Objective Linguistic Markers Associated with Callous-Unemotional Traits in Early Childhood.

BACKGROUND: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with interpersonal difficulties and risk for severe conduct problems (CP). The ability to communicate thoughts and feelings is critical to social success, with language a promising treatment target. However, no prior studies have examined objective linguistic correlates of childhood CU traits in early childhood, which could give insight into underlying risk mechanisms and novel target treatments. METHODS: We computed lexical (positive emotion, sad, and anger words) and conversational (interruptions and speech rate) markers produced by 131 children aged 5-6 years (M = 5.98; SD = 0.54, 58.8% female) and their parents while narrating wordless storybooks during two online visits separated by 6-8 weeks (M = 6.56, SD = 1.11; two books, order counterbalanced). Audio recordings were diarized, time-aligned, and orthographically transcribed using WebTrans. Conversational markers were calculated using R and word frequencies were calculated using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. We examined links between child CU traits and linguistic markers, and explored whether relationships were moderated by child sex. RESULTS: Higher CU traits were associated with fewer positive emotion words produced by parents and children. Higher CU traits were also associated with greater concordance in the degree of interruptions and expression of anger emotion words by parents and children. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that objective linguistic correlates of CU traits are detectable during early childhood, which could inform adjunctive treatment modules that improve outcomes by precisely tracking and targeting subtle communication patterns.

Family support by lay workers: a health visiting initiative.

There has been considerable research on the effectiveness of intensive professional home visiting schemes in improving parenting; lay visiting schemes, however, although often popular with clients, are under-researched. This article focuses on a lay visiting scheme set up and supported by health visitors in a deprived inner city area of Sheffield between 1998 and 2000. Although this scheme was designed to run for 2 years, an interim evaluation has taken place to track its effectiveness. This mainly qualitative evaluation has not only shown benefits to clients but also identified a number of issues for safe practice. The scheme has now been awarded core funding. It illuminates the kind of relationships that can develop between lay workers and clients, and enables a discussion of the benefits of this project and the challenge such schemes can present to both policy and practice.

Hospital doctors and health promotion: support for teaching behaviour change.

This article describes the development in the West Midlands Region of an educational pack for junior hospital doctors on the principles and practice of health promotion. It has been designed to encourage young doctors to apply research-based strategies for behaviour change within their own work and to provide informed support to the work of other professionals who have more time to spend with patients. The process of development was informed by a research study of cardiologists' understanding of health promotion and by pilot work with a variety of hospital specialties. The educational pack focuses on those aspects of health promotion work of most relevance to junior doctors.It uses the'Cycle of Change'model developed by Prochaska & DiClemente, to help patients (and doctors) change their behaviour. It can be used either independently, or as material to support interactive teaching and learning sessions. It is thus designed to integrate with the new learner-centred, interactive learning movement in medical education.

Teaching research to nurses: issues for tutor training.

Research is unknown territory, in too many ways, for many nurses and nurse tutors. It is seen as the province of an elite, using obscure language and esoteric skills with no obvious connection with the world of nursing; in particular, it involves statistics. Pressure for nursing to become a research-based profession can make the fear worse; the gap between research and practice generates blame and guilt in addition to fear. It is not surprising that learning and teaching about research can be very difficult for nurses. This article explores sources of bad feelings about research and suggests ways forward in the training of nurse and midwifery tutors, considering course planning and teaching methods, and peer support in and out of the classroom. It also argues for expanding the range of nursing research used to teach about research, incorporating more qualitative methods and drawing more fully on the social science traditions.

Screening elderly people: a review of the literature in the light of the new general practitioner contract.

There is a considerable volume of literature on the needs of elderly people, derived from both the medical and social sciences. This article reviews material relevant to preventive care and the best ways of arranging it, with particular reference to the developments as a result of the new general practitioner contract. It is argued that although the new contract disregards much of the medical research, there are still some benefits to be gained by applying research findings within the new framework, as well as by reviewing its operation in the light of research and experience currently available.

Incidence of second primary breast cancer among patients with a first primary salivary gland tumor.

A survey was conducted through the Virginia Tumor Registry to ascertain whether there was a higher-than-expected rate of second primary breast cancers among women having a first primary tumor (benign or malignant) of the salivary glands. The population included 372 patients (182 men and 190 women) diagnosed between January 1, 1960 and December 31, 1979. Second primary breast cancer occurrence among women in this group was 4.8 times the expected number (P = 0.0102). Ages of those developing a second primary fell between 37 and 79 years. No racial prevalence was observed. The time of diagnosis of the first and second primary tumors was more than 6 years in 75% of the cases. It was concluded that women in our population incurred a fourfold-to-fivefold increased risk of a second primary breast cancer subsequent to the first primary salivary gland tumor. Consideration of this observation should be in the minds of clinicians seeing patients for follow-up.

Research in health education units--warts and all.

While there is general agreement that research in health education is valuable, there is considerable disagreement on the form it should take, and how it should be organised. After a review of the problems and opportunities from two perspectives, a number of points are suggested which should be taken into account by anyone considering basing research posts in service units.