Search

Investment in research and programs to discover and apply the principles that underpin sustained behavior change is needed to address the continuing threat from COVID-19 and future pandemics and will require collaboration among behavioral, social, biomedical, public-health and clinical scientists., Author(s): Susan Michie [sup.1] , Robert West [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) Centre for Behaviour Change, University College London, London, UK (2) Department of Behavioural Science and Health, Institute of Epidemiology [...]

This study examined physical discomfort intolerance (DI) as a baseline predictor of weight loss and physical activity outcomes, and assessed whether changes in DI during the initial phase of weight loss prospectively predicted long-term treatment outcomes among adults enrolled in a group-based lifestyle modification program for obesity. DI was measured at baseline and 6 months, and weight and accelerometer-measured physical activity were assessed at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Baseline DI was not related to weight loss or physical activity at either timepoint. Change in DI during the first 6 months of treatment was not related to concurrent (i.e., 6-month) weight loss and physical activity, but was significantly predictive of weight loss and physical activity at 12 months. Assessing early changes in DI may help to identify individuals at risk for suboptimal outcomes. Future research should evaluate behavioral weight loss interventions designed to target DI., Author(s): Mary K. Martinelli [sup.1] , Kathryn M. Godfrey [sup.1] , Monica Martinez [sup.1] , Evan M. Forman [sup.1] , Meghan L. Butryn [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.166341.7, 0000 0001 [...]

Purpose: Reductions in articulatory working space and vocal intensity have been linked to intelligibility deficits in children with dysarthria due to cerebral palsy. However, few studies have examined the outcomes of behavioral treatments aimed at these underlying impairments or investigated which treatment cues might best facilitate improved intelligibility. This study assessed the effects of cues targeting clear speech (i.e., 'Speak with your big mouth') and greater vocal intensity (i.e., 'Speak with your strong voice') on acoustic measures of speech production and intelligibility. Method: Eight children with spastic dysarthria due to cerebral palsy repeated sentence- and word-level stimuli across habitual, big mouth, and strong voice conditions. Acoustic analyses were conducted, and 48 listeners completed orthographic transcription and scaled intelligibility ratings. Results: Both cues resulted in significant changes to vocal intensity and speech rate although the degree of change varied by condition. In a similar manner, perceptual analysis revealed significant improvements to intelligibility with both cues; however, at the single-word level, big mouth outperformed strong voice. Conclusion: Children with dysarthria are capable of changing their speech styles differentially in response to cueing. Both the big mouth and strong voice cues hold promise as intervention strategies to improve intelligibility in this population. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5116843, This special issue contains selected papers from the March 2016 Conference on Motor Speech held in Newport Beach, CA. It is estimated that 40% to 90% of children with cerebral [...]

Implicit attitudes have been shown to predict smoking behaviors. Therefore, an important goal is the development of interventions to change these attitudes. This study assessed the effects of a web-based intervention on implicit attitudes toward smoking and receptivity to smoking-related information. Smokers (N = 284) were recruited to a two-session web-based study. In the first session, baseline data were collected. Session two contained the intervention, which consisted of assignment to the experimental or control version of an approach-avoidance task and assignment to an anti-smoking or control public service announcement (PSA), and post-intervention measures. Among smokers with less education and with plans to quit, implicit attitudes were more negative for those who completed the approach-avoidance task. Smokers with more education who viewed the anti-smoking PSA and completed the approach-avoidance task spent more time reading smoking-related information. An approach-avoidance task is a potentially feasible strategy for changing implicit attitudes toward smoking and increasing receptivity to smoking-related information. Keywords Approach-avoidance * Implicit attitudes * PSA * Smoking, Introduction Although rates of cigarette smoking in the United States have declined dramatically since the middle of the twentieth century, progress has largely stalled in recent years so that about [...]

Background Thyry is a paucity of research on thy effectiveness of syx offender treatment programmes particularly with syx offenders with intellectual disability (ID). There is a lack of concerted effort to develop evidenced-based sex offender treatment programmes for individuals with ID in New Zealand (NZ). This study aimed to run a pilot study on the use of an adapted sex offender treatment programme for individuals with ID in NZ who have been found to be at high risk of sexual recidivism and are placed in secure settings. Method A multiple case study design was used to assess the viability of an adapted sex offender treatment programme which was developed for forensic clients with intellectual disability who were placed in a secure facility and were assessed to be at high risk of sexual recidivism. This adapted programme was based on a community-based ID sex offender treatment programme developed in the UK. The three participants considered in this study were assessed for risk of sexual recidivism, sexual knowledge, victim empathy and cognitive distortions and attitudes to condone and/or support sex offences prior to attending the programme, upon completion and at one-year follow up. The SAFE-ID was a seven-month pilot programme which was largely guided by the SOTSEC-ID treatment manual. In addition, it incorporated an adapted dialectic behaviour therapy (DBT) coping skills training developed by the authors to teach the participants behavioural coping skills to deal with emotional dysregulation, poor frustration tolerance and poor social skills. Results The study result showed that the three participants demonstrated a marked improvement in sexual knowledge and victim empathy as well as a marked reduction in cognitive distortions and attitudes that condone and/or support sex offences after completing the programme. Furthermore, there was a noted decrease in the dynamic risk factors after completion of the programme and at one-year follow up. Two of the participants who were residing in a secure facility were reported by staff to show a marked reduction in inappropriate and/or sexually abusive behaviours and other problematic behaviours. The participant, who was under a community secure order, came off his order a year after completing the programme. Conclusions This pilot study indicated that the SAFE-ID programme showed promise as a potentially viable treatment programme for ID sex offenders who carry a high risk of sexual offending within a secure setting. However, caution should be taken as only three case studies were involved. There is a need to validate the effectiveness of this programme with larger sample size, longer follow-up period and a randomised controlled trial. Further research on the use of DBT in the treatment of sex offenders with ID is recommended., Aplethora of methodological difficulties has made it problematic to determine the true prevalence of sex offenders with an intellectual disability (ID) in most developed countries (Lindsay, 2002). A wide range [...]

Research in face-to-face teams shows conflicting results about the impact of behavioral controls on trust; some research shows that controls increase the salience of good behavior, which increases trust while [...]

Out-of-control sexual behaviour (OCSB) involves a continuum of sexual behaviour that results in distress or functional impairment. Several factors have been considered relevant to the etiology of OCSB, including attachment style, or the experience of intimacy-related anxiety and/or avoidance (Bowlby, 1969/1982, 1973, 1980). The present study explored OCSB and adult attachment amongst 621 New Zealanders using an online questionnaire. Using the SAST-R (Carnes, Green, & Carnes, 2010) to form groups, the OCSB group (n = 407) reported lower secure and higher insecure adult attachment than the non-OCSB group (n = 214), and this finding was strongest for women. This supports the notion that OCSB is associated with intimacy-related anxiety or avoidance, but further research is needed to clarify the mechanisms of this relationship in terms of whether attachment problems are a cause, consequence, or complex mixture of both in the development and maintenance of OCSB. Such knowledge would contribute to the development of etiological understandings of OCSB and inform future intervention approaches., Although out-of-control sexual behaviour (OCSB) is not a new phenomenon, Carnes (1983, 1989, 1991) introduced it as sexual addiction nearly 30 years ago. Since then, controversy and disagreement has characterised [...]

Urine marking is thought to play a pivotal role in territory demarcation by red foxes (Vulpes vulpes (L., 1758)), but little is known about how individuals respond to alien scent marks, and whether there are sex-related differences in territorial defense. We radio-tracked dominant male and female urban foxes before and after synthetic fox urine was applied to approximately a third of their territories and compared spatial and behavioral reactions both before and after scent application and with foxes on territories where no urine was applied. Home-range boundaries of male foxes shifted towards the scent-marked area, but this change did not affect the total territory size. Larger males shifted their home ranges to a greater degree than small males. Scent application did not affect total activity, but males spent more time in the scent-marked area. Behaviors such as distance moved per night and speed of movement did not differ before and after application, but foxes searched a greater percentage of their home range each night following scent marking. Females showed no significant spatial or behavioral response to the synthetic scent marks. Overall, responses of foxes to synthetic scent marks were male-biased and related to changes in space use rather than movement behaviors. On croit que le marquage urinaire joue un role central dans la demarcation du territoire chez le renard roux (Vulpes vulpes (L., 1758)), mais on ne sait pas bien comment les individus reagissent aux marques olfactives etrangeres, ni s'il y a des differences dans la defense du territoire en fonction du sexe. Nous avons suivi par radio des males et des femelles dominants de renards urbains avant et apres que de l'urine synthetique de renard eut ete appliquee a environ un tiers de leur territoire; nous avons alors compare leurs reactions spatiales et comportementales avant et apres l'application de l'odeur, ainsi qu'avec celles de renards dont le territoire n'avait recu aucune urine synthetique. Il y a un deplacement des frontieres du domaine vital des renards males vers la zone marquee par l'odeur, mais ce changement n'affecte pas la taille totale du territoire. Les males plus grands deplacent leur domaine vital de facon plus marquee que les males plus petits. L'application de l'odeur n'affecte pas l'activite totale, mais les males passent plus de temps dans la zone marquee par l'odeur. Les comportements, tels que la distance des deplacements nocturnes et la vitesse des deplacements, ne different pas avant et apres l'application, mais les renards explorent une plus grand pourcentage de leur domaine vital chaque nuit apres le marquage olfactif. Les femelles n'ont pas de reactions spatiales et comportementales significatives aux marques olfactives synthetiques. Les reactions des renards aux marques olfactives sont globalement plus importantes chez les males et sont associees a des changements dans l'utilisation de l'espace plutot que dans les comportements de deplacement. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction Understanding how animals communicate is key to quantifying aspects of their ecology such as territorial defense. Many mammalian taxa rely heavily on olfactory communication, with urine being the most [...]

Aggression in adolescents is harmful and emotionally devastating to youth and surrounding communities. This article integrates martial arts and therapeutic principles into a culturally sensitive model that cultivates change in [...]

A component analysis is a systematic assessment of 2 or more independent variables or components that comprise a treatment package. Component analyses are important for the analysis of behavior; however, previous research provides only cursory descriptions of the topic. Therefore, in this review the definition of component analysis is discussed, and a notation system for evaluating the experimental designs of component analyses is described. Thirty articles that included a component analysis were identified via a literature search. The majority of the studies successfully identified a necessary component; however, most of these studies did not evaluate the sufficiency of the necessary component. The notation system may be helpful in developing experimental designs that best suit the purpose of studies aimed at conducting component analyses of treatment packages. Key words: behavior analysis, behavior modification, component analysis, experimental design doi: 10.1901/jaba.2010.43-685

Objectives. We integrated and compared meta-analytic findings across diverse behavioral interventions to characterize how well they have achieved change in health behavior. Methods. Outcomes from 62 meta-analyses of interventions for change in health behavior were quantitatively synthesized, including 1011 primary-level investigations with 599559 participants. Content coding suggested 6 behavioral domains: eating and physical activity, sexual behavior, addictive behaviors, stress management, female-specific screening and intervention behaviors, and behaviors involving use of health services. Results. Behavior change interventions were efficacious (mean effect sizes=0.08-0.45). Behavior change was more evident in more recent meta-analyses; those that sampled older interventions and literatures or sampled more published articles; those that included studies that relied on self-report, used briefer interventions, or sampled fewer, older, or female participants; and in some domains (e.g., stress management) more than others (e.g., sexual behaviors). Conclusions. Interventions improved health-related behaviors; however, efficacy varied as a function of participant and intervention characteristics. This meta-synthesis provides information about the efficacy of behavioral change interventions across health domains and populations; this knowledge can inform the design and development of public health interventions and future meta-analyses of these studies. (Am J Public Health. 2010;100:2193-2198. doi:10. 2105/AJPH.2008.155200)