Does L2 production involve adaptive control? Previous research drawing on a parallel between Stroop effects in L1 and cognate effects in L2 produced no support for this idea when inducing adaptive control implicitly (i.e., involuntarily). Reasoning that adaptive control might be hard to implement implicitly in L2 production, here, we induced adaptive control explicitly by presenting informative cues revealing whether the upcoming stimulus would be congruent/incongruent (in L1 Stroop) or cognate/noncognate (in L2 picture naming). Adaptive control was successfully induced in L1 Stroop, with informative cues, relative to uninformative ones, having a facilitatory effect. Such was not the case for L2 picture naming, in which informative cues had an inhibitory effect. While there might be several reasons for this reverse cueing effect, this finding represents another dissociation between L2 production and conflict tasks, which likely has implications for theories assuming a close connection between domain-general and bilingualism-specific control.

With alcohol use disorder rising in England, evaluating the impact of interventions used in services is important. This evaluation was conducted in a third sector drug and alcohol service within South England. It aimed to explore the association of a structured cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) group and engagement for service users in early recovery from alcohol use disorder, comparing outcomes with a previously unstructured psychosocial group. A mixed-methods approach compared the groups. Both groups lasted 12 sessions. Self-reported alcohol consumption, psychological health, physical health, and quality of life were measured using the Treatment Outcomes Profile (TOPs; Marsden et al., 2008). Quantitative data were analysed from 47 service users in the unstructured group and 43 in the structured CBT group. Qualitative analysis explored four service users’ feedback from the structured CBT group through interviews, using thematic analysis. Significantly more participants completed the structured CBT group (93.02% vs 74.47%). Structured group participants, on average, attended 50.97% of sessions, compared with 25.53% in the unstructured group. Mixed-model ANOVAs (repeated measures and between subjects) showed an improvement in psychological health, quality of life, and physical health regardless of the intervention type. Both groups also reduced alcohol consumption. Qualitative analysis identified two emerging themes, accessibility and a sense of belonging, alongside several subthemes. While both groups improved treatment outcomes, findings suggest a structured CBT group may be associated with more engagement and facilitate greater retention in treatment.

Key learning aims

1. (1) To understand how engagement and treatment outcomes differ between a structured CBT group and an unstructured psychosocial group in the treatment of alcohol use disorder.

2. (2) To identify potential mechanisms in a structured group which may influence engagement and treatment outcomes in the treatment of alcohol use disorder.

3. (3) To reflect on differing ways to measure effectiveness of a group in community drug and alcohol services.

Individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders present considerations often requiring interventions from multiple services. This paper describes the development and implementation of an integrated service pathway, emphasising collaborative processes and inter-professional relationships. The model, implemented in partnership between an NHS Talking Therapies service and a local substance use service, aimed to improve care coordination and service delivery for adults with co-occurring disorders. This paper provides a description of the pathway, outlining the challenges that prompted its development, the processes involved in its establishment, the roles and responsibilities of professionals, and the mechanisms for ensuring continuity of care. A small service evaluation, employing a mixed-methods approach, examined the outcomes of nine patients who engaged with the one-to-one integrated pathway within the first 10 months of its inception. The implementation of the model resulted in enhanced inter-service collaboration, with improved communication protocols and a shared understanding of service user needs. Clinicians reported that the reciprocal consultative approach facilitated knowledge exchange and skill development across teams. Initial outcome data from a small sample suggests positive trends in patient wellbeing and substance use, with seven of nine patients discharged in recovery. This model, characterised by a reciprocal consultation approach and an emphasis on inter-professional collaboration, demonstrates potential to improve the care for co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. While the patient outcome data are limited by the small sample size, the findings offer insights for service re-design and future research.

Key learning aims

1. (1) To gain a clearer understanding of the development and implementation of an integrated care model for co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.

2. (2) To recognise the impact of collaborative approaches on the professionals involved, including influences in communication protocols, knowledge exchange, and skill development across teams.

3. (3) To learn about the initial outcomes of the integrated care pathway and to recognise the potential for improving care in patients with co-occurring disorders.

Research on the non-linguistic cognitive consequences of bilingualism remains inconclusive, with ongoing debate over which characteristics of bilinguals drive potential effects and which cognitive abilities may be involved. The impact of bilingualism and trilingualism on attentional performance was studied using a computerized Attentional Network Test. It was administered to 97 adults, assuming progressive improvement with increasing language experience. Reaction times and errors were examined across global and specific attentional network measures (alerting, orienting and executive control). Results indicated that the locus of improvement between bilinguals and trilinguals relative to monolinguals emerged primarily in global reaction times and errors, with no specific effects in any attentional network. Although differences between bilinguals and trilinguals showed only a non-significant trend, regression analyses revealed a significant logarithmic relationship whereby speaking more languages predicted faster global reaction times. The observed processing-speed improvement is discussed in relation to ongoing hypotheses proposing an adaptive response in multilinguals.

Common perinatal mental health conditions are especially prevalent in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and are associated with numerous adverse effects. While complex interventions have been developed and tested, there has been limited exploration of how these interventions can be implemented and sustained at scale. This scoping review aims to explore the strategies discussed for scaling, spreading and sustaining complex perinatal mental health interventions in LMICs. We conducted a systematic search in APA PsycINFO, Cinahl, Medline (EBSCOhost), Embase, MIDIRS (Ovid Online) and ProQuest for reports published between January 2010 and November 2023, using search terms related to scaling innovations, perinatal mental health and LMICs. We also conducted a grey literature search using the websites of organisations that focus on maternal mental health. We identified 42 information sources. Using thematic synthesis, scale, spread and sustainability strategies regarding workforce diversity, integration of health services, tool and method development, adaptation, training, supervision and support and stakeholder engagement were identified. The study identified persistent gaps in the literature around how interventions move beyond early adaptation and implementation phases. These included the need for more consistency and shared understanding around terminology and increased interdisciplinary collaboration, especially drawing on fields such as implementation science. The findings from this review open new avenues for research and policy on expanding perinatal mental health interventions in LMICs, with an emphasis on long-term sustainability and interdisciplinary perspectives.

The differential susceptibility model suggests that the same children who are more susceptible to peer rejection are also more susceptible to peer acceptance. Testing this within-child assumption, we examined whether a subgroup of children exists who are more reactive to both rejection and acceptance, and whether higher levels of sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) characterize this subgroup. We randomly assigned 455 preadolescents (Mage = 10.86, 49.5% boys) to receive either counterbalanced rejection and acceptance feedback (experimental group) or neutral feedback (control group) from online fictitious peers, and assessed their emotional, self-esteem, attributional, and behavioral responses. Results revealed two subgroups of children showing elevated emotional or self-esteem reactivity to both rejection and acceptance, supporting within-child differential susceptibility. However, SPS did not distinguish these subgroups or moderate children’s responses to peer feedback – suggesting limited support for SPS as a differential susceptibility marker to experimentally manipulated peer acceptance and rejection.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with substantial disability and caregiver burden. In Pakistan, prevalence is unusually high, and limited mental health services place families at the center of care. Cultural and religious beliefs strongly shape how the illness is recognized, understood and managed. This study explored how individuals living with BD and their caregivers understand and navigate the illness within this context. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 adults diagnosed with BD (type I or II) and 12 caregivers recruited through a national registry. Open-ended questions explored illness understanding, caregiving challenges, cultural influences and preferences for family intervention. Interviews were conducted in Roman Urdu, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. Purposive and snowball sampling ensured diversity in gender, socioeconomic status and residence. Patients described blended biomedical and cultural explanations of BD, symptom-related disruption, treatment barriers, stigma and coping through routines and religious practices. Caregivers reported confusion at illness onset, financial and emotional burden, inconsistent support and the need to navigate biomedical and spiritual care pathways. Both groups emphasized the need for accessible, family-inclusive interventions. The findings support development of culturally tailored, scalable and faith-sensitive family interventions.

Mental health disorders are prevalent among adolescents and evidence suggests that stigma, poor mental health literacy (MHL) and access are key barriers to help-seeking for mental health difficulties in adolescence and throughout life. The study purpose is to assess existing mental health knowledge, stigma and help-seeking behaviour among adolescents in Uganda. A total of 889 secondary school students in Kampala completed standardised self-report questionnaires. The results reveal low-to-moderate levels of mental health knowledge (MAKS, range 12–60, M = 16.35, SD = 5.18, AMHLQ, range 33–138, M = 64.01, SD = 12.98), stigma (RIBS, range 4–20, M = 12.30, SD = 3.52) and prejudice towards people with mental illness (PPMI-TR, range 133–19, M = 73.85, SD = 13.38). Knowledge correlated with stigma (r = 0.166 and r = 0.135, p < 0.01), and with one’s capacity to assess own mental health (SELF-I range 5–25, M = 12.34, SD = 4.4). Adolescents are open to seek help from mental health professionals but reluctant to seek it from most accessible help sources like schoolteachers. The findings provide insights for future mental health-promoting and anti-stigma interventions for adolescents.

While prior research has established how people read in non-interactive media, little is known about the reading process in interactive multimedia such as video games. In this exploratory eye-tracking study, two levels of reading demand (high vs. low) were created during gameplay. Ninety-eight participants were randomly assigned to play a video game with either an English (L1; low reading demand) or an unintelligible foreign-language (FL; high reading demand) soundtrack. At the subtitle level, the FL group (vs. the L1 group) had higher dwell time percentages, more fixations, higher regression rates, and longer mean fixation durations. No group differences were found in saccade lengths. At the word level, the FL group skipped fewer words. An interaction was found between reading demand and word frequency, where the magnitude of skipping lower-frequency words (vs. higher-frequency words) was smaller in the FL group. Gaze duration showed a significant word frequency effect only. The FL group had longer total fixation time on words, and no interaction was found. These results showed that the FL group (vs. the L1 group) experienced greater processing efforts, as reflected in increased fixation-based measures and regressions. The current study provided empirical insights into task-driven reading in interactive multimedia.

How much information do we need when estimating multilingual children’s relative language exposure? In the current study, we compared three different estimates at varying levels of detail: (i) global estimates per language, (ii) the average of per-speaker estimates, weighted for the time the child spends with each speaker, and (iii) estimates obtained using the Experience Sampling Method, which consisted of five surveys a day across 7 days. Data were collected from 102 multilingual children (ages 3–9 years) in the Netherlands. We found that the three exposure estimates were highly correlated and that there were only small differences in how well they correlated with children’s vocabulary knowledge. Discrepancies between estimates were largely unrelated to participant characteristics such as children’s age or the number of languages spoken at home. We conclude that the simplest estimates (i.e. global estimates) may be sufficiently reliable as a measure of multilingual children’s language exposure at home.

Understanding verbal irony involves detecting that the speaker’s intended meaning contrasts with the literal meaning. This is challenging for children as the underlying skills required to understand irony may not be fully developed. We investigated how 10-year-olds’ working memory, empathy skills, and gender were related to their processing and comprehension of written irony. Data from two previous eye-tracking experiments with 97 children (46 girls and 51 boys) were analysed. Results showed that children with stronger empathy skills had higher irony comprehension accuracy and were less likely to reread ironic phrases. Higher working memory was linked to faster processing of irony but did not lead to higher comprehension. Conversely, lower working memory was associated with more accurate irony comprehension. Child gender was not related to irony comprehension. These results imply that working memory and emotional perspective-taking are important for children’s irony comprehension, underscoring theories that take individual differences into account.

The ‘culturomics’ and other big data approaches have been widely used to trace the development of human cognition and social change. In this cross-lingual study, we examine historical changes in the frequency of discourse connectives (DCs) in Chinese, English, French, German and Spanish over the last two centuries. Our analyses reveal a robust and long-term decline in the frequency of most DCs in English, French, German and Spanish between 1800 and 2000. These diachronic trends closely parallel changes in other stylistic indicators, pointing to coherent shifts in language use and register evolution. Although our findings align with previous studies and recent observations of changing patterns in linguistic rationality, they should not be interpreted as evidence of declining human capacities for logic or rational reasoning. Instead, the observed patterns reflect a broad and sustained process of ‘colloquialization’ in written language, driven by socio-cultural transformations and evolving communicative norms. This study advances our understanding of historical language change and its underlying mechanisms, offering insights into the coevolution of language, cognition and society.

This study investigates the impact of socio-economic status (SES) on children’s vocabulary, focusing on the distinction between vocabulary breadth (number of words known) and vocabulary depth (quality of word knowledge). It aims to determine whether SES affects both dimensions equally and whether the relationship between SES and vocabulary depth is mediated by vocabulary breadth. Participants were 219 children schooled in France in fourth and fifth grades who had French as their dominant language. Analyses showed that SES significantly influences vocabulary breadth, as predicted by previous research. Importantly, it also impacts vocabulary depth. Mediation analysis revealed that vocabulary breadth can mediate this effect depending on the task used to measure vocabulary depth.

The shared-syntax argument of bilingual language representations has support from studies of cross-linguistic structural priming. However, more research needs to be conducted to support the grammatical co-activation hypothesis. The current study investigates the behavioral patterns of bilingual grammatical co-activation in comprehension, taking into account the age of immersion (AoI), which significantly affects the performance of bilinguals. Specifically, we tested 114 native speakers of English: 84 English–French bilinguals (53 early and 31 late learners of French) and 30 functional English monolinguals with a grammatical maze task using English stimuli manipulated with the two opposing English and French rules of adverb placement. Early bilinguals with an AoI earlier than 7 appear to be more accepting of the French adverb placement while reading English sentences. This suggests that earlier bilinguals are more likely to show co-activation (and competition) of the two languages. Results support the shared-syntax system of bilingual grammatical representations.

In Mandarin Chinese, numeral classifiers form a grammatical category that is syntactically obligatory when a noun is modified by a numeral or a demonstrative. The appropriate choice of a classifier is associated with the semantic properties of its corresponding noun and is context dependent. Experience with language is needed to learn these patterns, but little is known about how classifiers are structured in children’s language environments. We compared the frequency and distribution of classifier phrases in four corpora: child-directed speech, children’s television shows, children’s books, and adult-directed speech. Classifier usage in children’s books was more diverse than in both child-directed and adult speech. Books contained more specific classifiers that co-occurred with a higher proportion of unique nouns, whereas everyday speech relied on more generic classifiers. Books therefore provide access to classifier–noun combinations that are rare in speech. Implications for language development and language processing are discussed.