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Biomedical subjects

Stuart T Hauser

Publications and source records attributed to Stuart T Hauser.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Beyond psychopathology: assessing seriously disruptive students in school settings.

OBJECTIVE: To obtain a demographic profile of aggressive students in an urban setting and discern psychiatric diagnoses, functional impairment, and psychosocial stressors. STUDY DESIGN: Participants were 33 students in an urban public school district referred for comprehensive psychiatric evaluation by school staff because they were viewed as a threat to school safety. Evaluations included a review of records, interviews with school and mental health professionals, and student and parent interviews. RESULTS: Students were characterized by severe and untreated or undertreated psychopathology together with high levels of psychosocial stressors and learning disorders. Thirty-two students received at least one Axis I diagnosis, and the mean number of diagnoses for each student was 3; 33% had substance abuse problems, and 30% had nonpsychiatric medical conditions. CONCLUSIONS: The sample is a chronically impaired group of students confronting serious adversity in their daily lives, whose psychosocial and psychiatric needs are not met by current educational and mental health programming. Necessary interventions include prevention and early identification, substance abuse and family treatment, and appropriate psychopharmacological treatment. A comprehensive psychiatric assessment can help change the outcomes for this group of aggressive students.

Achievement↗
PubMed2005

Adolescents' behavior in the presence of interparental hostility: developmental and emotion regulatory influences.

Within-family covariation between interparental hostility and adolescent behavior across three interactions over a 2-year period was explored in a sample that included 37 typical adolescents and 35 adolescents recently hospitalized for psychiatric difficulties. More interparental hostility across the three interactions was associated with more adolescent hostility and more positive engagement (at a trend level) regardless of psychiatric background. Parent-to-child hostility in each interaction mediated the link for adolescent hostility but not for positive adolescent engagement. Emotion regulation capacities and age were linked to variability in adolescents' behavior in the presence of interparental conflict. In interactions with more interparental hostility, adolescents with greater capacity to tolerate negative affect were more likely to show increased positive engagement, and adolescents who were better able to modulate their emotional expression were less likely to show increased hostility. Covariation between interparental and adolescent hostility across the three family interactions decreased as the adolescent aged. These findings are consistent with the theory that exposure to interparental hostility is emotionally disequilibrating, and that adolescent responses may reflect differences in emotion regulation and other developmentally based capacities. Gender and variations across families in overall levels of hostile parenting were also linked with adolescent behavior in the presence of interparental hostility.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Adolescent psychiatric hospitalization and mortality, distress levels, and educational attainment: follow-up after 11 and 20 years.

BACKGROUND: Adolescents with early psychiatric hospitalization are likely to be at a significant risk for long-term difficulties. OBJECTIVE: To examine early adulthood outcomes of psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents. DESIGN: Inception cohort recruited from 1978 to 1981 and observed until 2002. SETTING: Northeastern United States. PARTICIPANTS: Adolescents (aged 12-15 years) from 2 matched cohorts were recruited and assessed repeatedly across 20 years: 70 psychiatrically hospitalized youths and 76 public high school students. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Death, emotional distress, high school completion, and educational attainment. RESULTS: Psychiatrically hospitalized youths were significantly more likely to die and to report higher levels of emotional distress. Hospitalized youths were significantly less likely to graduate from high school and complete college and graduate school. CONCLUSIONS: The association between psychiatric symptoms sufficient to result in psychiatric hospitalization during adolescence and later mortality, emotional distress, high school completion, and educational attainment is striking. Further study is needed to identify and understand linkages between adolescent psychiatric impairment and decrements in adult functioning, particularly the processes that may underlie these linkages. Increasing school completion and educational attainment among hospitalized youths may minimize decrements in adult adaptation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Reading others emotions: The role of intuitive judgments in predicting marital satisfaction, quality, and stability.

This study examined links between emotion expression in couple interactions and marital quality and stability. Core aspects of emotion expression in marital interactions were identified with the use of naive observational coding by multiple raters. Judges rated 47 marital discussions with 15 emotion descriptors. Coders' pooled ratings yielded good reliability on 4 types of emotion expression: hostility, distress, empathy, and affection. These 4 types were linked with concurrent marital satisfaction and interviewer ratings of marital adjustment as well as with marital stability at a 5-year follow-up. The study also examined the extent to which naive judges' ratings of emotion expression correspond to "expert" ratings using the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF). The unique advantages of naive coding of emotion expression in marital interaction are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Markers of Resilience and Risk: Adult Lives in a Vulnerable Population.

In this report, we drew on data from an ongoing longitudinal study that began in 1978 (Hauser, Powers, Noam, Jacobson, Weiss, & Folansbee, 1984). Focusing on late, young-adult life among individuals who were psychiatrically hospitalized during adolescence, we examined markers of resilience empirically defined in terms of adult success and well-being. The study includes a demographically similar group recruited from a public high school. Major goals were to (a) develop preliminary models of adaptive functioning among adults in their 30s, (b) examine the extent to which adults with histories of serious mental disorders can be characterized by these models, and (c) explore predictors of successful adult lives from indicators of individuals' psychosocial adjustment at age 25.Results showed significant cohort effects on indexes of adaptive functioning, especially for men. Findings suggest that social relations as well as self-views of competence and relatedness play important roles in characterizing adjustment during the adult years. In addition, indexes of psychosocial adjustment as well as symptoms of psychiatric distress and hard drug use at age 25 made a difference in adult social functioning and well-being, providing hints of possible mechanisms likely to facilitate the ability to "bounce back" after a difficult adolescence.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Attachment and core relationship themes: wishes for autonomy and closeness in the narratives of securely and insecurely attached adults.

This study examines links between attachment states of mind and relationship schemas in a sample of 40 young adults, half of whom were hospitalized as adolescents for psychiatric treatment. Participants were interviewed about their closest relationships, and, using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme method, their narratives about these relationships were analyzed for the relative frequency with which they expressed wishes for closeness and for autonomy in relation to others. Participants were also administered the Adult Attachment Interview and were classified with respect to security of attachment. Security of attachment was associated with the relative frequency with which participants expressed wishes for autonomy in their narratives about close relationships, even after accounting for current levels of psychological functioning and history of serious psychopathology in adolescence. Security of attachment was not associated with the relative frequency with which participants expressed wishes for closeness. The study suggests that core relational wishes for autonomy are linked specifically with subtypes of insecure attachment. These findings extend what is known about connections between the representation of early attachment relationships and the wishes and needs expressed in current relationships with significant others.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

Prediction of peer-rated adult hostility from autonomy struggles in adolescent-family interactions.

Observed parent-adolescent autonomy struggles were assessed as potential predictors of the development of peer-rated hostility over a decade later in young adulthood in both normal and previously psychiatrically hospitalized groups of adolescents. Longitudinal, multireporter data were obtained by coding family interactions involving 83 adolescents and their parents at age 16 years and then obtaining ratings by close friends of adolescents' hostility at age 25 years. Fathers' behavior undermining adolescents' autonomy in interactions at age 16 years were predictive of adolescents-as-young-adults' hostility, as rated by close friends at age 25 years. These predictions contributed additional variance to understanding young adult hostility even after accounting for concurrent levels of adolescent hostility at age 16 years and paternal hostility at this age, each of which also significantly contributed to predicting future hostility. Results are discussed as highlighting a pathway by which difficulties attaining autonomy in adolescence may presage the development of long-term difficulties in social functioning.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

The Same Old Song?-Stability and Change in Relationship Schemas From Adolescence to Young Adulthood.

Relationship schemas are core elements of personality that guide interpersonal functioning. The aim of this study is to examine stability and change in relationship schemas across two developmental epochs-adolescence and young adulthood-in the stories that people tell about their interactions with others. Using the Core Conflictual Relationship Theme Method, relationship themes were coded from semistructured interviews conducted in adolescence and again at age 25. The sample consisted of 40 participants in a longitudinal study of adolescent and young adult psychological development. There was considerable stability in the frequency with which particular themes were expressed in the narratives of adolescents and young adults. Significant changes from adolescence to young adulthood included a decrease in the perception of others as rejecting and of the self as opposing others. Young adults saw themselves and others more positively, and used a broader repertoire of themes in their relationship narratives than they had as adolescents. The basic continuity and particular changes in relationship schemas found in this study are consistent with knowledge about the adolescent-to-young-adult transition derived from other empirical and clinical findings. Relationship schemas may be rich units of study for learning about the development of interpersonal functioning.

Journal Article↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Bilingual children: cross-sectional relations of psychiatric syndrome severity and dual language proficiency.

The severity of child psychiatric disorders is commonly associated with child language delays. However, the characteristics of these associations in the fast-growing population of bilingual children remain unknown. To begin to address this gap, we studied a unique sample of Spanish-English bilingual children with significant parent-reported psychopathology (n = 29), focusing on their language proficiencies and psychiatric severity using the Child Behavior Check List. We present cross-sectional analyses of associations of general and specific language proficiency in Spanish and English with the severity of specific psychiatric syndromes. We found Spanish language-proficiency scores to have negative correlations with a wide range of psychiatric symptoms, particularly externalizing (i.e., delinquency and aggression) symptoms (r = -.38 to -.61, p < or = .05). English scores were similarly associated. Dual language tests covering multiple specific language dimensions explained a large proportion (51%) of overall variance in aggression symptoms and also important proportions (40%) of total and attentional symptoms. While children's proficiency levels in both Spanish and English showed similar associations with the symptom severity measures (explaining close to 20% of the symptom variance; r(sp) = -.44, p < .01), these proficiency levels explain nonconverging variance in children's symptomatology. The findings suggest that clinical evaluation of language functioning is often needed in such populations and that it should be comprehensive and include both languages. Such thorough evaluation of bilingual children suffering from psychopathology will help us to precisely identify (1) language deficits, (2) specific relations of these deficits to the child's psychopathology, (3) differential implications of communication at home (e.g., in Spanish) and at school (e.g., in English) for clinical presentation and the child's competence in those differing contexts, and (4) language of choice for therapy, evaluation, and educational services. The findings are discussed in the context of clinical and conceptual implications and future research needs.

Adolescent↗