Non-Specific Retroactive Interference in Children and Adults

Retroactive interference (RI) is a primary source of forgetting and occurs when new information disrupts or damages an existing memory. Prior research has shown that children are susceptible to RI when the to-be-remembered and interfering information are similar, but it is unclear whether they are also vulnerable to nonspecific RI . This form of interference occurs when a memory is disrupted by an unrelated and dissimilar distractor task, and the present study explored six- and seven-year-olds susceptibility to such nonspecific RI. In two experiments, participants learnt a list of words and completed a free recall test 5 min later. During the interval, participants either remained quiet (the control condition) or completed spot-the-difference puzzles (the interference condition). In Experiment 1, the children were highly susceptible to nonspecific interference, whereas a sample of adults were not affected by the interfering task. However, when a new sample of children were given more time to encode and retrieve the words in Experiment 2, they were able to resist interference. Nonspecific RI can damage children’s memory, but they do have the ability to prevent this form of interference in certain circumstances

An initial evaluation of a group school-based therapeutic intervention for low-level symptoms of anxiety in adolescents

Anxiety is a common mental health difficulty in adolescence. The use of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Approaches (CBTA) to treat anxiety has a broad evidence-base. This research aims to explore a new abbreviated CBTA-based group intervention for Key Stage 4 pupils (aged 14-16) that uses an ongoing training and supervision model delivered by Educational Psychologists (EPs) across four schools, which builds the capacity and skills of school staff to manage low-level anxiety in schools. A mixed methods study was employed to assess any changes in pupils’ anxiety symptoms before and after the intervention, and also to understand pupils’ and group facilitators’ experiences of the intervention. The Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) was used to measure any changes in anxiety symptoms before, immediately after, and two months after the intervention (n=16). Semi-structured interviews were used to understand pupils’ (n=7) and group facilitators’ (n=8) experiences of the intervention, with interview data analysed using thematic analysis. Following the intervention, on average, pupils’ anxiety levels decreased over time. Results varied across the schools, suggesting that findings may not be generalisable across all contexts. Pupils and facilitators mentioned key aspects of the intervention that supported pupils in alleviating anxiety (e.g. opportunities for containment, reframing negative thoughts to being more positive, reflecting on positive factors in their week, normalising anxiety). Pupils and facilitators also made valuable suggestions as to how to improve the intervention (e.g. greater flexibility to enable the intervention to be more person-centred, embedding a more systemic approach that compliments the complexity of different secondary school settings)