Assessing impairment in daily functioning is an important part of a mental health evaluation and of monitoring progress in treatment. The... Show moreAssessing impairment in daily functioning is an important part of a mental health evaluation and of monitoring progress in treatment. The Seasonality Assessment Form (SAF; Young, et al., 2014) included a measure to assess the degree of impairment in daily functioning associated with these symptoms. The 5 yes/no impairment items were written to reflect the ways that patients intuitively describe their levels of impairment. However, the items are not mutually exclusive and are not summative so that impairment severity is represented by the configural pattern of responses. This paper examined the nature of response patterns and how to use them to generate an impairment severity score. M.S. in Psychology, May 2016 Show less
The executive functions are the higher-order mental processes that are responsible for organized, strategic behavior. These functions have... Show moreThe executive functions are the higher-order mental processes that are responsible for organized, strategic behavior. These functions have been a source of significant controversy since their initial introduction. This study sought to create a model of the executive functions utilizing psychological network analysis. Participants completed six measures reflecting inhibition, task switching, and working memory updating, as well as a fluid intelligence measure. A processing speed index was calculated from non-executive trials of various measures. Four networks were generated, including an executive functions network, an executive functions and intelligence network, an executive functions and processing speed network, and a network with all variables included. The resulting networks contained no stable edges between the executive functioning tasks. Stable edges were identified between the intelligence node and the two nodes reflecting working memory updating. There was an additional edge identified between processing speed and one measure of task switching. Results of the study may indicate that there is relative independence among executive functions. However, the management of task impurity in a psychological network analysis also merits further investigation. Show less
