Browsing by Author "Shanta Niraula"

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Being sensitive in their own way: parental ethnotheories of caregiver sensitivity and child emotion regulation across five countries
(Frontiers Media SA, 2023) Ju-Hyun Song; Sook In Cho; Gisela Trommsdorff; Pamela Cole; Shanta Niraula; Ramesh Mishra
Caregiver sensitivity builds a basis for children’s sense of security and effective emotion regulation during their development. Applying a cross-cultural lens, caregiver sensitivity can be divided into two subtypes, reactive and proactive, and its prevalence and meaning may differ across cultures. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of developmental niche and parental ethnotheories, the current study examines culture-specific meanings of caregiver sensitivity across five countries: India, Nepal, Korea, the United States of America (USA), and Germany. We examine the prevalence of maternal reactive and proactive sensitivity, children’s emotional lability and regulation, and how mothers’ sensitivity types are related to children’s emotional characteristics. Participants included 472 mothers from the five countries with children aged between 6 and 7 years. Mothers reported their sensitivity preference in multiple vignettes and completed an emotion regulation checklist to report their children’s emotional lability and regulation. A set of analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) found cultural differences in mothers’ preference for proactive and reactive sensitivity. Mothers in India and Nepal reported the highest preference for proactive sensitivity followed by Korea and the USA, while German mothers reported the lowest preference for proactive sensitivity. Consequent regression analyses revealed varying associations between proactive sensitivity and child emotional characteristics in all five countries either directly or as moderated by child sex. These results evidence that parental ethnotheories are part of the developmental niche embedded in a larger cultural context. Findings on the differential links between the types of sensitivity and child emotion regulation provide cultural models of parental emotion socialization and children’s emotional functioning. Copyright © 2023 Song, Cho, Trommsdorff, Cole, Niraula and Mishra.
Can we challenge attention and interpretation threat biases in rescued child labourers with a history of physical abuse using a computerised cognitive training task? Data on feasibility, acceptability and target engagement
(Elsevier Ltd, 2023) Sandesh Dhakal; Shulka Gupta; Narayan Prasad Sharma; Aakanksha Upadhyay; Abigail Oliver; Alex Sumich; Veena Kumari; Shanta Niraula; Rakesh Pandey; Jennifer Y.F. Lau
Child labourers are more likely to have experienced physical victimisation, which may increase risk for anxiety/depression, by shaping threat biases in information-processing. To target threat biases and vulnerability for anxiety/depression, we evaluated whether Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) training could be feasibly and acceptably delivered to rescued youth labourers. Seventy-six physically abused rescued labourers aged 14–17 (40 from Nepal, 36 from India) in out-of-home care institutions received either multi-session computerised CBM or control training. Training targeted attention away from threat to positive cues and the endorsement of benign over threat interpretations. Feasibility and acceptability data were gathered along with pre and post intervention measures of attention and interpretation bias and emotional and behavioural symptoms. In terms of feasibility, uptake (proportion of those who completed the pre-intervention assessment from those who consented) and retention (proportion of those who completed the post-intervention assessment from those who completed the pre-intervention assessment) were above 75% in both countries. Average acceptability ratings were mostly ‘moderate’ on most indices for both countries, and none of the participants reported experiencing serious adverse events or reactions in response to or during the trial. Secondarily, CBM participants showed increased attention to positive and decreased attention to threatening stimuli, as well as increased endorsement of benign interpretation and decreased endorsement in negative interpretations of ambiguous social situations. Symptom changes were less clear. Delivering CBM to former child labourers in out-of-home care institutions has interventive potential. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03625206, Date of registration: August 10, 2018. © 2023
Childhood maltreatment and its mental health consequences among Indian adolescents with a history of child work
(SAGE Publications Inc., 2020) Rakesh Pandey; Shulka Gupta; Aakanksha Upadhyay; Rajendra Prasad Gupta; Meenakshi Shukla; Ramesh Chandra Mishra; Yogesh Kumar Arya; Tushar Singh; Shanta Niraula; Jennifer Yun Fai Lau; Veena Kumari
Objectives: Although the prevalence and mental health consequences of childhood maltreatment among adolescents have been studied widely, there are few data addressing these issues in Asian lower middle–income countries. Here, we assessed the prevalence and types of childhood maltreatment and, for the first time, examined their association with current mental health problems in Indian adolescents with a history of child work. Methods: One hundred and thirty-two adolescents (12–18 years; 114 males, 18 females) with a history of child work were interviewed using the Child Maltreatment, Conventional Crime, and Witnessing and Indirect Victimisation modules of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire. Potential psychiatric diagnoses and current emotional and behavioural problems were assessed using the culturally adapted Hindi versions of the Youth’s Inventory–4R and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, respectively. Results: A large proportion of the sample reported childhood abuse or neglect (83.36%), direct or indirect victimisation (100%) and experienced symptoms of one or more psychiatric disorders (83.33%). Of the most common maltreatment types, physical abuse was present for 72.73% (extra-familial 56.25%, intra-familial 42.71%), emotional abuse for 47.7% (extra-familial 74.6%, intra-familial 12.9%), general neglect for 17.4% and unsafe home for 45.5% of the adolescents. All these maltreatment types were associated with poor mental health, with emotional abuse showing the strongest and wide-ranging impact. Conclusions: Indian adolescents with a history of child work are at an extremely high risk of extra-familial physical and emotional abuse as well as victimisation. They also experience a range of psychiatric symptoms, especially if they suffered emotional abuse. There is an urgent need for routine mental health screening and to consider emotional abuse in all current and future top-down and bottom-up approaches to address childhood maltreatment, as well as in potential interventions to ameliorate its adverse effects on mental health and well-being, of child and adolescent workers. © The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2020.
Ecology, language, and performance on spatial cognitive tasks
(2003) Ramesh C. Mishra; Pierre R. Dasen; Shanta Niraula
The study of the orientation systems that people use in different cultures to describe the location of objects in space has drawn some interest of researchers in the fields of anthropology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology. There has been a rethinking of the "linguistic relativity hypothesis," and some empirical studies tend to support the notion that language is the major determinant of encoding and cognitive performance on spatial tasks, This paper reports a cross-cultural study carried out with 545 children aged 4 to 14 years, both schooled and unschooled, in India and Nepal. The field sites were selected taking into consideration how reference to spatial locations is organized in the language as well as in the local cultural practices. In a village near Varanansi in India, people organize spatial locations mainly with reference to cardinal directions, but in the city of Varanasi, relative references are also used, although people in both the locations speak the same language (i.e., Hindi). In a village in Nepal, on the other hand, the "uphill-downhill" geocentric frame of reference is the most compelling. We test the relationship between ecology, culture, and language, encoding of spatial information, and performance on some Piagetian spatial tasks, taking age and schooling into account. Berry's eco-cultural model is used to discuss the findings that support linguistic relativism at the group but not at the individual level.
History of abuse and neglect and their associations with mental health in rescued child labourers in Nepal
(SAGE Publications Inc., 2019) Sandesh Dhakal; Shanta Niraula; Narayan Prasad Sharma; Sabitri Sthapit; Eleanor Bennett; Ayesha Vaswani; Rakesh Pandey; Veena Kumari; Jennifer YF Lau
Objectives: Little is known about rates of childhood maltreatment in low-income countries, particularly among marginalised sectors of society. Economic hardships mean that in such countries, many children and young people are exploited in the labour force and/or are trafficked, placing them at greater risk for being exposed to other forms of maltreatment. Cultural norms endorsing the use of physical and emotional acts to discipline children further exacerbate this risk. Here, we assessed the rates of childhood victimisation experiences and associated mental health problems in Nepalese youth rescued from illegal child labour including trafficking. Methods: One hundred and three young people aged 12–18 years living in out-of-home care institutions and rescued from child labour/trafficking completed translated versions of selected modules from the Juvenile Victimisation Questionnaire, the Youth Inventory and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire. Care-home employees responsible for looking after the young people completed the Adolescent Symptom Inventory and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire. Analysis described maltreatment frequencies and compared individuals who had and had not experienced any form of maltreatment on the presence/absence of psychiatric diagnoses. Results: Seventy-two percent of participants experienced some form of maltreatment in their lifetime. Rates for each maltreatment type were 46.6% for physical abuse, 40.77% for emotional abuse, 27.2% for sexual abuse and 33% for neglect. Symptoms indicative of anxiety disorders and trauma were commonly reported especially in victims of childhood maltreatment. Conclusions: Our estimates of physical abuse in this at-risk juvenile sample were commensurate to those reported in general-population youth samples in Nepal, but sexual and emotional abuse rates were somewhat lower. The potential presence of anxiety and trauma in this sample that may result from maltreatment requires replication, but underscores an urgent need for routine mental health screening in rescued child labourers during rehabilitation efforts. © The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists 2019.
Linguistic relativity and spatial concept development in Nepal
(Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 2004) Pierre R. Dasen; Ramesh C. Mishra; Shanta Niraula
Reports the results of a study done in a mountainous region of Nepal on a sample of 144, 6-14 year old boys and girls, schooled and unschooled. A variety of tasks was selected for the analysis of language children use for describing space and for the assessment of spatial encoding and cognitive performance on spatial developmental tasks. The results confirm that the language people use to describe spatial arrays is linked to the way in which they orient themselves in the environment. The age trends in language development indicate a change from intrinsic and projective to geocentric references, with almost no use of egocentric terms, while the encoding of spatial arrays is predominantly absolute (age changes being task specific). Overall, spatial cognitive development is quite independent of spatial encoding, but shows some statistically significant relations to the use of geocentric language.
Recognising and healing emotional wounds of child labourers: call to action based on the evidence and stakeholder views from India and Nepal
(Cambridge University Press, 2022) Harleen Kaur; Kathleen Duncan; Sandesh Dhakal; Narayan Sharma; Shanta Niraula; Rakesh Pandey; Veena Kumari; Jennifer Y. F. Lau; Tushar Singh
Child labourers are at risk of poorer mental health and once rescued require urgent mental health interventions to ameliorate the long-term impact. In our review, only two published scientific studies evaluated custom-made interventions; other programmes were obtained from non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which need rigorous trial evaluation. We also sought the viewpoints of stakeholders working directly with rescued young people, as well as consulting young people with lived experiences of child labour. We propose that psychoeducational interventions aimed at employees working directly with young people could represent a fruitful approach for low- and middle-income countries in the Asia-Pacific region but also more generally. Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
The development of geocentric spatial language and cognition; [Développement du langage et de la cognition spatiale géocentrique]
(2006) Pierre Dasen; Ramesh Mishra; Shanta Niraula; Juerg Wassmann
According to Western psychology, the child constructs egocentric spatial concepts before developing geocentric concepts. In a cross-cultural study on 1 143 children aged 4 to 15, in Bali, Banaras, Katmandou, and Geneva, we find that the geocentric frame predominates even in very young children (4 to 6 years) and becomes stronger with age. Small-scale, table-top space is organised according to a large-scale spatial orientation system and this even indoors where no external spatial cues are available. Three language elicitation tasks and three spatial encoding tasks are used. A comparison with children studied in Geneva shows that we are facing a developmental path unknown in Western societies.
Threat biases associate with anxiety and depression in physically-abused young people with a history of child labour
(Elsevier Ltd, 2022) Narayan Prasad Sharma; Sandesh Dhakal; Abigail Oliver; Shulka Gupta; Veena Kumari; Rakesh Pandey; Shanta Niraula; Jennifer Y.F. Lau
Background and objectives: Young people who have experienced early-life maltreatment preferentially attend to threat and draw more threatening interpretations. In turn, these threat biases may explain elevated risk for lifelong anxiety and/or depression. We investigated whether adolescent labourers with a history of physical abuse showed threat biases relative to non-abused labourers, and whether these threat biases associated with anxiety and depression. Methods: 100 young people (aged 13–18 years, 64% female) from Nepal rescued from illegal child work were assessed for childhood maltreatment and anxiety and/or depression disorders. Participants completed an emotional visual search task (to measure attention engagement of positive versus negative faces) and an ambiguous scenarios questionnaire (to measure the endorsement of negative versus benign interpretations). Results: Seventy young people reported a history of physical (and emotional) abuse. They were more likely to meet symptom thresholds for depression, and marginally, for anxiety disorders than non-physically abused participants. Abused and non-abused participants did not differ on attention engagement/disengagement of threat or on interpretational style. Abused participants with anxiety were slower to disengage from negative faces to engage with a positive face than non-anxious abused participants. Abused participants with depression endorsed more negative interpretations of ambiguous situations than those without depression. Limitations: The cross-sectional design limits our ability to infer whether threat biases reflect risk markers of psychopathology. Conclusions: If threat biases are shown to confer risk for anxiety and depression in future studies, they could be targeted in mental health prevention programs for these vulnerable young people. © 2022