Peer Experiences in Short-Term Residential Treatment: Individual and Group-Moderated Prediction of Behavioral Responses to Peers and Adults.

This research examined the independent and interactional contributions of peer experiences and group aggression to youth behavioral adjustment in short-term residential treatment. Participants were 219 youth (M age = 12.70, SD = 2.76; 71 % male) nested in 28 same-age, same-sex treatment groups. Sociometric interviews assessed social preference and victimization. Daily behavioral observations by staff assessed overall levels of treatment group aggression, as well as aggressive, withdrawn, and prosocial responses to specific social events. End-of-summer behavioral responses (to all events; to peers; to adults) were predicted, controlling for initial levels of these responses. Social preference predicted higher end-of-summer prosocial responses, and victimization predicted lower prosocial and higher withdrawn responses. Each interacted with group aggression in some analyses, with more positive peer experiences only predicting more favorable responses in groups that were low or average in aggression. Interactant-specific analyses revealed that some of these associations were broad, whereas others applied only to adults. For example, group aggression moderated the association between social preference and aggressive responses to adults but not peers. Gender differences were also interactant-specific. Results highlight the importance of peer experiences in group treatment and underscore the value of both aggregation and disaggregation over interactants in analyses of behavioral adjustment.

Grief and attitudes toward suicide in peers affected by a cluster of suicides as adolescents.

Eighty-five young adults exposed to a cluster of peer suicides as adolescents completed measures of attitudes toward suicide, grief, and social support. Closeness to the peers lost to suicide was positively correlated with grief and the belief that suicide is not preventable, with grief further elevated in close individuals with high social support from friends. Overall, social support was related to healthy attitudes about suicide including preventability, yet it was also related to some stigmatizing beliefs. Compared with 67 young adults who had not been exposed to a suicide cluster, the exposed sample was more likely to think that suicide is normal but more likely to think of it as incomprehensible.

Peer-nominated deviant talk within residential treatment: individual and group influences on treatment response.

This research examined deviant talk during summer residential treatment using peer nominations and extensive field observations. Participants were 239 youth (M (age) = 12.62, SD = 2.60; 67% male), nested in 26 treatment groups. Deviant talk was present in this setting, showed individual differences, and increased over time, especially for younger boys. As expected, its relationship to treatment response was moderated by peer behavior. Initial levels of individual deviant talk were related to clinical improvement, but primarily when peer deviant talk was low. Initial levels of peer deviant talk were related to higher than expected end of treatment aggression, especially for youth who were high in deviant talk. Deviant talk effects were observed for staff impressions of change and observations of aggression and adjustment. Initial antisocial behavior affected whether individual or peer levels of deviant talk more heavily influenced treatment response. Implications for clinical assessment and treatment monitoring are discussed.

Probing the depths of informant discrepancies: contextual influences on divergence and convergence.

This study examined how a contextual approach to child assessment can clarify the meaning of informant discrepancies by focusing on children's social experiences and their if…then reactions to them. In a sample of 123 children (M(age) = 13.30) referred to a summer program for children with behavior problems, parent-teacher agreement for syndromal measures of aggression and withdrawal was modest. Agreement remained low when informants assessed children's reactions to specific peer and adult events. The similarity of these events increased consistency within informants but had no effect on agreement between parents and teachers. In contrast, similarity in the pattern of social events children encountered at home and school predicted informant agreement for syndromal aggression and for aggression to aversive events. Our results underscore the robustness of informant discrepancies and illustrate how they can be studied as part of the larger mosaic of person-environment interactions.

Gender similarities and differences in children's social behavior: finding personality in contextualized patterns of adaptation.

This research examined how a contextualist approach to personality can reveal social interactional patterns that are obscured by gender comparisons of overall behavior rates. For some behaviors (verbal aggression), girls and boys differed both in their responses to social events and in how often they encountered them, yet they did not differ in overall behavior rates. For other behaviors (prosocial), gender differences in overall rates were observed, yet girls and boys differed more in their social environments than in their responses to events. The results question the assumption that meaningful personality differences must be manifested in overall act trends and illustrate how gender differences in personality can be conceptualized as patterns of social adaptation that are complex and context specific.

Justifiable Psychopharmacology or Overzealous Prescription? Examining Parental Reports of Lifetime Prescription Histories of Psychiatrically Hospitalised Children.

BACKGROUND: This research investigated parent reports of pre-admission psychotropic medication histories of psychiatrically hospitalised children in the United States. The emphasis was on identifying factors related to potentially overzealous medication use. METHOD: Diagnosis, insurance type, and demographics for 170 consecutive admissions were assessed via research case conference and chart review. An extreme group of children with lengthy medication histories (n = 20) was also identified, and prescription and diagnostic patterns for this group were compared to other medicated children in the sample (n = 100). Cumulative medication history, rather than specific polypharmacy, was examined. RESULTS: Psychopharmacotherapy was common (71%). Privately insured children, children with previous psychiatric hospitalisations, and children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and the specific comorbidities of ODD/ADHD, and ODD/Parent Child Relational Problems had more past medication trials. Depressed children had fewer. Analyses of the extreme group suggest that young, privately insured, oppositional children with parent-child relationship problems were at highest risk for overmedication (including multiple trials of stimulants, as well as mood stabilisers, central adrenergic agonists, and antipsychotics). CONCLUSIONS: Results raise important questions about the role of health care pressures on clinical practice in the United States.

When syndromal similarity obscures functional dissimilarity: distinctive evoked environments of externalizing and mixed syndrome boys.

This research examined how syndromal approaches to assessment can obscure differences between children in the quality of their social interactions. Mixed boys (high for externalizing and internalizing problems) showed heterogeneity in the responses they evoked from others: For one subgroup, aggression and withdrawal evoked aversive responses from others, and even prosocial behavior evoked hostile peer responses; for the other, aggression and withdrawal evoked positive peer responses. Externalizing boys also showed heterogeneity in the patterning of their evoked responses. Within-group heterogeneity was not explained by boys' syndrome scores but was linked to their reactions to specific antecedent events. The results illustrate how a contextualized analysis of behavior can reveal distinctive social interactional patterns that underlie similar overall rates of problem behaviors.