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Preliminary data indicates that parents involved in home-based relationship-focused intervention for infants with developmental delay showed greater responsiveness to the infant, participated in more frequent reciprocal activities, showed more organized involvement with the child, and tended to note positive changes in the infant's responsiveness to them. (CL)

The difficulty of students transferring from Further Education Colleges and progressing to Higher Education Universities in the United Kingdom is a well-known problem. The study presented here focuses on the ability of students to begin to engage with the subject of computer programming on transferring after 2 years of study at a further education college into a 3rd year of a university programme. There is an assumption that there are environmental factors within the change that cause the problems of student engagement with their studies. The findings of this study concurs with difficulties for many students with beginning to engage with skills such as programming. However, the findings presented in this paper challenges the assumption that it is environmental factors within the university and proposes that the problem is not due to a difficulty of transfer from further education to Higher Education but that the problem pre-dates this transfer. The problem proposed from this study is that many students simply do not gain the skills their qualifications suggest while in Further Education. Subsequently, many students cannot begin to engage with skilled subject areas at University. It is proposed that the extent of the problem remains hidden and ultimately unsolvable due to a target-driven management system placing a focus on pass rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we critique current conceptualizations and methods of studying posttraumatic growth and offer an alternative framework using clinical trauma theory, specifically, Constructivist Self Development Theory (CSDT). We identify five limitations in the current literature: (1) a strict adherence to nomothetic investigation, (2) reliance on moderator analyses over descriptive inquiry, (3) exclusive use of univariate outcome indicators, (4) failure to distinguish effortful from automatic change, and (5) oversight of abrupt change. We offer CSDT as an integrative clinical theory that identifies five aspects of the self affected by traumatic events and examine how the study of thriving guided by CSDT could overcome these limitations. We conclude with a discussion of change, distinguishing that which occurs within psychotherapy from that which occurs outside the therapeutic context.

Action theory proposes that individuals actively shape and then respond to their environments, highlighting the role of stable person characteristics in the development and maintenance of life's interpersonal difficulties. In this study, the authors adopt the action perspective in their examination of predictors of daily interpersonal events among chronic pain patients with rheumatoid arthritis. They probe the extent to which stable symptoms of illness explained between-person variation, and fluctuating symptoms explain day-to-day variation in both positive and negative events. Their evaluation of patients' daily diary reports indicate that between-person differences accounted for more variance in the occurrence of positive events relative to negative events (48% vs. 31%, respectively). Likewise, between-person factors accounted for more variance in appraisals of positive compared to negative events across relationship domains. Both intractable illness symptoms and disability, and daily fluctuations in pain and fatigue, were only weakly related to patients' reports of their interpersonal experiences. Consistent with action theory, these results suggest that stable person characteristics are strongly related to daily stressors and particularly daily positive events in pain patients, but still account for less than 50% of the variance in events and their appraisals. In contrast, elevations in illness-related features, both between individuals and within individuals from day-to-day, are not robust predictors of positive or negative social exchanges. These findings point to the value of capturing the experiences of individuals intensively over time, an approach that can help to elaborate the contributions of both stable factors and circumstance in shaping social contexts in chronic illness. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 62: 1097–1113, 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Pain coping skills training (PCST) has been shown to produce immediate improvements in pain and disability in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, some patients have difficulty maintaining these gains. This study compared a conventional PCST protocol with a PCST protocol that included maintenance training (PCST/MT). Patients with RA (n = 167) were randomly assigned to either conventional PCST, PCST/MT, arthritis education control, or standard care control. Daily data were collected on joint pain, coping, coping efficacy, and mood. Multilevel analyses showed that at posttreatment, conventional PCST was superior to all other conditions in joint pain, coping efficacy, and negative mood, whereas PCST/MT was superior to all other conditions in emotion-focused coping and positive mood. At 18 months follow-up, both PCST conditions were superior to standard care in joint pain and coping efficacy. Interpretation of follow-up outcomes was limited by higher dropout rates in the 2 PCST groups. For RA, a maintenance training component does not appear to produce significant improvements over conventional PCST. Perspective: This article reports a trial evaluating a conventional pain coping skills training protocol and a similar protocol that included a maintenance training component. Overall, results indicate similar results for both the conventional and the modified protocols. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study examined how a previous episode of depression is related to daily pain and reactions to pain among individuals with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome. Seventy-one women with fibromyalgia (including 30 who were previously depressed) rated their pain and mood 3 times daily for 30 days. Each night, participants rated the extent to which they responded to pain by catastrophizing, how much control they had over that day's pain, their ways of coping with pain that day, and the effectiveness of their coping efforts. Multivariate multilevel regression models revealed that after controlling for neuroticism and current depressive symptoms, formerly depressed and never-depressed individuals differed in how they coped with increased pain and in how they appraised the efficacy of their coping efforts. Formerly depressed participants who also reported more current depressive symptoms showed a greater decline in pleasant mood on more painful days than did formerly depressed participants who were experiencing fewer current depressive symptoms. These findings illustrate how a history of depression can be captured in the dynamics of daily life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors applaud A. S. Green, E. Rafaeli, N. Bolger, P. E. Shrout, and H. T. Reis's (2006) response to one-sided comparisons of paper versus electronic (plastic) diary methods and hope that it will stimulate more balanced considerations of the issues involved. The authors begin by highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement with Green et al. The authors review briefly the broader literature that has compared paper and plastic diaries, noting how recent comparisons have relied on study designs and methods that favor investigators' allegiances. The authors note some sorely needed data for the evaluation of the implications of paper versus plastic for the internal and external validity of research. To facilitate evaluation of the existing literature and assist in the design of future studies, the authors offer a balanced comparison of paper and electronic diary methods across a range of applications. Finally, the authors propose 2 study designs that offer fair comparisons of paper and plastic diary methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]