Secular Declines in the Association Between Obesity and Mortality in the United States

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86831/1/j.1728-4457.2011.00429.x.pd

Handedness and Vocabulary…Right Out of Left Field: The Role of Handedness and Statistical Learning in Infants’ Vocabulary Development

Infants are incredible language learners. One way we think infants are able to learn language is through statistical learning (SL) where infants track the regularities in the speech stream in both adjacent (Saffran et al., 1998) and non-adjacent dependencies (NAD) (Gomez, 2002). Infants’ SL abilities are related to their vocabulary development (Graf Estes et al., 2011). Handedness is related to language abilities in adults (Knecht et al., 2000) and vocabulary development in infants (Nelon et al., 2014). This relationship between handedness and language is thought to be driven by lateralization, where handedness is a proxy for lateralization. The current study will investigate the relationship between handedness and SL in infants’ vocabulary development. Participants will be Infants (N=60) at 15-months-old. Infants\u27 handedness will be tested with the baby handedness test (Fagard et al., 2020), which is used to assess lateralization. Infants’ SL will be tested using the head-turn preference procedure with the SL language from Gomez (2002) testing NADs. Infants’ vocabulary will be measured with the McArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories. It is predicted that lateralized infants will have better scores on the SL test. A t-test will then be used to determine if there was a significant difference in statistical learning scores for lateralized versus non-lateralized infants. Multiple regression will be used to determine how lateralization and SL predict infants’ vocabulary. This study will extend and help elucidate some of the mechanisms that may play a role in language development

The role of handedness and statistical learning in adults\u27 language abilities

People use many different strategies in order to learn a language. One way we think individuals learn language is through statistical learning (SL) where they track the regularities in the speech stream in both adjacent (Saffran et al., 1996) and non-adjacent dependencies (NAD) (Gomez, 2002). Handedness is related to adult language abilities (Knecht et al., 2000). This relationship between handedness and language is thought to be driven by lateralization, where handedness is a proxy for lateralization. The current study will investigate the relationship between handedness and SL in adults’ language abilities. Participants will be undergraduate students. Participants\u27 handedness will be assessed with the Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire (Cavill & Bryden, 2003). Their SL will be tested using the SL language from Gomez (2002) testing NADs. Participants will listen to the language during a familiarization period. After listening to the language, participants will hear a string of syllables and will then decide if the string that they heard was correct or incorrect for the language they heard previously. SL abilities will be calculated using the number of syllables they correctly judge as having come from the language they heard previously. It is predicted that lateralized adults, adults who are either left-handed or right-handed, will have better scores on the SL task. A t-test will be used to determine if there was a significant difference in SL scores for left versus right-handed adults. This study will extend and help elucidate some of the mechanisms that may play a role in language

Neither fair nor speedy?: An evaluation of Indiana\u27s competency to stand trial process during Covid-19

The national increase of competency to stand trial (CST) referrals has contributed to delays in legal proceedings, hindrance of due process rights, and class action lawsuits. The state of Indiana previously did not have best practice standards regarding timeliness in completing CST evaluations. The current study used archival data from Odyssey Public Access to investigate Indiana court’s handling of the increasing demand for CST evaluations and the process of referral during the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of this study elucidate that the state of Indiana is not operating according to other states’ best practice standards. However, the current study concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic did not significantly increase the time to complete CST evaluations. This research sheds further light on the future of CST referrals and evaluations during an endemic

Homelessness and Competency to Stand Trial: Understanding the Intersections Between Mental Illness, Substance Abuse, and Criminalization in Competency Outcomes.

Competency to stand trial (CST) is a due process right guaranteed by the 14th amendment. As a result of the Supreme Court Case Dusky v. United States (1960), CST is defined as a defendant’s abilities to rationally and factually understand trial proceedings, as well as consult with their attorney. Individuals who are mentally ill are more likely to be incompetent to stand trial and are more likely to be referred for evaluations to determine if they are competent or incompetent to stand trial. The escalating increase for referrals on competency to stand trial (CST) evaluations has impacted the process of legal proceedings and due process rights in many states, potentially including, potentially, Indiana. One hypothesized contributing factor to the national competency crisis is the association between homelessness and CST referrals. The relation of homelessness and competency could be attributed to a variety of factors include: substance abuse, mental illness, and criminalization of poverty. Our study aims to investigate the relationship between homelessness, CST referrals, and CST evaluation outcomes. Using the Odyssey Public System, we had a population of over 4000 CST evaluations. We sampled 150 of these evaluations for the current research question. Using mycase.in.gov, additional data about the case (including specific charges, whether the defendant was homelessness, and outcome of CST and those cases) was coded by student research assistants. This poster will review the background of this growing problem and identify how many (CST) evaluations in Indiana involve homeless individuals and the outcomes of those cases

Race and Gender Bias in Competency to Stand Trial Evaluations

Competency to stand trial (CST) is a due process right guaranteed by the 14th amendment. As a result of the Supreme Court Case Dusky v. United States (1960), CST is defined as a defendant’s abilities to rationally and factually understand trial proceedings, as well as consult with their attorney. Psycho-legal scholars suggest that the United States has entered a “competency crisis”—defined by increasing orders for CST evaluations, an increased finding of incompetency, and delays in CST evaluations and restoration services. The escalating increase for referrals on CST evaluations has impacted the process of legal proceedings and due process rights in many states, potentially including Indiana. CST has been the most common type of evaluation within forensic psychology, and there have been numerous articles investigating potential racial and gender bias in CST referrals, reports, and outcomes (Cooper & Zapf, 2003; Dirks-Linhorst, 2018; Judd & Parker, 2018; Kois, et al., 2012; MacCallum, et al., 2015, Paradis, et al., 2016; Pierelli, et al., 2011, among others). Previous research suggests that within CST cases in the U.S., race/ethnicity and gender did not predict CST referrals or outcomes. Utilizing archival data collection of over 4000 CST cases in a Midwestern state between 2018 and 2021, this study will attempt to replicate these prior findings, as well as, investigate whether an interaction effect exists between race or gender and offense type in CST outcomes, and identify whether racial minorities have experienced longer delays in CST evaluations than their white counterparts

Assessing the component associations of the healthy worker survivor bias: occupational asbestos exposure and lung cancer mortality

BACKGROUND: The healthy worker survivor bias is well-recognized in occupational epidemiology. Three component associations are necessary for this bias to occur: i) prior exposure and employment status; ii) employment status and subsequent exposure; and iii) employment status and mortality. Together, these associations result in time-varying confounding affected by prior exposure. We illustrate how these associations can be assessed using standard regression methods. METHOD: We use data from 2975 asbestos textile factory workers hired between January 1940 and December 1965 and followed for lung cancer mortality through December 2001. RESULTS: At entry, median age was 24 years, with 42% female and 19% non-Caucasian. Over follow-up, 21% and 17% of person-years were classified as at work and exposed to any asbestos, respectively. For a 100 fiber-year/mL increase in cumulative asbestos, the covariate-adjusted hazard of leaving work decreased by 52% (95% confidence interval [CI], 46–58). The association between employment status and subsequent asbestos exposure was strong due to nonpositivity: 88.3% of person-years at work (95% CI, 87.0–89.5) were classified as exposed to any asbestos; no person-years were classified as exposed to asbestos after leaving work. Finally, leaving active employment was associated with a 48% (95% CI, 9–71) decrease in the covariate-adjusted hazard of lung cancer mortality. CONCLUSIONS: We found strong associations for the components of the healthy worker survivor bias in these data. Standard methods, which fail to properly account for time-varying confounding affected by prior exposure, may provide biased estimates of the effect of asbestos on lung cancer mortality under these conditions