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The purpose of the current research was to extend knowledge of attribution processes in sport. Specifically, the attribution processes of coach-athlete dyads were investigated over several weeks of competition, focusing on the application of theoretical frameworks (i.e., Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967; Rees, Ingeldew, & Hardy, 2005a; Weiner, 1985) to attribution processes. Attribution change and the influence of coach feedback and post-game review procedures on attribution processes were also investigated. Three elite junior Australian Football (AF) players (18-19 years) and their head coach (45 years) were interviewed on multiple occasions through an attribution lens. Each athlete was interviewed on three occasions (pre-game, post-game, post-feedback) and the athletes’ coach was also interviewed two days post performances for the same three games. Player-participants’ stories are presented as case studies, with attention given to how their stories related to the literature. Participants’ stories reflected several aspects of theoretical frameworks (i.e., Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967; Weiner, 1985). There was evidence of actor and observer divergence with the coach-participant providing more dispositional causal ascription than player-participants. Player-participants demonstrated attribution change after their post-game feedback possibly revealing the influence of review processes for mediating attributions. For example, after coach feedback, athletes used the coach’s attributions to explain their performance outcome. In addition, their attributions tended towards using more dispositional causes in their post-coach feedback interviews than were used in their post-game interviews. The findings may demonstrate the strong influence that coaches have on athletes’ perceptions of their performance outcomes. The research findings extend knowledge of attribution processes in sport and could inform researchers and sport psychologists in determining interventions of choice to assist athletes and coaches.

A number of studies have found that both dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep and sleep hygiene behaviours contribute to sleeping problems, particularly for those with insomnia. However, limited research has investigated beliefs and attitudes about sleep and sleep hygiene from a developmental perspective, within the community. This study was divided into two Phases. In Phase One, the aim was to develop a questionnaire assessing ‘community’ beliefs and attitudes about sleep, named the Views on Sleep Scale (VOSS). Another aim was to re-test the psychometric properties of a published scale assessing people’s beliefs about sleep hygiene (Sleep Beliefs Scale, SBS, by Adan, Fabbri, Natale & Prat, 2006). Phase One of the study comprised of 209 adults from the general community, ranging in age from 18 to 86 (M = 41, SD = 15). The results found that both the VOSS and SBS had good internal reliability when examining the total score and individual items of the scales. In Phase Two, the aim was to test two age groups (18-25 years and 60+ years) about their beliefs and attitudes about sleep using the VOSS, SBS and the Sleep Plot (developed by Lack, 2007). Participants in Phase Two were younger adults (n=113; aged 18 to 25, M = 21.41 years) and older adults (n= 110; aged 60+ years, M = 72.13 years). Consistent with the hypothesis, the older adults held more dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep than the younger adults. In comparison, younger adults and males were found to hold more incorrect beliefs/less sleep hygiene knowledge than the older adults (respectively). An explanation was put forth, suggesting that older adults tend to be more concerned about their sleep and the consequences of poor sleep on daytime functioning. Therefore, it is suggested that the older adults are more concerned about practicing the correct sleep hygiene behaviours in comparison to younger adults. In addition, results found that both age groups realistically portrayed the sleep of a healthy 65 year old to have less deep sleep than a healthy 18 year old. Yet, both age group’s perceived sleep to be unrealistically deep and uninterrupted throughout the night. This study suggests that dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep are more widespread across the community than just in those defined as poor sleepers. This study highlights important areas for education in the general community, such as sleep expectations, sleep beliefs, sleep hygiene behaviours, and the usual sleep-wake cycles across the night. It is proposed that changing widespread faulty perspectives may be helpful in the prevention and/or treatment of insomnia.

Assessment tools that accurately assess executive functions in early adulthood are important for clinical practice, particularly given factors that can affect the executive functions, such as brain injury and mental illness, are relatively common during this developmental period. The aim of the current study was to investigate a more recently refined measure of executive function, the Controlled Animal Fluency Test (CAFT) in a non-clinical sample of young adults. Relationships between performance on the CAFT and other executive measures and cognitive measures were examined along with the relationship of CAFT measures to demographic factors. Further normative data for the CAFT for young adults were also obtained. Sixty individuals (27 male & 33 female) aged 19 to 40 years (M = 31.2 years, SD = 6.03) participated. They were screened for brain injury, serious illness, neurodevelopmental disorder, and psychotropic medication according to a structured interview protocol. Participants were tested with the CAFT, the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI), the Trail Making Test (TMT), and the Digit Span subtest from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV). Results showed significant correlations between the three conditions of the CAFT and FSIQ; CAFT Size and part B of the Trail Making Test; CAFT Alphabet and the COWAT; and all three conditions of the CAFT and the demographic variables of SES and number of years of education. The current findings highlight the interconnectedness of executive functions and other cognitive constructs such as FSIQ and reinforce the importance of accounting for demographic variables when developing normative data sets. Most importantly, however, the results of the current study provide evidence that the CAFT is a clinically useful measure of executive function with the early adulthood population.

Humans are capable of remembering information in an active, easily accessible form. However, this is a limited capacity system, which temporarily maintains and stores information, and supports human thought processes by providing an interface between perception, long-term memory, and action. Using the task-span procedure developed by Logan (2004), the current thesis aimed to examine some of the most salient features of working memory. Specifically how processing and storage interact with working memory, the influence of organisational factors on working memory and the relationship between task-switching and working memory.

Nightmares have been described as the most common form of disturbed dreaming. The definition most widely accepted considers two criteria as definitive elements of nightmares, acute anxiety or fear, and awakening from sleep with full alertness. Contemporary studies suggest that nightmares are relatively common and can either be benign or malignant to the point of being compared to psychosis. Thus when nightmares become frequent and/or recurrent, they tend to become problematic and warrant treatment. The current study aimed to investigate the frequency of nightmares in a large community based sample and trial a brief story line alteration technique. More specifically, the current research was designed to conduct two related studies in order to elucidate nightmare frequency and intensity in an Australian sample and examine the efficacy of self-help nightmare treatments. The main hypotheses in the first study predicted that more than 10% of the sample would report weekly nightmares and significant gender differences in reporting nightmares would be observed. Participants in the first study were 440 university students (115 men and 325 women) aged between 18 and 34 (M = 20.41 years). Participants completed the retrospective metric/s Nightmare Frequency Questionnaire (NFQ) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Addendum. The results showed that yearly, monthly and weekly nightmares were common, in particular weekly nightmares. However no significant differences between genders were found. Participants in the second study were 20 students who reported weekly nightmares aged between 18-31 (M = 21.6 years) and completed a battery of retrospective metrics including the Nightmare Effects Survey (NES), Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS-37 items). The main hypotheses in the second study predicted that the Storyline Alteration Technique (SLAT) would ameliorate nightmare frequency and waking distress overtime and achieve significantly better therapeutic outcomes in contrast to the Systematic Desensitization (SysD) technique. Results showed that the SLAT was efficacious in significantly ameliorating nightmare frequency overtime and in contrast to the SysD technique. It was concluded that weekly nightmares were more prevalent than previous retrospective findings had indicated and self-help nightmare treatments were efficacious in ameliorating nightmare frequency, associated waking distress and poor sleep.

Previous research investigating affect and behaviour following mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) in children has produced variable results. It has been suggested that following a mTBI children may experience transitory "post-concussion" symptoms but subsequently will make a full recovery. In contrast, other studies have reported changes in children's behaviour and affect lasting even years post injury. The current study aimed to further document the impact of mTBI on behaviour and affect in children. This prospective study reports on a sample of 26 children aged between 6 and 12 years. The children were assessed at baseline, one week, three months and a subgroup at 12 months post injury. No changes were found over time on the standardised measures of behaviour and affect with the Behavioural Assessment System for Children, Second Edition (BASC2). However, on the BASC2 the children with pre-existing problems displayed higher incidence of scores in the 'At Risk' or 'Clinically Significant' range on the Externalising Problems composite scale in comparison to the children with no preexisting problems. A qualitative question was also administered to parents. Approximately half of the whole sample reported some change in their child's mood or behaviour at one week post-injury and approximately one quarter continued to report changes at three months post injury. It was also investigated whether the children who had problems or changes reported at three months post-injury differed from the other children on any pre-morbid factors, however, no significant results were found. The overall conclusions drawn from the study were that the group of children referred to the study had a higher proportion of children with pre-existing problems than that expected in the general population. Further, these children differed pre-morbidly from those without pre-existing problems on standardised behavioural measures. While no changes were found over time on standardised measures of behaviour and affect, subjective parental report suggested that in fact there may have been more subtle changes in some children's behaviour up to 3 months post-injury. These findings are worthy of further systematic investigation.

This study used Lavie's (1995, 2010) perceptual load theory to investigate selective attention deficits after mild to moderate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). This theory predicts that when the load involved in a task does not exceed perceptual resources (low load), there is spare capacity for irrelevant distractors to be processed. This leads to distractor interference, with incompatible distractors causing maximal interference compared to neutral and compatible distractors. When perceptual resources are exceeded (high load) differential distractor interference effects are reduced or eliminated. Twelve mild to moderate TBI patients and 12 neurologically intact controls completed two computer-based tasks which manipulated perceptual load, as well as neuropsychological tests of attention. In computer task A target letters flanked by coloured shapes were presented with distractors that were incompatible, neutral or compatible with the target. Computer task B was similar but involved more ecologically relevant targets in the form of line drawings of cups and glasses. Participants were instructed to respond to targets when they appeared with coloured shapes (single feature; low load) or specific shapes of specific colours (conjunction of features; high load) thus manipulating perceptual load by verbal instruction alone. Patterns of responses were consistent with hypotheses; however, no statistically significant differences were found between distractor types under low load in either computer task. Whereas there were no significant differences between groups on RT measures, TBI patients made significantly more errors on the computer tasks and showed poorer performances on neuropsychological tests of selective attention than did controls. Small sample sizes and possible confounding effects of cognitive load may have contributed to the lack of statistically significant results. Future research with mild/moderate TBI patients may benefit from varying display set size to manipulate load instead of the verbal instructions used in the current study.

Age-related change in the sleep quality of women in aged-care is a key area in gender and ageing research. Not only does the structure of sleep change with age, but so too do the perceptions and beliefs around sleep, and the sleep management strategies available to women. Surprisingly however, the essence of the sleep beliefs and self-management strategies of women in aged-care remains largely unexplored. What is clear, is that this essence is not sufficiently captured by current clinical measures, reflecting the notion that sleep researchers and elderly women hold discordant beliefs regarding sleep quality. In order to address that disjuncture, this mixed methods study aimed to investigate a) the meanings of good and poor sleep quality for elderly women in aged-care, and b) women's self-management of sleep quality.

The phenomenon of distractor interference indicates that information not relevant to the goal is processed and has an impact on goal-directed actions. Recent work in young, healthy participants indicates that distractors presented simultaneously and also 200ms prior to targets have a significant, though attenuated, impact on responses to targets (Kritikos, McNeill & Pavlis 2008; Watson & Humphreys 1998). Beyond this interval, interference starts to diminish (Kritikos et al., 2008; Watson & Humphreys 1998). Incongruent distractors presented 200 ms prior to targets are associated with greater interference than neutral and congruent distractors (Kritikos et al., 2008; Watson & Humphreys 1998). These findings imply that internal representations of irrelevant information are capable of affecting subsequent responses to goals. In the current study, older participants were compared with younger participants to investigate age effects on response times and accuracy to simultaneously presented as well as temporally separated distractors at intervals at/greater than 200ms. The impact of age on response times to manipulations of distractor congruence was also investigated. Simultaneous presentation of target and distrator, as well distractors preceded by the target by 200 ms or I 000 ms, was associated with increased distractor interference for both groups. The presence of incongruent distractors led to increased distractor interference for both groups. During all conditions in both experiments the older group had significantly longer reaction times compared to younger participants and was relatively more accurate in response selection. Overall, the older group's slower response style seemed to be more advantageous, allowing them enough time to think more carefully about their responses. These findings are discussed with reference to Salthouse' s ( 1996) reduced speed of processing theory, which states that normal ageing is associated with generalized slowing of neural transmission. The finding that older participants were accurate in their responses and had no greater difficulty than younger participants in inhibiting incongruent distractors does not support Hasher and Zack's (1998) reduced inhibition theory. Despite overall slower reaction times, older participants demonstrated a preserved ability to inhibit unwanted stimuli in their responses.

Accurate interpretation of pre- and post-surgical cognitive assessments is essential for patients undergoing surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). However, potentially confounding issues such as practice effects and low test-retest reliability may influence a person’s test score when they are given the same neuropsychological test on a second occasion, such as following surgery. Determining how much change in test scores is due to methodological issues and how much is due to genuine post-operative cognitive improvement or decline can better inform both clinical and client decisions regarding surgical intervention for TLE. Such data has been reported in North American TLE populations but the generalisability of this data to other centres is unknown. Using data obtained from unoperated patients with TLE, the current study utilised standardised regression-based change (SRB) and reliable change index (RCI) methodologies to determine change on retest across cognitive domains. Both the local and North American RCIs and SRB change norms were then applied to an Australian post-operative sample to evaluate cognitive outcomes, as well as to investigate the generalisability of change data derived from different demographic backgrounds.

Imatinib was successfully introduced into haematology-oncology practice in 2001 and rapidly endorsed as a first line treatment for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) in the chronic, accelerated, and blastic phases. The survival advantage demonstrated by this target kinase inhibitor has meant that patients are now treated with this agent on a long-term basis. There is a growing literature on the potential toxic effects of chronic imatinib use (Fruttiger et al., 1999; Grove et al., 2004). A safety sub-study undertaken by the Australasian Leukaemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG) identified a range of subtle effects consistent with the inhibition of targeted kinases in the immunological, respiratory, endocrine, and reproductive systems (Seymour et al., 2004). To date, there has been no attempt to elucidate possible neuropsychological sequelae of chronic imatinib use. However concerns exist about the potential neurotoxic effects of this agent, given that the inhibition of protein kinase in animal studies has been associated with a range of deleterious consequences, such as impaired learning and memory, and reduced synaptic efficacy (Grove et al., 2004; Moresco et al., 2003). The purpose of the current study was to monitor the neuropsychological function of a group of adult CML patients’ newly prescribed imatinib.

In cases where patients with epilepsy require surgery to help reduce the frequency and severity of their seizures, information about the areas of the brain involved with language function, such as the anterior temporal pole, can be valuable in predicting and minimising language difficulties that may arise after brain surgery. The aim of the project was to first evaluate the current group of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMR.I) language tasks used in the Epilepsy Centre of St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne (SVHM). This group of task included sentence completion, verbal fluency, and picture-naming tasks. Secondly, two new language tasks, reading and semantic decision-making were examined in an attempt to improve upon the existing battery's ability to detect anterior temporal pole activation for patients undergoing anterior temporal lobectomy. Healthy controls and patients with epilepsy performed tasks in the original battery on one of two standard 1.5 tesla MRI scanners (an older Siemen Magnetom or a newer Siemen Avanto). With the older scanner, the sentence completion task was the only original SVHM fMRI language task to show consistent activation. In contrast, with the newer scanner, all four original tasks, along with the new reading and semantic decision tasks, demonstrated consistent language activation when thinner slices covering a larger area were obtained. When used on the newer MRI imager, the new reading, the picture naming, and the sentence completion tasks produce the highest levels of anterior temporal lobe activation. The reading and picture naming tasks tended to show more temporal lobe activation, while the semantic decision and verbal fluency tasks tended to show more frontal lobe activation. Practical and theoretical implications of the research for presurgical fMRI evaluation are discussed.

There has been little systematic research of the effects of chronic inhalant abuse. This paper reports a prospective study of the cognitive functioning of inhalant abusing adolescents and young adults, contrasted with a comparable group not using inhalants in the 6 months prior to testing, and non-clinical controls.

In the area of dementia diagnosis and assessment of cognitive functioning of elderly culturally and linguistically diverse individuals (CALDI) little is known about cognitive test performance differences between migrants and peers from their country of origin. Although Australia is known for its multicultural society and Greek is one of the most common languages spoken at home, few studies have compared cognitive test performance between migrants to peers from their country of origin. This study investigated whether the long-term migrant group of elderly Greek-Australians (GA) performance on tests of cognition was comparable to demographically similar group of elderly Greek Nationals (GN).

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder presenting with a variety of behavioural and cognitive manifestations. Recent conceptual theories of ADHD have implicated a key impairment in executive functioning, namely inhibition, however inconsistencies in the pattern of findings warrant further investigation. As a consequence of increasing awareness of the underlying deficits in ADHD, studies have emerged dedicated to investigating the efficacy of interventions, including psychostimulants and multimodal treatments (medication and behavioural therapy). Whilst the short term efficacy of these treatments is supported, there is a relative absence of convincing empirical evidence to support long term treatment in improving behaviour and cognition. Furthermore, the additive benefit of a combined treatment approach remains contradictory. The aim of the present study was to explore the executive function profile of ADHD and determine the impact of two treatments: medication alone and low intensity, family centred combined therapy treatment on cognition and behaviour. Cognitive test performance and parent ratings relative to published norms were assessed among 27 school age children with ADHD. These children were either assigned medication alone or combined therapy and were followed up over six months to compare treatment efficacy. Changes in performance based executive functioning and parent reported behaviours were evaluated at baseline, three months and six months for the two treatment groups. Results showed that the ADHD children performed poorly relative to test norms across most cognitive and behavioural measures sensitive to executive functions at baseline, however not all children demonstrated significant impairments in inhibition. Both treatment groups evidenced significant improvements with treatment over the six month follow-up period, however this is one of the first studies showing that the combined group was associated with greater and wider ranging improvements than medication alone treatment. Correlational analyses revealed mostly non-significant or low to moderate relationships between objective and subjective executive function measures. These results are discussed in the context of Barkley’s theory of ADHD (1997a) and the value of low intensity, family centred combined treatment for ADHD.

Executive Functioning skills develop with age, emerging in infancy and becoming established in early adulthood. Despite the considerable attention given them in child, adolescent and adult research, they have received only minimal attention in research with preschool age children. Many disorders of childhood begin to present themselves as the child begins to emerge from the largely non-verbal world of the toddler. The lack of research in this age group presents a very real problem for clinicians wanting to characterize disorders in time to begin early intervention programs. This study aims to contribute to a greater understanding of executive functioning in the preschool age group, by evaluating two developmentally appropriate instruments with an Australian sample. Thirty-three normally developing preschool children between the ages of 54 and 66 months were tested using two recently developed, preschool specific neuropsychological tests of executive functioning; Espy's (1997) Shape School Task (SST) and Byrne's et al., (1998) Picture Deletion Task for preschoolers (PDTP). Results showed consistency between U S and Australian data on measures of inhibitory control using the SST, but not on measures of mental flexibility. Results from the PDTP showed high levels of variability within the US and Australian samples and quite large discrepancies between US and Australian performances, particularly with regard to omission errors. The absence of IQ data and limited methodological detail in the US studies made comparison of results difficult to interpret. Additional analysis was undertaken on the Australian sample with the division of the group into two separate cohorts of 54-59 and 60-66 months of age. As expected, there were no developmental trends evident between the younger and the older age groups, suggesting that spurts in the development of impulse control and mental flexibility are most noticeable prior to the age of four years. It was concluded that in particular the SST showed promise as a tool for assessing aspects of executive functioning in preschool age children, but that the PDTP with its greater variability requires further refinement. Both tasks would benefit from further investigations with both normally developing children over a wider age range, and with clinical samples. The application of these instruments in two clinical case studies are also presented.

It is clear from previous research that a variety of biological, psychological and environmental characteristics represent modest risk factors for the development of chronic conduct problems in children. Disturbances in emotional functioning in particular have been implicated in children's disruptive behaviour disorders at almost every level of analysis. In spite of this, emotional disturbances have not typically been regarded as core features of children's conduct problems and the considerable overlap between affective- and conduct disordered symptoms in this diagnostic group remains poorly understood. The aim of the present study was to examine empirically the extent to which affective disturbances might be implicated in the persistent pattern of disruptive behaviour exhibited by many children diagnosed with conduct- or oppositional defiant disorder. The role of affective irritability and dysphoria, and pessimism in mediating these children's perception of the social environment was of particular interest. A cross-sectional methodology was utilised comparing clinical and non-clinical groups on emotional characteristics and functioning as assessed by the Rorschach Inkblot Test.

Hydrocephalus (HC) is a condition involving an increased volume of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) in the ventricular system, caused by a variety of prenatal and postnatal aetiologies. In obstructive H C there is an obstruction to the flow of CSF and in communicating HC there is an interference with the reabsorption of the CSF while the ventricular pathways remain functional. The compressive effects of HC may lead to thinning and stretching of the corpus callosum, and also damage projection fibres, optic tracts and olfactory pathways. Consistent with this neuropathology, progressive HC in early childhood may result in neuropsychological impairment such as gross and fine motor deficits, spatial perceptual problems, and slowed processing speed. To date there is a paucity of research that compares the neuropsychological functioning of children with obstructive and communicating H C . This study aimed to compare attention, processing speed and executive functions in children with obstructive and communicating HC.