core mistakes in their analyses that render their critique invalid. First, they tested the wrong variables, leading to conclusions that were erroneous. Second, even if they had analyzed the correct variables, some of their analytical choices were not valid for our speed-dating dataset, casting doubt on their conclusions. Third, they misrepresented our original findings, ignoring results in all 3 of our studies that disprove some of their central criticisms. In summary, the conclusions that Kluger and Malloy (2019) drew about Huang et al. (2017)'s findings are incorrect. The original results are reliable and robust: Asking more questions, especially follow-up questions, increases interpersonal liking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The aim of the present study was to gain an understanding of the perspectives of men who were convicted of committing a sexual offense that included online sexual grooming. It explores their experiences of illegal interactions with young people via Internet communication platforms, which progressed to physical meetings. Semistructured interviews were conducted with two men and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), providing in-depth accounts of their personal experiences. These are presented in a case study format. Three dominant themes emerged from the analysis: (a) fulfilling an unmet need, (b) spiraling cycle of use, and (c) confrontation with reality. Narrative tones employed by the two men were "being trapped in a lie," analogous to a problem narrative through which their Internet use was presented as a poor and/or failed coping strategy to deal with life stress. Through a process of habituation, their Internet use spiraled out of control. A progression was described in terms of time spent on the computer, frequency and intensity of online interactions, and the impact this had on the men's personal lives, highlighting the "compulsive" nature of such interactions for them. A consideration of individual and situational vulnerability factors provides new insight into the progression of online sexual behavior and contributes to our understanding thereof.

Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson, and Gino (2017) studied the role of question asking in conversations. They claimed to have identified "a robust and consistent relationship between question-asking and liking" (p. 1), where liking is affected largely by follow-up questions, rather than by switch questions. They concluded that their "data support a trait-level model of question-asking behavior" (p. 12), and that "question-asking is a critical component of active listening" (p. 14). Our theoretical, methodological, and empirical reanalyses of their speed-dating study (Study 3), where liking was operationalized as being offered a second date, lead to different conclusions. Their speed-dating data conforms to an asymmetric block design, and should have been analyzed using the social relations model, to unconfound the effects of the actor, partner, dyad, and gender. Social relations modeling showed that about a third of the variance of question asking can be attributed to a trait, but that another third of the variance can be attributed to the specific dyad, and some smaller portion of the variance can be attributed to the partner's tendency to elicit question asking. Bivariate social relations modeling showed that latent scores of follow-up questions and switch questions are largely isomorphic. Finally, asking an opposite sex partner questions tends to be inversely related to being offered a second date, at least for men. Based on theory, our reanalysis, and other empirical findings, we conclude that offering a second-date is not equivalent to liking, and that question asking is different from listening. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: Little attention has been paid to understanding how engaging in cancer-related interpersonal exchanges via varying modes of communication influences psychological well-being among young adults with cancer. This study explored the moderating role of communication mode on the relationship of relational processes of disclosure and responsiveness with psychological well-being., Methods: 61 young adults with cancer (M age = 34.59, SD = 4.82) completed a questionnaire about their most recent cancer-related conversation. Participants reported on communication mode (ie, face-to-face, text message, and phone call) and relational processes of self- and support member- disclosure of thoughts, information, and feelings and how accepted, cared for, and understood they felt within the cancer-related conversation. Cancer adjustment measures included functional well-being and depressive symptoms., Results: There were no main effects of communication mode or relational processes. However, communication mode did moderate the relationship between relational processes and cancer adjustment. Greater relational processes of disclosure and responsiveness were associated with better functional well-being and lower depressive symptoms only among those who engaged in their most recent cancer-related conversation through technology-related communication and not for those engaged in face-to-face communication., Conclusion: Relational processes that are likely to benefit psychological adjustment after cancer appear to be particularly advantageous over technology-based communication. Young adults commonly report feelings of social isolation and psychological distress after cancer. These findings suggest that technology-related communication holds promise as a way to strengthen support-related communication and protect against distress., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

The main research objective of this study was seeking the predictive role of closeness to parents, attachment, identity style, identity commitment, type of relationship, and having children in intimacy among young women and men. Many studies indicate differences in the level of engagement, communication, and satisfaction in relationships. The study group comprised 227 people, including 114 women (M = 29.99; SD = 4.36), and 113 men (M = 30.00; SD = 4.33). A total of 40% of the subjects were married, and the remaining 60% subjects were in informal relationships; 101 people had children and the other individuals were childless. The following instruments were used: The Miller Social Intimacy Scale, questionnaires to assess closeness and attachment, and the Identity Style Inventory. The significance of the differences and the stepwise regression analysis were performed. The results of the study demonstrated a higher level of intimacy in a relationship with a partner among women than men. The nature of a relationship does not matter to the sense of intimacy. However, closeness to parents during childhood and adolescence, the model of interpersonal relations, and the identity style are predictors of intimacy in a relationship. The study results can be used in creating preventive and educational programs focused on family life and satisfied relationships.

Since the beginning of my nursing career in South Africa, for me, it has always been about relationships. I was three years older than my classmates in nursing school and was married before I graduated, so my social life was separate, but I made friends and enjoyed listening to their dating successes and woes. One of my instructors lived down the road from me, and we spent many an evening talking about nursing. She had worked in Canada's North, and I remember her telling me that it was so cold that her contact lenses froze. Little did I anticipate that, one day, I too would move to Canada (the cold certainly has been a persistent issue for me). In many ways, she was a mentor-although I didn't realize it at the time-and she was certainly an inspiration.

Communication Complexity Scale (CCS) scores for 269 minimally verbal participants were examined to determine if communicator behavior and task and communicator characteristics were related to scores in a manner consistent with theoretical and research evidence expectations. Each participant completed an interactive assessment with 6 joint attention tasks and 6 behavior regulation tasks. Caregivers completed the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales II. Results indicated (a) joint attention tasks yielded lower scores than behavior regulation tasks, (b) older participants had lower scores, (c) individuals with autism spectrum disorder scored more similarly than those without, (d) the difference between joint attention and behavior regulation scores was greater for the autism spectrum disorder group, and (e) adaptive behavior was significantly positively related to complexity scores.

The goal of our study was to provide qualitative data on the long-term effects of a couple-based HIV prevention program, the Couples Health Co-Op (CHC), in South Africa. Qualitative focus group discussions were conducted with nonrandomly selected Black South African men (n = 27) and women (n = 23) who had participated in the Couples Health Co-Op 4 to 6 years prior to our study. The study evaluated: (a) salient content and skills learned, (b) long-term changes and challenges, and (c) recommendations for intervention improvement. Findings revealed (a) communication/problem-solving, safe sexual behaviors, and negative effects of alcohol were most salient; (b) long-term changes occurred in communication and healthier sexual behavior; alcohol use remained challenging; and (c) participants recommended continuing the couple format and suggested targeting teenage couples. We offer preliminary evidence of the strengths and weaknesses of the Couples Health Co-Op and provide a basis for future studies to build on these results.

Objective: To identify the level of interpersonal communication competence among nursing students and to correlate its domains with sociodemographic and academic variables., Method: This is a correlational study, developed through a multicenter research project in six federal universities in Brazil. Data from 1,079 nursing students were collected through a questionnaire with sociodemographic and academic variables and the Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics., Results: The mean of the sum of the Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale was 63.74 (± 7.6). The domains "availability" and "environment control" had, respectively, the highest and lowest averages. There was a statistically significant difference between the sum of the Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale and the variables age, marital status, participation in a research/extension group, and paid professional activity., Conclusion: This study contributed to identify the level of interpersonal communication competence of nursing students in the Brazilian reality, providing useful information for education in the area.

'Self-deprecation' (SD) is widely understood within social psychology and popular culture as a form of self-talk that reflects a cognitive state, such as low self-esteem or negative self-regard. However, most research on SD suffers theoretical and methodological problems that fail to account for how its cognitive and linguistic aspects can be reconciled. We know little about SD as it occurs in interactional settings. Utilizing a conversation analytic (CA) perspective that brackets cognitive explanations for linguistic phenomena, this paper draws on more than 100 hours of transcribed recordings of interactions from diverse settings to systematically examine the form and function of a common class of SD: critical comments by a speaker on their current talk or actions (self-deprecatory meta-comments; SDMCs). Analyses demonstrate that SDMCs are used in environments of possible or actual interactional trouble, and manage this trouble in different sequential positions. The paper shows that SDs can be treated as a communication practice. Rigorous analysis of SDMCs can enrich understanding of the construction of 'identities' in talk. It advances a CA understanding of the ascription of social actions, and the preference for self-criticism over criticism by others. Findings suggest that widespread advice to self-deprecate less may be invalid., (© 2019 The Author. British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.)

Validated screening and diagnostic tools for autism spectrum disorder for use in Arabic-speaking individuals are scarce. This study validated the Arabic version of the Social Communication Questionnaire. The total study sample included 206 children with autism spectrum disorder and 206 typically developing children (73.8% male; mean age: 8.5 (standard deviation = 2.6) years). The mean Social Communication Questionnaire total score was significantly higher in autism spectrum disorder children than in typically developing children ( p  < 0.0001). Scores on the three Social Communication Questionnaire subscales also differed significantly between the groups ( p  < 0.001). Of the 39 items, 37 were endorsed significantly more often in the autism spectrum disorder group. The total Social Communication Questionnaire score did not vary by age or gender. Internal consistency was excellent (alpha = 0.92). In the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve for the total score showed excellent discrimination between autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children (area under the curve = 0.95; 95% confidence interval: 0.93-0.97). The areas under the curve for the scale subscores were 0.923 (95% confidence interval: 0.898-0.949) for the social interaction score, 0.872 (95% confidence interval: 0.838-0.905) for the communication score, and 0.856 (95% confidence interval: 0.819-0.893) for the repetitive behaviors score. The findings support the use of the Arabic Social Communication Questionnaire to successfully differentiate children with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder using the established cutoff value for the English version.

Family communication environments can be a facilitator or barrier to family cooperation and communication in collecting family health history (FHH) information, which can facilitate disease prevention. This study examined the direct and indirect effects of family communicative environments on whether individuals actively collected FHH information, as well as how age and sex differences complicate this relationship. Participants ( N = 203) completed online surveys, answering close-ended questions about their family's communication patterns, how open their family is to communicating about FHH, and whether they have actively collected FHH information. Results show there was a direct effect between open family communicative environments and active collection, and found FHH communication openness was a positive partial mediator. Conversely, family environments stressing hierarchy and homogeneity of beliefs inhibit open communication about and collection of a FHH. Analysis of age and sex as moderators in the models showed a significant conditional indirect effects, which grew stronger as participants' age increased. Furthermore, results showed open family communicative environments lead to active collection of FHH for women, but not for men. Results confirm the importance of family communicative environments in facilitating or inhibiting FHH collection. Findings from the current study provide intervention points for practitioners to advise patients on the importance of collecting a FHH and guide behaviors to collect FHH information based on the family communicative environment.

Purpose: This study was designed to examine both actor and partner effects of perceived marital relationship on quality of life, as well as the mediating effect of holding back cancer-related concerns., Methods: This was a cross-sectional study in an outpatient setting. Participants were 150 couples consisting of patients with lung cancer and their spouses. Perceived marital relationship, holding back cancer-related concerns, and quality of life were measured with self-report scales. Actor and partner effects on quality of life were analyzed using the actor-partner interdependence mediation model by using structural equation modeling., Results: A couple's quality of life had a significant direct actor effect on the perceived marital relationship. However, the partner effect and the indirect effect of holding back cancer-related concerns on quality of life was not significant., Conclusion: When patients with lung cancer and their spouses perceived their marital relationship positively, they assessed their quality of life positively. They were also found to be less hesitant when talking about cancer-related concerns. However, holding back on talking concerns did not have a significant impact on the quality of life (of either oneself or the spouse). Therefore, nurses should first check how they perceive their marital relationship before encouraging communication between patients with lung cancer and their spouses. Nurses can assess these risk factors and intervene if needed, along their cancer trajectory., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by difficulties with social communication, with a preponderance in males. Evidence supports a relationship between metacognitive executive functions (e.g. planning, working memory) and social communication in autism spectrum disorder, yet relationships with specific metacognitive executive functions and how gender alters the expression of these relationships require further study. We used multiple regression to examine relationships between informant-based measures of metacognitive executive function and social communication in intellectually able (IQ ⩾ 85) female ( n  = 111; mean age = 10.2 ± 2.8; 31 autism spectrum disorder) and male youth ( n  = 310; mean age = 10.5 ± 1.9; 146 autism spectrum disorder) with and without autism spectrum disorder from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange-II database. Executive function-social communication relationships were different in females and males with autism spectrum disorder. Relationships between the entire metacognitive index and social communication were stronger in males with autism spectrum disorder than without; this pattern was also observed for metacognitive sub-indices 'monitor' and 'working memory'. These patterns were not observed in females. Relationships between executive function and social communication appear different for female and male youth with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. To better understand the nature of metacognitive contributions to social communication in autism spectrum disorder, future work should investigate the co-development of monitoring, working memory and social communication, while taking gender into account.

Perceptions of entitativity are thought to be influenced by salient features such as the physical proximity and physical similarity of group members (Campbell in Behav Sci 3:14-25, 1958). But social interactions among group members involve a number of low-level alignment (Pickering and Garrod in Behav Brain Sci 27:212-225, 2004) and synchronization (Marsh et al. in Top Cogn Sci 1:320-339, 2009) processes. Conversational partners, for instance, become aligned in syntax, semantics, emotion, and bodily posture. In this paper, we explore whether alignment correlates with observers' judgments of entitativity, and, moreover, which specific forms of alignment have the strongest effects on these judgments. Results revealed that only emotional alignment had on effect on judgments of entitativity. We discuss how future work may further assess the role of various dimensions in shaping the perception of group status in linguistic interaction.

Aims and Objectives: To compare the communication and practice experiences of migrant nurses in geographically distant, culturally dissimilar countries in Eastern and Western contexts., Background: Considerable research has focused on the experience of acculturation of migrant nurses into geographically diverse locations. However, there remains scant comparative research which considers the ways in which migrant nurses interpret their experience through making "sense" of events encountered in their practice., Design: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted using face-to-face interviews with 36 migrant nurses currently practising in New Zealand and 20 migrant nurses practising in the United Arab Emirates., Methods: The same question schedule was used to explore influences on communication and practice in both settings. Thematic analysis and sensemaking theory guided coding and analysis of data. COREQ guidelines informed the reporting of qualitative data., Results: Qualitative analysis resulted in five representative themes, three illustrating similarities across diverse cultures and two that demonstrate the differences migrant nurses require to navigate across contrasting cultural environments successfully., Conclusion: Cultural value-based differences in both locales caused both systemic and interpersonal sensemaking challenges for migrant nurses that emphasise the importance of orientation and education programmes for internationally qualified nurses. However, cultural conflicts also exist within groups. Orientation programmes should address culturally patterned responses among different groups of internationally qualified nurses., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Findings demonstrate a need for migrant nurses to be willing to embrace ambiguity in order to acculturate into a collaborative team culture in each of the geographical locations in this study. As registered nurses (RNs) also carry their cultural imprint, orientation interventions targeting the cultural variations of nurses in less standardised orientation programmes may be more beneficial in enhancing acculturation and in turn, staff retention., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Previous research has shown a link between eye contact and interpersonal motor resonance, indicating that the mirroring of observed movements is enhanced when accompanied with mutual eye contact between actor and observer. Here, we further explored the role of eye contact within a naturalistic two-person action context. Twenty-two participants observed simple hand movements combined with direct or averted gaze presented via a live model in a two-person setting or via video recordings, while transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over the primary motor cortex (M1) to measure changes in M1 excitability. Skin conductance responses and gaze behavior were also measured to investigate the role of arousal and visual attention herein. Eye contact significantly enhanced excitability of the observer's M1 during movement observation within a two-person setting. Notably, participants with higher social responsiveness (Social Communication subscale of the Social Responsiveness Scale) displayed a more pronounced modulation of M1 excitability by eye gaze. Gaze-related modulations in M1 excitability were, however, not associated with differences in visual attention or autonomic arousal. In summary, the current study highlights the effectiveness and feasibility of adopting paradigms with high ecological validity for studying the modulation of mirror system processes by subtle social cues, such as eye gaze., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Human communication is thoroughly context bound. We present two experiments investigating the importance of the shared context, that is, the amount of knowledge two interlocutors have in common, for the successful emergence and use of novel conventions. Using a referential communication task where black-and-white pictorial symbols are used to convey colors, pairs of participants build shared conventions peculiar to their dyad without experimenter feedback, relying purely on ostensive-inferential communication. Both experiments demonstrate that access to the visual context promotes more successful communication. Importantly, success improves cumulatively, supporting the view that pairs establish conventional ways of using the symbols to communicate. Furthermore, Experiment 2 suggests that dyads with access to the visual context successfully adapt the conventions built for one color space to another color space, unlike dyads lacking it. In linking experimental pragmatics with language evolution, the study illustrates the benefits of exploring the emergence of linguistic conventions using an ostensive-inferential model of communication., (© 2019 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society.)

Problem: Medical education needs to evolve to continue producing physicians who are able to meet the needs of diverse patient populations. Students can be a unique source of ideas about medical education transformation., Approach: In the fall of 2015, the authors created the American Medical Association Medical Education Innovation Challenge, an incentive-based competition for teams of two to four students. The challenge called for teams to "turn medical education on its head" by proposing a change to some aspect of medical education that would better prepare students to meet the health care needs of the future., Outcomes: Teams submitted 154 proposals. Themes from the winning teams and those that received an honorable mention included innovative uses of technology, creating physical spaces to pursue solutions to health care problems, wellness education, and longitudinal learning experiences around health equity and advocacy. The authors invited all teams to submit an abstract of their proposal to be published in an abstract book. The four winning teams and the 24 teams that received an honorable mention and submitted an abstract were surveyed to assess the impact of the challenge. Fifteen teams (54%) responded. Ten of those teams (67%) were implementing their idea or a related innovation to some degree., Next Steps: The American Medical Association continues to run a wide variety of innovation challenges (e.g., Healthier Nation Innovation Challenge, Health Care Interoperability & Innovation Challenge) that draw in diverse stakeholders to solve problems in medical education and the health care system more broadly.

Purpose: Communication partner training can be beneficial in reducing accessibility barriers for people with aphasia The aim of the present study was to determine whether face-to-face or telepractice (real time video-teleconference system) delivery of a communication partner training program was associated with greater improvements in confidence and knowledge of effective communication strategies among allied health professionals., Method: 55 health professionals were randomly allocated to receive face-to-face (n = 27) or telepractice (n = 28) communication partner training. All participants completed their allocated training. A customised mixed-methods self-completed questionnaire was used before and after receiving communication partner training for participants to rate their confidence when communicating with people with aphasia using a 100mm visual analogue scale and answer an open-ended question about knowledge of communication strategies., Results: At baseline, there was no significant differences between groups in confidence ratings (median (IQR), face-to-face 48mm (32mm, 54mm), telepractice 43mm (29mm, 56mm)) or number of strategies identified (face-to-face median=4, IQR 3-5; telepractice median=3, IQR 2-4). At the post-intervention assessment, confidence was significantly higher (p<0.001) for both groups (median (IQR), face-to-face 95mm (90mm, 97mm), telepractice 93mm (88mm, 97mm)), but no significant effect of group allocation was present. Similarly, more communication strategies (p<0.001) were identified (face-to-face median=9, IQR 8-12; telepractice median=9, IQR 8-11) but no significant effect of group allocation was present., Conclusions: This study demonstrated health professionals confidence for communicating with people with aphasia and knowledge of strategies to facilitate communication improved immediately after receiving communication partner training via either face-to-face or telepractice, but neither approach was superior., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)