Visuospatial Neglect - a Theory-Informed Overview of Current and Emerging Strategies and a Systematic Review on the Therapeutic Use of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation

Neuropsychology Review - Visuospatial neglect constitutes a supramodal cognitive deficit characterized by reduction or loss of spatial awareness for the contralesional space. It occurs in over 40%...     

Concept and Use of The Social Skills Game to Facilitate Group Interaction

A primary goal of occupational therapy is to improve psychiatric patients' social interaction skills. The role of the therapist, in this effort, is to provide opportunities for patients to practice and learn more effective ways of relating with others. Theorists in the profession have encouraged occupational therapists to consider the use of group games to accomplish this objective. Although the use of games has been reported by occupational therapists who work with menlally retarded children and adults, the use of games with psychiatric populations has received little attention in the literature. This article describes the use of The Social Skills Game to facilitate social interaction and the devcloprnenl of social skills in a psychiatric population.     

The Effects of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation on Impulsivity in People with Mental Disorders: a Systematic Review and Explanatory Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Impulsivity is a multi-faceted construct that underpins various mental health disorders. Impulsive behavior exacts a substantial health and economic burden, hence the...     

The Direct Use of Projective Techniques in Psychotherapy

Relationships between MMPI scales and criteria were evaluated to determine if the MMPI is racially biased with a juvenile delinquent population. The MMPI was administered to 333 white and 107 Black male juvenile delinquents, and criterion data were collected. The regression equations developed for Blacks and whites resulted in similar accuracies. However, the weights of the regression equations tended to differ for the two races. How they differed depended on the criterion predicted by the equations. Consequently, it was impossible to state unconditionally that the use of the MMPI with Black delinquents will have an adverse impact. In fact, one interpretation of the results suggested that the MMPI may not be racially biased for predictions with juvenile delinquents because the amount of constant error in prediction for a racial group decreased toward zero as the apparent objectivity of the criteria increased.     

The Contribution of Neuroimaging to the Study of Language and Aphasia

New structural and functional imaging methods continue to be developed at a rapid pace. In the last 25 years, advanced imaging techniques have provided insights into how language is represented and processed in the brain and how it can be disrupted by damage to, or dysfunction of, various parts of the brain. Imaging studies have also yielded new information regarding how individuals recover language after stroke. We briefly review the strengths and weaknesses of the various radiological methods currently used to study language and aphasia.     

Comparison of Graphic Symbol Learning in Individuals with Aphasia and Right Hemisphere Brain Damage

This study compared the differences in performance on recognition of graphic symbols across time by individuals with aphasia, individuals with right-hemisphere brain damage, and neurologically normal adults. The subjects, seen individually, learned 40 Blissymbols. The symbols were selected so that the effects of symbol translucency and complexity on the recognition of graphic symbols could be examined. A paired-associate learning paradigm was used to teach the symbol–referent pairs to subjects. The results indicated that individuals with aphasia and neurologically normal adults do not differ significantly in recognition of graphic symbols. However, individuals with right-hemisphere damage recognized fewer symbols compared to individuals with aphasia and normal adults, suggesting that they have difficulty in associative learning of graphic symbols. Additionally, translucency was found to be a potent factor in the recognition of Blissymbols by all groups. The finding that individuals with severe chronic aphasia can learn and retain graphic symbols has significant clinical implications for aphasia rehabilitation.     

Recovery from adaptation to moving gratings

Short-term adaptation to moving sinusoidal gratings results in a motion aftereffect which decays in time. The time decay of the motion aftereffect has been measured psychophysically, and it is found to depend on (i) the spontaneous recovery from the adapted state, and (ii) the contrast of the test grating. We have measured the decays for various test conditions. An extrapolation of the measurements allows us to obtain a decay which represents the time course of the spontaneous recovery of the direction-sensitive mechanisms.     

Generalizing Teaching Techniques from University to K-12 Classrooms: Teaching Preservice Teachers to Use What They Learn

Preservice teachers learn evidence-based practices in university classrooms but often fail to use them later on in their own K-12 classrooms. The problem may be a missing link in teacher preparation, i.e., failure to teach preservice teachers to generalize newly acquired techniques. Two experiments using multiple baseline designs across participants assessed effectiveness of a model to promote generalization and maintenance of a specific teaching skill. In Experiment 1, preservice teachers’ maintenance of behavior deteriorated from practicum to student teaching when intervention consisted of training to criteria alone. When a programming for generalization component (program common stimuli) was added to the intervention, teachers in Experiment 2 generalized and maintained behavior across settings (student teaching to own classrooms) at a higher average than occurred during intervention.     

Spirituality and Confidence to Resist Substance Use Among Celebrate Recovery Participants

Since self-efficacy is a positive predictor of substance use treatment outcome, we investigated whether it is associated with spirituality within a religious 12-step program. This was a cross-sectional survey (N = 91) of 10 different Celebrate Recovery sites held at community churches. The mean spirituality score for those with high confidence was significantly greater than those with low confidence. Spirituality associated with greater confidence to resist substance use (OR = 1.09, 95% CI 1.02–1.17, P < 0.05). So every unit increase of measured spirituality increased the odds of being above the median in self-efficacy by 9%. We conclude that spirituality may be an important explanatory variable in outcomes of a faith-based 12-step recovery program.     

The Research Use of Projective Techniques: A Seventeen Year Survey

The past 17 volumes (from 1947 to 1064) of the Journal of Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment were surveyed with regard to the degree of research usage of the various projective techniques. The most commonly used techniques in research have remained quite unchanged over the past 17 years, i.e., the Rorschach, the thematic tests, human figure drawings, and sentence completions. An analysis and comparison of the first five years covered by the survey with the last five years suggests that the Szondi, the Mosaic, Finger Painting Analysis, and the Make-A-Picture show relative decline in research usage; the Blacky, the Holtzman Inkblots, and the Hand Test appear to be increasing. The correlation between the degree of clinical usage reported by Sundberg (1961) and the degree of research usage found in this study was .60, suggesting a high relationship between the two measures. However, it was suggested that an increase or decline in the research usage of an instrument may precede a corresponding increase or decline in its clinical usage.     

The On-Line Processing of Verb-Phrase Ellipsis in Aphasia

We investigate the on-line processing of verb-phrase ellipsis (VPE) constructions in two brain injured populations: Broca’s and Anomic aphasics. VPE constructions are built from two simple clauses; the first is the antecedent clause and the second is the ellipsis clause. The ellipsis clause is missing its verb and object (i.e., its verb phrase (VP)), which receives its reference from the fully specified VP in the antecedent clause. VPE constructions are unlike other sentence types that require displacement of an argument NP; these latter constructions (e.g., object-relatives, wh-questions) yield either on-time or delayed antecedent reactivation. Our results demonstrate that Anomics, like unimpaired individuals, evince reactivation of the direct object NP (within the VP) at the elided position. Broca’s patients, on the other hand, do not show reactivation of the antecedent. We consider several interpretations for our data, including explanations focusing on the larger ‘grain size’ of the reconstructed material in the ellipsis clause, the properties of the auxiliary that carries tense and agreement features, and the possibility that the cost-free syntactic copy procedure claimed to underlie VPE may be modulated by the functional deficit in Broca’s aphasia.     

Using Conceptual Models to Facilitate Conceptual Change: The Case of Weight-Density Differentiation

We report on two studies that assess to what extent sixth and seventh graders (a) did not differentiate between weight and density as quantities at the time of the preinterview and (b) made conceptual changes after participating in a curriculum on weight and density that uses computer-based conceptual models and simulations. In Study 1, 18 sixth graders received individual clinical interviews to assess their understanding of the density of materials and their ability to use a concept of density to understand flotation, immediately before and after they worked through an eight-lesson curriculum unit on those topics. In Study 2, 12 sixth graders and 10 seventh graders received individual clinical interviews before and after their classes worked through a more extensive 16-lesson curriculum on these topics and on the topic of changes in density with thermal expansion. In both studies, we found that the majority of students failed to differentiate consistently between weight and density at the time of the preinterview (although within this group, we distinguished between those who were beginning to have some insight that two distinct dimensions might be involved and those who were not), whereas the rest were able to make an initial qualitative distinction between these quantities. We found that our curriculum was moderately effective in helping some but not all children differentiate weight from density and in helping other children consolidate their understanding of density. Further, the revised curriculum used in Study 2 seemed more effective than the curriculum used in Study 1. However, the curriculum was not equally effective for all groups of children (those children who had some initial insight that the two dimensions were necessary were helped the most). The experience of using the curriculum alerted us to the specific ways our models were helpful and certain complexities inherent in the process of using conceptual models to produce conceptual change. These complexities are discussed, along with ways to further revise the curriculum that might lead to its more widespread effectiveness with children.     

An Evaluation of Interventions to Facilitate Algebra Problem Solving

Three participants were trained on 6 target algebra skills and subsequently received a series of 5 instructional interventions (cumulative practice, tiered feedback, feedback plus solution sequence instruction, review practice, and transfer training) in a multiple baseline across skills design. The effects of the interventions on the performance of 5 problem-solving tasks that required novel combinations of 2 or more of the target skills were evaluated. Results showed that cumulative practice of the skills and a combination of feedback with solution sequence instruction led to limited performance increases on some of the problem-solving tasks, with one task meeting the mastery criterion following the solution sequence intervention. The introduction of the transfer training resulted in more consistent improvements across tasks such that participants achieved the performance criterion on all remaining problem-solving tasks during a final baseline condition. The findings suggest that a structured intervention designed to transfer stimulus control from previously established discriminative stimuli to more complex, novel stimuli can facilitate problem solving without extensive direct instruction on the higher-level skills. This research was funded in part by a contract with the Florida Department of Children and Families. The content and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Children and Families. We thank Tim Vollmer for suggestions made throughout this study and for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. We also thank Linda Meckler for her assistance with data collection. Kristin H. Mayfield, now at iLearn, Inc., Marietta, GA, USA.     

Cognitive Sequelae of Blast-Induced Traumatic Brain Injury: Recovery and Rehabilitation

Blast-related traumatic brain injury (bTBI) poses a significant concern for military personnel engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). Given the highly stressful context in which such injury occurs, psychiatric comorbidities are common. This paper provides an overview of mild bTBI and discusses the cognitive sequelae and course of recovery typical of mild TBI (mTBI). Complicating factors that arise in the context of co-morbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are considered with regard to diagnosis and treatment. Relatively few studies have evaluated the efficacy of cognitive rehabilitation in civilian mTBI, but we discuss cognitive training approaches that hold promise for addressing mild impairments in executive function and memory, akin to those seen in OEF/OIF veterans with bTBI and PTSD. Further research is needed to address the patient and environmental characteristics associated with optimal treatment outcome.     

Entertaining Media Use and the Satisfaction of Recovery Needs: Recovery Outcomes Associated With the Use of Interactive and Noninteractive Entertaining Media

Recent research has linked the enjoyment of entertaining media to the satisfaction of intrinsic human needs (Tamborini, Bowman, Eden, Grizzard, & Organ, 2010 Tamborini, R., Bowman, N. D., Eden, A., Grizzard, M. and Organ, A. 2010. Defining media enjoyment as the satisfaction of intrinsic needs. Journal of Communication, 60: 758–777. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Tamborini, Grizzard, et al., in press). The present investigation addressed the satisfaction of recovery needs through the use of interactive and noninteractive entertaining media stimuli and the resulting recovery outcomes. In an experiment (N = 160), participants were first exposed to a working task to elicit the need for recovery and then randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: 1) a video game, 2) a video recording of a game, 3) an animated video clip, or 4) the control condition. The results demonstrate that interactive and noninteractive media stimuli elicit different patterns of recovery experience. Furthermore, recovery experience was significantly related to enjoyment as well as subjective (energetic arousal) and objective (cognitive performance) recovery outcomes. Enjoyment mediated the relationship between recovery experience and energetic arousal. The results demonstrate that the effects of need satisfaction associated with the use of entertaining media go beyond enjoyment and may affect recovery and psychological well being. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for research on the recovery effects of entertaining media and for current needs-based approaches to media enjoyment.     

Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Cognitive Recovery After Acquired Brain Damage in Adults

The first two decades of cognitive neuroimaging research have provided a constant increase of the knowledge about the neural organization of cognitive processes. Many cognitive functions (e.g.working memory) can now be associated with particular neural structures, and ongoing research promises to clarify this picture further, providing a new mapping between cognitive and neural function. The main goal of this paper is to outline conceptual issues that are particularly important in the context of imaging changes in neural function through recovery process. This review focuses primarily on studies made in stroke and traumatic brain injury patients, but most of the issues raised here are also relevant to studies using other acquired brain damages. Finally, we summarize aset of methodological issues related to functional neuroimaging that are relevant for the study ofneural plasticity and recovery after rehabilitation. Deceased