Does the Degree of Prematurity Relate to the Bayley-4 Scores Earned by Matched Samples of Infants and Toddlers across the Cognitive, Language, and Motor Domains?

The literature on children born prematurely has consistently shown that full-term babies outperform preterm babies by about 12 IQ points, even when tested as adolescents, and this advantage for full-term infants extends to the language and motor domains as well. The results of comprehensive meta-analyses suggest that the degree of prematurity greatly influences later test performance, but these inferences are based on data from an array of separate studies with no control of potential confounding variables such as age. This study analyzed Bayley-4 data for 66 extremely premature infants and toddlers (<32 weeks), 70 moderately premature children (32-36 weeks), and 133 full-term children. All groups were carefully matched on key background variables by the test publisher during the standardization of the Bayley-4. This investigation analyzed data on the five subtests: cognitive, expressive communication, receptive communication, fine motor, and gross motor. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) assessed for group mean differences across the three subsamples, while controlling for the children's age. Extremely premature children scored significantly lower than moderately premature children on all subtests, and both preterm groups were significantly outscored by the full-term sample across all domains. In each set of comparisons, the cognitive and motor subtests yielded the largest differences, whereas language development, both expressive and receptive, appeared the least impacted by prematurity. A follow-up MANOVA was conducted to examine full-term versus preterm discrepancies on the five subtests for infants (2-17 months) vs. toddlers (18-42 months). For that analysis, the two preterm groups were combined into a single preterm sample, and a significant interaction between the age level and group (full-term vs. preterm) was found. Premature infants scored lower than premature toddlers on receptive communication, fine motor, and cognitive. Neither expressive communication nor gross motor produced significant discrepancies between age groups The findings of this study enrich the preterm literature on the degree of prematurity; the age-based interactions have implications for which abilities are most likely to improve as infants grow into toddlerhood.

Thomas John Kehle (1943-2018).

Presents the obituary of Thomas John Kehle (1943-2018). Tom was born in Toledo, Ohio, on July 15, 1943, where he had many fond memories of his boyhood experiences, portrayed in his published short story The Park. He moved to Pompano Beach, Florida, as a teenager, where he met his wife, Gretchen Koll. He then joined the U.S. Army, later joining the police force as an officer. He earned his bachelor's degree from Florida Atlantic University and his master's and PhD (1972) degrees (Jim Barclay was his mentor) from the University of Kentucky. Upon graduation, Tom worked for the Louisville Public Schools as a school psychologist. He later joined the Kent State University faculty from 1973 to 1979, first as an assistant professor of school psychology and then earning tenure as an associate professor in 1976. At Kent State he had a close working relationship with John Guidubaldi. In 1979, Tom moved to Park City, Utah, where he served as professor and director of the School Psychology Program at the University of Utah until 1987. There he collaborated closely with Elaine Clark and Bill Jenson. In 1987, Tom accepted the position of professor and director of the School Psychology Program at the University of Connecticut, where he worked for the remainder of his career, working closely with Melissa Bray. He was instrumental in developing these top graduate programs in school psychology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Past, present, and future of research in school psychology: The biopsychosocial ecological model as an overarching framework.

Conoley, Powers, and Gutkin (2020) called for an increased emphasis on models of psychological service delivery that are primarily indirect, adult-focused, and geared toward systems-level change in the schools. They asserted that research in school psychology should not focus on the problems of individual children and youth but address the "powerful ecosystems" that surround them. Although school- and system-wide interventions are certainly important and can have a positive impact on student outcomes, we contend that biopsychosocial models of human development that integrate the effects of genetics, personal characteristics and behaviors, environments, and broad social contexts are better frameworks for guiding future research in school psychology. In these models, the role of genetics is mediated by the family environment and broader social contexts to influence variability in cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral domains of psychological functioning. These individual differences then interact with specific situations, leading to outcomes in educationally relevant behaviors, such as achievement, self-esteem, motivation, and peer relations. The focus of research in school psychology, therefore, should not be on "1 size fits all" school-wide interventions but rather on understanding how and why children and youth differ from one another and on translating research on the effects of genes, the environment, and their interplay into effective educational interventions. Research on bullying and victimization in schools is discussed as an example of the importance of taking a biopsychosocial ecological approach to studying complex behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The relationship of self-efficacy and depression to stuttering.

This study investigated the relationship of self-efficacy for verbal fluency, academic self-efficacy, and depression between adolescents who stutter and fluent speakers. Two separate discriminant function analyses were performed. The first analysis used the self-efficacy and depression scores as response variables and fluency classification as the grouping variable. Results indicated that self-efficacy for speech was the sole significant variable and accounted for 61% of the variance in group status. A second simplified discriminant function analysis was performed using speech self-efficacy as the sole predictor of group membership. This single discriminant function correctly classified 81% of the overall sample into their known groups. Further, classification for participants who did not stutter (95.2%) was better than for those who did stutter (67%). Based on this and earlier research, adolescents appear to be capable of using self-efficacy scaling as a measure of confidence for verbal fluency, which may eventually prove to be useful in treatment.