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Papers by Maurissa Abecassis

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology

Objective: The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) captures perceptions of an... more Objective: The Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) captures perceptions of an individual’s executive functioning in their everyday environment. Two self-report forms span late adolescence into early adulthood: BRIEF2 (ages 11-18) and BRIEF-Adult (ages 18-90). We compared responses on these forms in young adults to evaluate their continuity in this transitional age range. Method: Participants were 77 college students [age M(SD)= 18.45(0.64), 66% female], without psychiatric or serious medical conditions, who completed the BRIEF2 and BRIEF-A forms in counterbalanced order. Mean scores on shared clinical scales (Inhibit, Self-Monitor, Shift, Emotional Control, Working Memory, Plan/Organize) and Global Executive Composite (GEC) were examined using MANOVA and correlations; T scores were examined in the subsample of 18-year-olds (n=47). Results: For mean ratings, planned univariate follow-up tests with Bonferroni correction were significant only for the Inhibit scale [...

Love-Letters and Privacy in Modern China, 2002

Journal of the American College of Surgeons

Psychological Injury and Law

Child Development, 2003

Mutual antipathies (when two children or adolescents dislike one another) were studied among 2,34... more Mutual antipathies (when two children or adolescents dislike one another) were studied among 2,348 schoolage children and 2,768 adolescents to determine incidence, gender and age differences, and implications for social adjustment. The children were more frequently involved than were the adolescents in same-sex antipathies but not mixed-sex ones. Boys were involved more frequently than were girls in same-sex antipathies, but involvement in mixed-sex antipathies was comparable for the two genders. With peer rejection scores used as a covariate, same-sex antipathies were associated with antisocial behavior and social withdrawal among children and adolescents of both genders and, in addition, to emotionality and lack of friendship support among adolescents. Mixed-sex antipathies were related to social adjustment depending on gender: these antipathies were related to antisocial and bullying behavior in boys but not girls; and to nonaggressiveness, victimization, lesser cooperation, shyness, and depression in girls but not boys. Mutual antipathies thus appear to be concomitants of adaptational risk in both childhood and adolescence.

Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence, Jan 10, 2016

Aboriginal children in Canada are at high risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) but ther... more Aboriginal children in Canada are at high risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) but there is little research on the cognitive impact of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) in this population. This paper reviews the literature on parent report of executive functioning in children with FASD that used the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). New data on the BRIEF is then reported in a sample of 52 Aboriginal Canadian children with FASD for whom a primary caregiver completed the BRIEF. The children also completed a battery of neuropsychological tests. The results reveal mean scores in the impaired range for all three BRIEF index scores and seven of the eight scales, with the greatest difficulties found on the Working Memory, Inhibit and Shift scales. The majority of the children were reported as impaired on the index scores and scales, with Working Memory being most commonly impaired scale. On the performance-based tests, Trails B and Letter Fluency are most oft...

In this study, questions regarding the prevalence of mutual antipathies and their relation to the... more In this study, questions regarding the prevalence of mutual antipathies and their relation to the behavior of individual children were examined among preadolescents and adolescents. Mutual antipathies were defined as relationships in which children mutually nominated one another as least liked on a sociometric task. A distinction was drawn between same sex (SS) and mixed-sexed (MS) antipathies. Findings indicated that SS antipathies were more prevalent among boys than girls, especially in preadolescence. Involvement in MS antipathy was similar among boys and girls in preadolescence and adolescence. Involvement in SS antipathies was related to greater antisocial behavior and greater aggressiveness in preadolescence and adolescence, after social rejection was taken into account. Involvement in MS antipathy was associated with different patterns of adaptation for boys and girls: boys with MS antipathies were more antisocial and more prosocial in preadolescence, and more aggressive, hig...

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2003

The study of peers who dislike one another, termed mutual antipathies, is being recognized as an ... more The study of peers who dislike one another, termed mutual antipathies, is being recognized as an important aspect of a child's social world. An overview of this area is provided, along with a focus on one particular type of antipathy, enemies.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2001

Children and adults often generalize a word to objects of the same shape. However, the shape prop... more Children and adults often generalize a word to objects of the same shape. However, the shape properties on which generalization is based are unknown. We investigated the degree to which two shape dimensions were represented categorically by children and adults when learning names for objects. Multidimensional scaling techniques were used to establish the perceptual similarity of two sets of objects in Experiment 1. In Experiments 2 and 3, children (from 2;8 to 4;5 years of age) and adults participated in two tasks in which they learned a novel name for an exemplar. We then examined how often the novel name was generalized to different objects and to line drawings of the objects. In one task, participants generalized the names from memory; in a second task the exemplar was in front of the participant during generalization. Adults accepted names more often to objects that fell "within" the proposed shape boundaries than to objects that fell "across" the boundaries. Children, however, were just as likely to generalize names to novel objects that fell within as to objects that crossed the boundaries.

Child Development, 2002