Name: assessing the coherence of parents' short narratives regarding their child using the five-minute speech sample procedure
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This research was supported by the National Institute of Health Grant 1R03HD065036-01A and the National Science Foundation Grant 1628820 awarded to Tuppett M. Yates and Efrat Sher-Censor and the Herta and Paul Amir Faculty of Social Science, the University of Haifa, Israel. The author would like to thank Dr. Smadar Dolev for taking part in the film.

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The author has nothing to disclose.

Four of our previous studies examined both the coherence and EE in parents&#39; FMSS (Davidovitch, M., 2018)29,30,32. Separate coding teams rated FMSS-Coherence and FMSS-EE. Three of these studies showed that FMSS-Coherence and the criticism component of FMSS-EE were significantly negatively correlated, although the associations were small to moderate (Davidovitch, M., 2018)29,32. The fourth study did not find a significant association between FMSS-Coherence and EE-criticism30. In addition, the four studies showed that FMSS-Coherence is not significantly associated with other components of FMSS-EE, namely, emotional overinvolvement and positive comments. Furthermore, FMSS-Coherence had a unique contribution to the explained variance of child adjustment indices. In one study, FMSS-EE was associated with mothers&#39; reports of preschoolers&#39; behavior problems while FMSS-Coherence was associated with observers&#39; reports of the preschoolers&#39; behavior problems32. In another study, only FMSS-Coherence and not FMSS-EE was associated with preschoolers&#39; descriptions of parents in play narratives29; Finally, in two studies FMSS-Coherence contributed to the explained variance of toddlers&#39;30 and school aged children&#39;s (Davidovitch, M., 2018) externalizing behavior problems, as reported by the mother, above and beyond the contribution of FMSS-EE. Taken together, these results suggest that FMSS-Coherence is distinct from FMSS-EE and point to the added value of assessing the coherence of parents&#39; FMSS in relation to the traditional EE coding.
Researchers who wish to use FMSS-Coherence should take into consideration the following. Administrating the FMSS as the first measure of the research procedure is vital, as any measure administered prior to the FMSS may color parents&#39; narratives. It is also important that the parent will be alone in the room with the interviewer, without the presence of other family members, to allow the parent to speak freely about the child.
Minimal interaction between the parent and the interviewer during the FMSS is critical. FMSS research suggests that the vast majority of parents are able to complete the task of speaking uninterruptedly about their child for 5 min. Yet, researchers of high risk families, such as homeless parents35 and mothers of twins who gave birth before the age of 2023 suggest to provide a series of standardized prompts when parents experience difficulties in narrating for 5 min (e.g., &#34;In what ways would you like your child to be different?&#34;; &#34;What is your child like in comparison with other children the same age?&#34; 23). These studies examined only FMSS-EE. As such prompts explicitly invite the parent to narrate about varied aspects of the child&#39;s characteristics, it may lead to higher scores in the elaboration and complexity components of coherence and influence the final coherence score. Research is required to compare results obtained with and without additional prompts. Such studies conducted with high- and low-risk families may indicate whether there are benefits in using such modified protocol for evaluating parents&#39; FMSS-Coherence, and if so, in which contexts.
Finally, coding the six subscales (focus, elaboration, separateness, concern, acceptance/rejection and complexity) before rating the final coherence score is warranted to improve coding quality. To date, studies have looked only at the final coherence score. Nevertheless, future research with large-scale samples may examine whether the profile of strengths and difficulties parents are showing in their FMSS, as reflected in their scores on the six subscales, are related to distinct parenting behaviors and child outcomes (e.g., parents who provide a meager FMSS versus parents who show a high level of concern). Such an approach may be particularity useful in clinical settings, as it may facilitate tailoring individualized interventions that meet the specific difficulties parents expressed in their FMSS36.
FMSS-Coherence is a promising method for research of the parent-child relationship and other close relationships. Nevertheless, two limitations should be noted. First, validation of the method in countries other than the United States and Israel is required. Second, as the FMSS includes only a single broad question, it can be easily adapted to different contexts. As shown above, FMSS-Coherence can be used not only for interviewing parents about their children, but also for interviewing them about their romantic partner (River, L., et al., 2019) and for interviewing adolescents about their parents34. However, extending the use of the FMSS-Coherence method to other relational contexts should be done with caution. For example, FMSS-Coherence may be less applicable for assessing the quality of relationships that do not involve caregiving. In addition, prior EE research documented the validity of the FMSS-EE and the TMSS-EE (i.e., Three-Minute Speech Sample-EE) for children aged 6 years and up, who were asked to narrate about their parents37 or siblings38. Narrative skills, and abstract and critical thinking, which are vital for narrating coherently, develop significantly during the transition from childhood to adolescence39,40. Thus, the FMSS-Coherence method may not be applicable to children younger than mid-adolescence.
Additional research is needed to address the following issues. The first future direction involves examining whether parents&#39; FMSS-Coherence is associated with parents&#39; sensitivity and child attachment, the main outcomes of parents&#39; narrative coherence examined in attachment research that used lengthy interview protocols12,14,15,16. Support for the link between FMSS-Coherence and mothers&#39; sensitivity comes from the study described above of mothers of children diagnosed with ASD31. Although the results of this study are promising, replication is needed with mothers of typically developing children. Second, although varied participants&#39; characteristics were examined in prior FMSS-Coherence research29,30,31,32,33,34, whether personality characteristics of parents shape the coherence of their FMSS awaits future research. Third, future studies would benefit from examining not only mothers&#39; but also fathers&#39; FMSS-Coherence and their association with paternal sensitivity and child socio-emotional adaptation. Fourth, most studies used the dichotomized coherent versus incoherent categories (e.g.31,32,33). This is in line with attachment research that typically uses a two-step coding procedure that begins with continuous scales and ends with classifying parents into categories that are used in data analyses12,13,14,15,16. The notion underlying this approach is that coherent narratives and incoherent narratives are qualitatively different4. However, growing evidence from attachment research41 as well as a few FMSS-Coherence studies30,34 suggest that the variation underlying FMSS-Coherence may be distributed continuously. Thus, additional studies are needed with large samples that would allow examination of individual differences among parents who narrate coherently and among parents who narrate incoherently and their associations with parenting quality and child&#39;s outcomes.

Attachment theory suggests that the coherence of parents&#8217; narratives, namely the extent to which parents provide clear, consistent and multifaceted portrayals of their child, is of particular importance for learning about the emotional climate of the parent-child relationship1,2. According to this view, the coherence of parents&#8217; narratives captures the coherence of their internal representations (i.e., feelings, attributions and expectations) of the child. Parents&#8217; representations are defined as complex information processing rules that guide parents&#8217; interpretation of their child&#8217;s behavior as well as parents&#8217; behavior toward the child1,3, and consequently shape child adjustment.
Some parents process information regarding their child in a flexible manner. Their representations of the child are presumably undistorted and include strengths as well as challenging aspects of the child&#39;s characteristic and the parent-child relationship. When asked to narrate regarding the child, these parents would presumably provide multifaceted and integrated (i.e., coherent4) descriptions of the child and their relationship. Importantly, parents&#8217; coherent representations are thought to facilitate an accurate interpretation of the child&#8217;s signals as well as prompt and appropriate responses to the child (i.e., sensitive caregiving5). This in turn contributes to the child&#8217;s sense of security and competence as well as better self-regulation6,7.
Other parents process information regarding their child in a distorted way, and construct incoherent representations, which could take different forms, such as unilateral representations that are negative and overemphasize the child&#8217;s weaknesses, overwhelmed with concern, colored by difficulties in separateness from the child, idealizing or poorly integrated. Such representations are presumably mirrored in incoherent narratives that are unidimensional and/or inconsistent. Incoherent representations may hamper accurate interpretation of the child&#8217;s signals and lead to parents&#8217; insensitive caregiving in terms of emotional detachment, hostility, rigidity and harshness, or overprotectiveness and intrusiveness1,2,4. The child in turn, might internalize the incoherent representations of the parent8, construct negative expectations regarding close relationships, learn to restrict or exaggerate emotional expressions in relational contexts9, and experience poorer socio-emotional adjustment10,11.
Attachment research supports to these notions7,9,10,11. Yet, extant methods to assess the coherence of parents&#8217; narratives involve labor intensive semi-structured interviews12. These include the Adult Attachment Interview13, in which parents are asked to narrate about their early attachment experiences, and the Working Model of the Child Interview14, the Parent Developmental Interview15 and the Insightful Assessment16,17, in which parents are invited to narrate regarding their child. Due to their length and costs, the employment of these methods in large-scale research and practice with parents is relatively limited. To overcome this drawback, this paper introduces a new method for assessing the coherence of parents&#8217; short narratives elicited using the FMSS procedure.
The FMSS procedure was developed by the psychoanalyst and researcher Louis Gottschalk and his colleagues18,19. The researchers argued that although the procedure is brief, it maximizes the projection and expression of internal psychological states, response sets and attitudes as it requires narrating without the aid of prompts or responses from the interviewer18. Adult psychiatry researchers have embraced this procedure and have been using it to evaluate the quality of the relationships formed between mentally ill patients and their caregivers. In this context, a caregiver is invited to talk about the mentally ill relative and their relationship, and the FMSS is coded for expressed emotion (FMSS-EE20), namely caregivers&#8217; statements of criticism and emotional overinvolvement toward the relative. FMSS-EE is effective in indexing poor quality of caregiver-patient relationships and predicting patients&#8217; maladaptation and relapse risk21,22. Over the past three decades developmental and pediatric researchers have adopted the FMSS-EE method. The FMSS-EE coding was adapted to the context of parenting young children, for example, by adding the assessment of parents&#8217; positive comments regarding the child and the parent-child relationship (see references for examples23,24,25). Research on parents of children from infancy through adolescence have shown that FMSS-EE is related to parenting quality and is associated with and predicts the socio-emotional adjustment of the child26,27.
Attachment and FMSS-EE research have developed separately. Thus, EE research does not examine the coherence of the FMSS. To assess the coherence of parents&#8217; FMSS, the Insightful Assessment rating scales17 have been recently adapted to be used with the FMSS. This paper presents the protocol for collecting parents&#8217; FMSS and coding FMSS-Coherence. Results of studies that used the FMSS-Coherence method are described. Finally, directions for future research with FMSS-Coherence and issues that should be taken into consideration by researchers who plan to use FMSS-Coherence are discussed.

<table><tbody><tr><td>A voice recorder</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>A stop-watch</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>A word processing software</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

assessing the coherence of parents' short narratives regarding their child using the five-minute speech sample procedure

Valid and efficient measures for assessing the quality of parent-child relationships are needed to facilitate research and evidence-based practice with parents. This paper focuses on such a method, namely Five-Minute Speech Sample-Coherence (FMSS-Coherence). In this method, a parent is asked to speak for five uninterrupted minutes about her/his child and their relationship. The resulted narrative is coded for coherence, namely the extent to which the parent provides&#160;in the narrative&#160;a clear, consistent, multidimensional and well-supported portrayal of the child. FMSS-Coherence is based on attachment research that shows that the coherence of parents&#8217; narratives is indicative of the quality of the parent-child relationship and child adjustment. It overcomes the limitations of attachment narrative measures which are typically labor intensive. FMSS-Coherence is less nuanced than extant attachment narrative measures. Yet, studies of families from different cultural backgrounds, across different child ages and in the context of typically developing children as well as children with special needs suggest that coherence can be reliably evaluated using the FMSS procedure. Furthermore, parents&#8217; FMSS-Coherence is associated with parenting quality and children&#8217;s socio-emotional adjustment. Thus, it holds promise for researchers and practitioners who seek a relatively time- and cost-effective method for assessing the coherence of parents&#8217; narratives regarding their child.

Interrater reliability 
Interrater reliability of the FMSS-Coherence scores ranged from very good to excellent across prior studies. ICC of the continuous scores ranged between 0.86 and 0.95 29,30, and Kappa ranged between 0.83 and 1.0031,33.
FMSS-Coherence, observed parenting and child adjustment 
In support of the notion that parents&#39; coherent narratives are associated with more sensitive caregiving, a study of mothers and young children with ASD attending special education schools indicated that mothers who provided coherent FMSS showed higher emotional availability during observed play interaction with their child as compared with mothers who provided incoherent FMSS. In other words, mothers who provided coherent FMSS were more sensitive, provided more appropriate structuring, and were less intrusive when interacting with their child31&#160;(see Figure 1).
<img alt="Figure 1" class="xfigimg" src="/files/ftp_upload/60025/60025fig1.jpg" /> 
Figure 1: Mothers&#39; mean emotional availability to their child with ASD by mothers&#39; FMSS-Coherence. Error bars represent standard errors of the mean (p &#60; 0.05). <a href="https://www.jove.com/files/ftp_upload/60025/60025fig1large.jpg" target="_blank">Please click here to view a larger version of this figure.</a>
In line with the notion offered by attachment researchers that parents&#39; representations are internalized by their children, preschool children whose mothers provided incoherent FMSS showed more negative depictions of the parent-child relationship in their play-narratives than children whose mothers provided coherent FMSS29. Finally, as expected, parents&#39; coherent FMSS are related to better socio-emotional adjustment of their children. The coherence of mothers&#39; FMSS is associated with fewer behavioral problems of their toddlers30, preschoolers32&#160;and school-aged children (Davidovitch, M., 2018). In addition, mothers&#39; FMSS-Coherence predicts a decrease in externalizing behavior problems, an increase in ego resiliency, and an increase in peer acceptance from preschool to first grade among children with self-regulation difficulties33.
Applying the FMSS-Coherence method to other relational contexts 
Recent findings point to the utility of FMSS-Coherence in research of other close relationships. A study in which pregnant mothers provided FMSS regarding the father-to-be found that lower coherence of the FMSS was associated with mothers&#39; childhood maltreatment experiences, and this link was mediated by mothers&#39; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms (River, L., Castillo, M., Narayan, A., Sher-Censor, E., Lieberman, A., 2019). In another study in which adolescents provided FMSS regarding their mothers, adolescents&#39; coherent FMSS mediated the association between higher maternal sensitive guidance, observed during mother-adolescent dialogue on autobiographic emotional events, and fewer behavior problems of the adolescents, as reported by adolescents&#39; examiners34. This result is in line with attachment theory notion that when the child receives sensitive caregiving, she/he would construct coherent representations of the relationship with the caregiver, which in turn would facilitate better adjustment of the child8,9,10,11.
FMSS-Coherence and participants&#39; characteristics 
To support the notion that FMSS-Coherence captures quality of the relationship, FMSS-Coherence studies controlled for several participants&#39; characteristics. These included mother and child age29,30,31,32,33, birth order29,30,31,32,33, child gender29,30,31,32,33, marital status29,32,33, mothers&#39; and adolescents&#39; receptive vocabulary and/or education level29,30,31,32,33, family socioeconomic status29,30,32,33, maternal psychological distress, economic distress and health condition31, and adaptive behavior of children with ASD31. Of these characteristics, only mothers&#39; receptive vocabulary and education level&#160;were significantly related to mothers&#39; FMSS-Coherence and adolescent gender was related to adolescents&#39; FMSS-Coherence, with girls showing higher levels of coherence than boys. Notably, the associations of FMSS-Coherence with observed parenting and child socio-emotional adjustment were significant when controlling for these characteristics30,31,32,33. Finally, studies suggest that FMSS-Coherence is valid among ethnic minorities and immigrant families (in the US: Hispanic and Black32; in Israel: Arab-Israelis31; and immigrants from the Former Soviet Union and Western countries34).

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Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

This paper introduces a method for assessing the coherence of parents' short narratives regarding their child and their relationship using the five-minute speech sample procedure.

Valid and efficient measures for assessing the quality of parent-child relationships are needed to facilitate research and evidence-based practice with ...

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9.8K Views.  University of Haifa. This paper introduces a method for assessing the coherence of parents' short narratives regarding their child and their relationship using the five-minute speech sample procedure. 

Video: Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Making Sense of Listening: The IMAP Test Battery

The ability to hear is only the first step towards making sense of the range of information contained in an auditory signal. Of equal importance are the abilities to extract and use the information encoded in the auditory signal. We refer to these as listening skills (or auditory processing AP). Deficits in these skills are associated with delayed language and literacy development, though the nature of the relevant deficits and their causal connection with these delays is hotly debated.
When a child is referred to a health professional with normal hearing and unexplained difficulties in listening, or associated delays in language or literacy development, they should ideally be assessed with a combination of psychoacoustic (AP) tests, suitable for children and for use in a clinic, together with cognitive tests to measure attention, working memory, IQ, and language skills. Such a detailed examination needs to be relatively short and within the technical capability of any suitably qualified professional. Current tests for the presence of AP deficits tend to be poorly constructed and inadequately validated within the normal population. They have little or no reference to the presenting symptoms of the child, and typically include a linguistic component. Poor performance may thus reflect problems with language rather than with AP. To assist in the assessment of children with listening difficulties, pediatric audiologists need a single, standardized child-appropriate test battery based on the use of language-free stimuli.
We present the IMAP test battery which was developed at the MRC Institute of Hearing Research to supplement tests currently used to investigate cases of suspected AP deficits. IMAP assesses a range of relevant auditory and cognitive skills and takes about one hour to complete. It has been standardized in 1500 normally-hearing children from across the UK, aged 6-11 years. Since its development, it has been successfully used in a number of large scale studies both in the UK and the USA. IMAP provides measures for separating out sensory from cognitive contributions to hearing. It further limits confounds due to procedural effects by presenting tests in a child-friendly game-format. Stimulus-generation, management of test protocols and control of test presentation is mediated by the IHR-STAR software platform. This provides a standardized methodology for a range of applications and ensures replicable procedures across testers. IHR-STAR provides a flexible, user-programmable environment that currently has additional applications for hearing screening, mapping cochlear implant electrodes, and academic research or teaching.

A test battery (IMAP) for performing an in-depth assessment of auditory and cognitive abilities contributing to listening skills is described. It is quick to administer, child-friendly and free from linguistic confounds. Stimulus generation and protocol management are controlled via a software platform (IHR-STAR) to ensure replicable procedures.

The ability to hear is only the first step towards making sense of the range of information contained in an auditory signal. Of equal importance are the ...

Medicine

Testing Sensory and Multisensory Function in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

In addition to impairments in social communication and the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, deficits in sensory processing are now recognized as a core symptom in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our ability to perceive and interact with the external world is rooted in sensory processing. For example, listening to a conversation entails processing the auditory cues coming from the speaker (speech content, prosody, syntax) as well as the associated visual information (facial expressions, gestures). Collectively, the &#8220;integration&#8221; of these multisensory (i.e., combined audiovisual) pieces of information results in better comprehension. Such multisensory integration has been shown to be strongly dependent upon the temporal relationship of the paired stimuli. Thus, stimuli that occur in close temporal proximity are highly likely to result in behavioral and perceptual benefits &#8211; gains believed to be reflective of the perceptual system&#39;s judgment of the likelihood that these two stimuli came from the same source. Changes in this temporal integration are expected to strongly alter perceptual processes, and are likely to diminish the ability to accurately perceive and interact with our world. Here, a battery of tasks designed to characterize various aspects of sensory and multisensory temporal processing in children with ASD is described. In addition to its utility in autism, this battery has great potential for characterizing changes in sensory function in other clinical populations, as well as being used to examine changes in these processes across the lifespan.

We describe how to implement a battery of behavioral tasks to examine the processing and integration of sensory stimuli in children with ASD. The goal is to characterize individual differences in temporal processing of simple auditory and visual stimuli and relate these to higher order perceptual skills like speech perception.

In addition to impairments in social communication and the presence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviors, deficits in sensory processing are ...

Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm

The ability to recall the past allows us to report on details of previous experiences, from the everyday to the significant. Because recall memory is commonly assessed using verbal report paradigms in adults, studying the development of this ability in preverbal infants and children proved challenging. Over the past 30 years, researchers have developed a non-verbal means of assessing recall memory known as the elicited or deferred imitation paradigm. In one variant of the procedure, participants are presented with novel three-dimensional stimuli for a brief baseline period before a researcher demonstrates a series of actions that culminate in an end- or goal-state. The participant is allowed to imitate the demonstrated actions immediately, after a delay, or both. Recall performance is then compared to baseline or to performance on novel control sequences presented at the same session; memory can be assessed for the individual target actions and the order in which they were completed. This procedure is an accepted analogue to the verbal report techniques used with adults, and it has served to establish a solid foundation of the nature of recall memory in infancy and early childhood. In addition, the elicited or deferred imitation procedure has been modified and adapted to answer questions relevant to other aspects of cognitive functioning. The broad utility and application of imitation paradigms is discussed, along with limitations of the approach and directions for future research.

The elicited imitation procedure was established to examine the development of recall memory in infancy and early childhood. This procedure has been widely used to establish a solid foundation of the nature of recall memory in infancy and early childhood.

The ability to recall the past allows us to report on details of previous experiences, from the everyday to the significant. Because recall memory is ...

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime

A considerable amount of research has evaluated children's lie-telling behaviors and skills1-2; however, limitations with the tasks used for eliciting false testimonies and interviewing children have restricted the generalizability of the findings. The primary aim of the current study is to provide an easy-to-administer and ecologically valid method for measuring the veracity and quality of school-aged children's (ages 6-11) testimonies when they are asked to provide different types of true and false reports. Moreover, the methodology enables researchers to examine the social and developmental factors that could influence the credibility of a child's testimony. In the current study, children will witness a theft, and are then asked to either falsely deny the transgression, falsely accuse a researcher of the theft, or tell the truth. Afterwards, children are to be interviewed by a second researcher using a thorough and ecologically valid interview protocol that requires children to provide closed-ended and free-recall responses about the events with the instigator (E1). Coders then evaluate the length and number of theft-related details the children give throughout the interview, as well as their ability to maintain their true and false reports. The representative results indicate that the truth and lie-telling conditions elicit the intended behaviors from the children. The open-ended interview questions encouraged children to provide free-recall information about their experiences with E1. Moreover, findings from the closed-ended questions suggest that children are significantly better at maintaining their lies with age, and when producing a false denial compared to a false accusation. Results from the current study can be used to develop a greater understanding of the characteristics of children's true and false testimonies about crime, which can potentially benefit law enforcement, legal staff and professionals who interview children.

The current methodology is designed to provide an ecologically relevant approach for measuring the veracity, length and quality of children's true and false testimonies. Implications of the current methodology for future research and professionals who interview children will also be discussed.

A considerable amount of research has evaluated children's lie-telling behaviors and skills1-2; however, limitations with the tasks used for eliciting ...

A Modified Trier Social Stress Test for Vulnerable Mexican American Adolescents

The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is a well validated and widely used social stressor that has been shown to induce a 2-4 fold increase in cortisol, the biological output produced by the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis in humans. While studies have explored how modifications to the TSST influence stress responsivity, few studies have created a modified TSST appropriate for vulnerable youth that elicits a significant cortisol stress response. Thus, the current study sought to modify or adjust the TSST in a culturally sensitive way for a vulnerable sample of 14 year-old adolescents. The present study took place within the context of a longitudinal birth cohort study of Mexican American families in California called the Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS). The CHAMACOS sample was optimal to test the effectiveness of a modified culturally appropriate TSST, as it is comprised of Mexican American youth, who are often excluded from research. These youths also have experienced significant early life adversity. Example modifications included timed prompts, alternative math tasks, use of same-ethnicity peers as confederates, debriefing immediately after the conclusion of the TSST, and using an unknown youth examiner to administer the debrief. Saliva samples were collected at baseline (after a resting phase), and then again at 15, 30, and 45 min post-TSST onset to assess cortisol concentration. A pilot study of 50 participants (50% female) have been analyzed for cortisol reaction to the TSST. Results confirmed that this modified version of the TSST was successful at eliciting a significant cortisol reaction, with a wide range of variability likely due to individual differences. Goals for modifications and ethnicity considerations are discussed. This study provides the foundation for future research to utilize a modified TSST with vulnerable youth.

Here, we present a protocol that provoked cortisol reactivity in a vulnerable adolescent Mexican American sample utilizing a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Saliva samples were collected at baseline, 15, 30, and 45 min post-TSST onset. Future research could utilize this modified TSST with vulnerable youth.

The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is a well validated and widely used social stressor that has been shown to induce a 2-4 fold increase in cortisol, the ...

Developmental Biology

Use of a Video Scoring Anchor for Rapid Serial Assessment of Social Communication in Toddlers

Reciprocal social behavior (RSB), an early-emerging capacity to engage in social contingency&#8212;which is foundational for both social learning and social competency&#8212;is hypothesized to be disrupted in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The ability to quantify the full range of RSB during the toddler period, when core symptoms of ASD often arise, is pivotal for evaluating early risk for ASD, characterizing social development, and tracking response to early interventions. However, important parameters of variation in RSB&#8212;especially prior to the development of verbal language&#8212;can be nuanced and difficult to characterize using questionnaire-based methods. To address this challenge, we developed a system for measuring quantitative variation in RSB in toddlers (ages 18 - 30 months) that incorporated not only standard questionnaire data from caregivers but also a novel set of video-referenced items, through which a respondent compares the behavior of a subject to that observed in a short video of a young child manifesting a highly competent level of social communication. Testing of this measure in a general population sample of twins confirmed that both the video-referenced items and the RSB Total Score (video-referenced items plus non-video-referenced items) displayed unimodal, continuous distributions, strong internal consistency, marked preservation of individual differences, and extremely high heritability. In addition, video-referenced items were particularly sensitive to quantifying incremental changes in social communication, a major element of RSB, over the course of early childhood development. Scores on the vrRSB clearly differentiated children with and without ASD and these data comprise an initial validation of this promising method for quantifying early RSB&#8212;cross-sectionally, over time, and as a function of early intervention.

Here we present a protocol for administration of the video-referenced rating of reciprocal social behavior (vrRSB) using a paper or online version. This survey quantifies RSB, a prerequisite for social competence, in toddlers through &#34;video-referenced&#34; items whereby a subject is compared to a reference child shown in a three-minute video.

Reciprocal social behavior (RSB), an early-emerging capacity to engage in social contingency&#8212;which is foundational for both social learning and ...

Using Practice Testing, Public Speaking, and Source Monitoring to Examine the Influences of Learning Strategies and Stress on Episodic Memory

Prior research demonstrated that learning information via retrieval practice, which entails studying and taking practice tests, resulted in less memory impairment under stress than learning information via repeated studying. The present experiment combined three experimental procedures to further examine the memory mechanisms underlying the efficacy of retrieval practice in the context of stress. A list-discrimination task was implemented, in which participants learned two distinct wordlists. This was combined with a retrieval-practice manipulation, as half of the participants engaged in practice testing and half engaged in conventional studying during learning. A week later, participants underwent stress induction, using the Trier Social Stress Test. Before and after stress induction, participants completed tests of item and source memory (i.e., list discrimination). The combination of these three procedures yielded informative results: retrieval practice, in the context of stress, improved item memory but not source memory relative to conventional studying. Limitations and future directions for the use of this methodology are discussed.

The present experiment combined three experimental procedures &#8212; a retrieval-practice learning manipulation, a list-discrimination task, and a stress-induction technique &#8212; to examine the influences of different learning strategies and acute stress on multiple measures of episodic memory.

Prior research demonstrated that learning information via retrieval practice, which entails studying and taking practice tests, resulted in less memory ...

Protocol for Assessing Gestures Under Communication Challenges

Examining Gesture Production in the Presence of Communication Challenges

Understanding why speakers modify their co-speech hand gestures when speaking to interlocutors provides valuable insight into how these gestures contribute to interpersonal communication in face-to-face and virtual contexts. The current protocols manipulate the visibility of speakers and their interlocutors in tandem in a face-to-face context to examine the impact of visibility on gesture production when communication is challenging. In these protocols, speakers complete tasks such as teaching words from an unfamiliar second language or recounting the events of cartoon vignettes to an interlocutor who is either another participant or a confederate. When performing these tasks, speakers are visible or non-visible to their interlocutor, and the speaker is visible or non-visible to the participant. In the word learning task, speakers and interlocutors visible to one another produce more representational gestures, which convey meaning via handshape and motion, and deictic (pointing) gestures than speakers and interlocutors who are not visible to one another. In the narrative retelling protocol, adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) produced more gestures when speaking to visible interlocutors than non-visible interlocutors. A major strength of the current protocol is its flexibility in terms of the tasks, populations, and gestures examined, and the current protocol can be implemented in videoconferencing as well as face-to-face contexts. Thus, the current protocol has the potential to advance the understanding of gesture production by elucidating its role in interpersonal communication in populations with communication challenges.

Author Spotlight: Deciphering the Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms of Gesture in Communication  

Here, we present a protocol that manipulates interlocutor visibility to examine its impact on gesture production in interpersonal communication. This protocol is flexible to tasks implemented, gestures examined, and communication modality. It is ideal for populations with communication challenges, such as second language learners and individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Understanding why speakers modify their co-speech hand gestures when speaking to interlocutors provides valuable insight into how these gestures ...

A Tablet-Based Curriculum-Based Measurement Protocol for Kindergarten Writing

Kindergarten writing involves acquiring fundamental skills, such as letter formation, phonemic awareness, and the gradual use of written language to express ideas. In this context, tablet-based curriculum assessments present new opportunities for teaching and evaluating these early writing abilities. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no tool with these features available for Spanish-speaking children. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to present a tablet-based protocol for screening at-risk young writers. This tablet-based protocol is specifically designed for kindergarten-level education and serves as a curriculum-based assessment tool that focuses on evaluating early writing skills in young learners. This user-friendly application incorporates interactive tasks and exercises, including assessments of phonological awareness, name writing, alphabet letter copying fluency, and oral narrative skills. These comprehensive evaluations cover various aspects of writing. This application is meticulously aligned with kindergarten curriculum objectives, ensuring that assessments adhere to educational standards. By providing educators with a digital platform to assess and enhance students' writing skills, this tool empowers them to make data-driven decisions for effective instruction during the early stages of writing development. Moreover, it functions as a curriculum-based measurement (CBM), offers valuable support for identifying potential writing challenges in young learners and continuously monitoring their progress. This feature enables early intervention and tailored instruction to optimize writing skill development.

This protocol presents the step-by-step method for using a writing-based, valid, and reliable application designed for kindergarten-level education. It operates as a curriculum-based assessment tool, specifically focusing on evaluating early writing skills in young learners.

Kindergarten writing involves acquiring fundamental skills, such as letter formation, phonemic awareness, and the gradual use of written language to ...

A Familiarization Protocol Facilitates the Participation of Children with ASD in Electrophysiological Research

This paper includes a detailed description of a familiarization protocol, which is used as an integral component of a larger research protocol to collect electroencephalography (EEG) data and Event-Related Potentials (ERPs). At present, the systems available for the collection of high-quality EEG/ERP data make significant demands on children with developmental disabilities, such as those with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Children with ASD may have difficulty adapting to novel situations, tolerating uncomfortable sensory stimuli, and sitting quietly. This familiarization protocol uses Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) to increase research participants&#39; knowledge and understanding of the specific activities and steps of the research protocol. The tools in this familiarization protocol are a social narrative, a visual schedule, the Premack principle, role-playing, and modeling. The goal of this familiarization protocol is to increase understanding and agency and to potentially reduce anxiety for child participants, resulting in a greater likelihood of the successful completion of the research protocol for the collection of EEG/ERP data.

Electrophysiological research is an important tool for identifying biomarkers of developmental disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), but data collection in these populations remains challenging. This work presents a familiarization protocol to accompany research that includes electroencephalography (EEG) to improve the likelihood of collecting EEG data from children with ASD.

This paper includes a detailed description of a familiarization protocol, which is used as an integral component of a larger research protocol to collect ...