The communication disorder in dialysis dementia: A case report

The communication disorder in dialysis dementia is an integral feature of the syndrome. This report describes the communication disorder in a 67-year-old man over a period of 4 months from his admission to the hospital to his death. In the early stage of the syndrome, the most prominent feature was a speech problem, the characteristics of which may vary among cases. In the middle stage, it was difficult to distinguish among aphemia, aphasia, or a combination of dysarthria and confusional state. The severity of the problems in these stages was temporally related to the dialysis treatments. The final stage was characterized by constant mutism and was unrelated to the dialysis treatments. Death occurred 10 months after the communication problems emerged. Communication studies of dialysis dementia patients may offer a systematic method to monitor the course of the syndrome, its response to therapeutic trials, and a clinical model for the study of communication disorders in general.     

The Effects of Alcohol Use and Offender Remorsefulness on Sentencing Decisions1

Presentence reports on 628 offenders were content analyzed. Regression analysis found that remorseful offenders received less severe sentences than non-remorseful offenders. Offenders convicted of minor offenses received more lenient sentences if they had used alcohol in conjunction with their crimes than if they did not use alcohol. The opposite was the case for offenders commiting serious crimes. Remorseful offenders with few prior alcohol-related convictions received less severe sanctioning than non-remorseful offenders with similar conviction records. In contrast, recidivists who were remorseful were dealt with more harshly than their non-remorseful counterparts.     

REINFORCER VARIATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR MOTIVATING DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED CHILDREN

Motivating developmentally disabled children to participate in educational activities can be very difficult. This is especially true for children diagnosed autistic. Because there is some evidence to suggest that stimulus variation may influence motivation, the present study investigated the effects of constant vs. varied reinforcer presentation on correct responding and on-task behavior. Results from a reversal design showed declining trends in both correct responding and on-task behavior when the same reinforcer was consistently presented, whereas, varying the reinforcers produced significantly improved and stable responding. The results are discussed in relation to the literature on stimulus variation and its effects on responsivity.     

Self-instructions: Effects of cognitive level and active rehearsal

This research examined the effects of a self-instruction intervention on the relationship between cognitive level and conceptual tempo. Preoperational and concrete operational children received the Matching Familiar Figures Test prior to and after serving in either a no training control group, a content only control group, or a self-instruction group. Children in the content only control group received the same set of self-guiding strategy statements as those in the self-instruction group but without overt rehearsal of the statements. Cognitive level and conceptual tempo were strongly related; preoperational children tended to be classified as impulsive, concrete operational chidlren, as reflective. Although cognitive level predicted overall performance, with concrete operational children being more successful and more reflective than preoperational children, the influence of training was similar for both groups. On posttest, children in the self-instruction groups made more correct responses and were more reflective than children in the other two training groups.     

THE CLASS SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF COMPLIANCE TRAINING WITH “DO” AND “DON'T” REQUESTS: ANALOGUE ANALYSIS AND CLASSROOM APPLICATION

Two experiments are reported in which the relationship between compliance with “do” and “don't” requests was examined with developmentally disabled children. In Experiment 1, a multiple baseline design across subjects with counterbalanced treatment conditions was used to evaluate a compliance training program composed of four phases: (a) baseline, during which no consequences were delivered for compliance, (b) reinforcement for compliance with one targeted “do” request, (c) reinforcement for compliance with one targeted “don't” request, and (d) follow-up with reinforcement on a variable ratio schedule for compliance with any “do” or “don't” request. Results of probes conducted before and after training within each condition indicated that generalized compliance occurred only with requests of the same type as the target exemplar (“do” or “don't”). In Experiment 2, these results were replicated in a classroom setting. Following collection of baseline probe data on student compliance, a teacher training program was successfully implemented to increase reinforcement of compliance first with one “do” and subsequently with one “don't” request of a target student. Results of multiple baseline probes across “do” and “don't” requests indicated that the teacher generalized and maintained reinforcement of compliance with other requests of the same type and to other students, with a resulting increase in student compliance with the type of requests reinforced. The impact of treatment on both teacher and student behavior was socially validated via consumer ratings. Implications of these findings with respect to response class formation and compliance training programs are discussed.     

Journal Reviews

B ash , K. (Berne). 'Ein Verglich dreierlei Messmethoden für die Extraversion/Introversion'
C ahen , R. (Paris). 'Inquiétez-vous, c'est psychique'
C ahen , R. (Paris). Prefface to the 'nth' edition of L' Homme à la Decouverte de son Ame
G oldenberg , N. (Ottawa). 'A feminist critique of Jung'
M aduro , R. (San Francisco). 'working with Lations and the use of dream analysis'
M asse -R ouquette , J. (Le Mesnil-St Denis). 'Femme et surréalisme'
M c C ully ,R. (Charleston). 'Parapsychology and symbol formation'
P ignatelli , M. (Rome). 'Un incognita chiamata amore'
Pegnatelli, M. (Rome). 'Il fantasma del terzo'
P ignatielli , M. (Rome). 'Psiche e realta del fenomeno umano'
P ontius , A. (New York). 'Stimuli triggering violence in psychoses'.
P ontius , A. (New York). 'Geometric figure-rotation task and face representation in dyslexia: role fo spatial relations and orientation'.
P ontius , A. (New York). 'Face representation linked with literacy with literacy level in colonial American tombstone engravings and Third World pre-literates'
T aylor , C. (New York). 'Sexual intimacy between patient and analyst'.
Z iegler , A. (Zürich). 'Die schattern von olympia—über Veitstanz und Zitterkrankheiten'     

The development of young children's awareness of logical inconsistencies

Research by Markman (1979) suggests that children up to 12 years of age do not spontaneously detect logical inconsistencies. The present study was directed to factors which may limit children's ability to recognize their failures to understand. A task was devised which involved materials that were clearly based on children's experiences, and which involved premises and conclusions which were presented contiguously, rather than being interspersed among other sentences. Ninety-six 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old children were asked to judge the acceptability of eight three-sentence “stories” told by a puppet, and were asked to justify their responses. The stories differed in whether they were consistent or inconsistent, and in whether the principle upon which a story's consistency depended was implicitly or explicitly stated. The results showed developmental differences. By Age 7 years, most children were quite capable of evaluating sentences for their logical consistency. Five-year-olds, however, did not perform as well on the task, especially when the information upon which the logical cohesiveness of the stories rested was implicitly, rather than explicitly, stated. An examination of the justifications provided by these children revealed that they tended to question the empirical validity of individual sentences, rather than integrate the story as a whole and examine its overall logical structure.     

Quest: A Bayesian adaptive psychometric method

An adaptive psychometric procedure that places each trial at the current most probable Bayesian estimate of threshold is described. The procedure takes advantage of the common finding that the human psychometric function is invariant in form when expressed as a function of log intensity. The procedure is simple, fast, and efficient, and may be easily implemented on any computer.