Can Children with Autism Recover? If So, How?

Although Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are generally assumed to be lifelong, we review evidence that between 3% and 25% of children reportedly lose their ASD diagnosis and enter the normal range of cognitive, adaptive and social skills. Predictors of recovery include relatively high intelligence, receptive language, verbal and motor imitation, and motor development, but not overall symptom severity. Earlier age of diagnosis and treatment, and a diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified are also favorable signs. The presence of seizures, mental retardation and genetic syndromes are unfavorable signs, whereas head growth does not predict outcome. Controlled studies that report the most recovery came about after the use of behavioral techniques. Residual vulnerabilities affect higher-order communication and attention. Tics, depression and phobias are frequent residual co-morbidities after recovery. Possible mechanisms of recovery include: normalizing input by forcing attention outward or enriching the environment; promoting the reinforcement value of social stimuli; preventing interfering behaviors; mass practice of weak skills; reducing stress and stabilizing arousal. Improving nutrition and sleep quality is non-specifically beneficial.     

How Valuable Is It?

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Love: What Is It, Why Does It Matter, and How Does It Operate?

ABSTRACT— Love is a perennial topic of fascination for scholars and laypersons alike. Whereas psychological science was slow to develop active interest in love, the past few decades have seen considerable growth in research on the subject, to the point where a uniquely psychological perspective on love can be identified. This article describes some of the more central and well-established findings from psychologically informed research on love and its influence in adult human relationships. We discuss research on how love is defined, the significance of love for human activity and well-being, and evidence about the mechanisms by which love is believed to operate. We conclude by describing several key questions and potentially important new directions for the next wave of psychological science.     

Philosophy Makes No Progress,So What Is the Point of It?

Philosophy makes no progress. It fails to do so in the way science and mathematics make progress. By “no progress” is meant that there is no successive advance of a well‐established body of knowledge—no views are definitively established or definitively refuted. Yet philosophers often talk and act as if the subject makes progress, and that its point and value lies in its doing so, while in fact they also approach the subject in ways that clearly contradict any claim to progress. This article presents evidence for, and a theoretical explanation of, the view that philosophy makes no progress, concluding with an account of what philosophy is and what the point and value of it is. Philosophy should not be shy about being what it is, nor should it pretend to be what it is not. What it is should be reflected in philosophizing and the way it is taught.     

Endogenous Ketamine-Like Compounds and the NDE: If So, So What?

This commentary on Karl Jansen's ketamine model for the near-death experience expands upon and raises additional questions about several issues and hypotheses: self-experimentation as a source of data; ketamine's similarities to and differences from classical hallucinogens; the need for quantification of unusual subjective states; clinical research and toxicological implications of this model; drugs as gateways to religious states; and evolutionary versus religious significance of naturally occurring compounds released in the near-death state. I suggest future research that could help explicate several of these areas.Formerly Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine     

Cancer Risk Counseling: How Is It Different?

Fifty-six of 80 (70%) full members of the National Society of Genetic Counselors with interest in cancer genetics responded to a 1994 survey regarding their cancer risk counseling practices. This study was undertaken to describe cancer risk counselors and the services they provide and to identify possible differences from general genetic counseling that warrant further study. Of 56 respondents, 41 (75%) were providing CRC. The components of CRC programs are described. Our results found significant differences between CRC and general genetic counseling in terms of training and experience of genetic counselors providing CRC and length and number of counseling sessions per consultand. 51% of respondents had 1–2 years of working in CRC, compared to 17% with 1–2 years experience in genetic counseling (p<0.05). Over one-third had 10 or more years genetic counseling experience. Counselors were more likely to see individuals at risk for cancer for longer counseling sessions (p<0.05) and for additional sessions (p<0.05).     

Is It Possible to Prepare the Second Component of a Movement Before the First One?

Experiment 1 utilized a choice reaction time paradigm to examine whether advance information about the second component of a movement has similar effects upon movement initiation and execution as advance information about the first component. Four stimuli were assigned to four goal keys. Subjects responded with the index finger of their preferred hand. They had to press one of two intermediate keys before pressing the assigned stimulus goal key. Advance information signaled one pair of goal keys in such a way that either the first or the second movement component was unequivocally specified before the response signal appeared. Shorter reaction times resulted when the first component was precued. Further control conditions showed that advance information about the second movement component could not be utilized for movement preparation. Experiment 2 ruled out a perceptual interpretation of this effect. Experiment 3 showed that preparation time for two-component movements are longer than for one-component movements. The study permits the conclusions that speeded two-component movements are controlled by motor programs and that advance information about the first movement component is required before the second movement component can be programmed.     

Is It Possible to “Incorporate” a Scar? Revisiting a Basic Concept in Phenomenology

Although scars never disappear completely, in time most people will basically get used to them. In this paper I explore what it means to habituate to scars against the background of the phenomenological concept of incorporation. In phenomenology (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty) the body as Leib or corps vécu (lived body) functions as a transcendental condition for world disclosure. Because of this transcendental reasoning, phenomenology prioritizes a form of embodied subjectivity that is virtually dis-embodied. Endowing meaning to one’s world through getting engaged in actions and projects is most successful indeed when one’s body is “absent,” “transparent,” or, at least, if it is not in the center of one’s attention. This taken-for-granted nature can be disturbed by discomfort, disability, and disfigurement. Incorporation, so I explain, aims at maintaining or restoring the body’s taken-for-grantedness. My analysis of the case of a woman who successfully habituated to her mastectomy scar demonstrates, however, that habituation to a perceptible scar can only be understood partly in terms of incorporation. Next to a decrease of explicit attention for the scar and the discomfort it produces (i.e., incorporation), the scar should also stop being a sign that refers to something else than itself. This is only possible, I argue, by taking the body’s materiality seriously, rather than it being wiped out as a result of transcendental reasoning.     

How Does It Feel to Be a Star?

Over the past three decades, research on the social dimensions of emotions has grown exponentially, particularly in the area of “emotion management.” In this project, we will attempt to add to this body of research by studying the social aspects of labeling or “instantiating” feelings. The data for the project come from televised red-carpet interviews conducted with celebrities immediately prior to awards ceremonies. By focusing on the generic aspects of the emotional claims-making put forth by interviewers and interviewees, we demonstrate how the labeling of emotions is an interpretive, interactive task.

When Does 360-Degree Feedback Create Behavior Change? And How Would We Know It When It Does?

360-degree feedback has great promise as a method for creating both behavior change and organization change, yet research demonstrating results to this effect has been mixed. The mixed results are, at least in part, because of the high degree of variation in design features across 360 processes. We identify four characteristics of a 360 process that are required to successfully create organization change, (1) relevant content, (2) credible data, (3) accountability, and (4) census participation, and cite the important research issues in each of those areas relative to design decisions. In addition, when behavior change is created, the data must be sufficiently reliable to detect it, and we highlight current and needed research in the measurement domain, using response scale research as a prime example.     

What Is It Like to Be an Alien?

This brief article is concerned with an aspect of Jonathan Glover's book, Alien Landscapes?. After reflecting a little on the book as a whole, the question that is taken up is, ‘Why might a book that seeks to help those without mental disorders understand what they are like “from the inside” be of interest to laymen and practitioners in the criminal law?’. One answer lies in part in the way that ‘what it is like from the inside’ might interact with judgements of criminal responsibility. Taking its cue from examples used by Glover the article considers, and puts pressure on, the ‘dual view’ he proposes: that when dealing with those with mental disorders we should treat them as responsible agents in the sense of not withholding from them Strawson's ‘reactive attitudes’, while nevertheless accepting that their personalities and behaviours are the results of large doses of ‘bad luck’.     

How Is an Analytic Approach to Chinese Philosophy Possible? — An Observation from Perspective of Methodology

How to apply an analytic approach to Chinese philosophy has been a controversial issue in the field of the modern Chinese philosophy. The key to such an application is using an analytical approach. Various forms of analysis are used in modern philosophy. The term “analytic approach” refers to both conceptual and semantic analyses by which to analyze meaning and apply philosophical concepts, so as to interpret a different significance of these philosophical concepts. Beginning with the challenge of the analytic approach as applied to Chinese philosophy, it is necessary to address the line of holism and transcendental argument in terms of philosophical methodology. The former provides us with a framework of analysis of particular problems, while the latter helps us clarify the major difference between a philosophical argument and other arguments for knowledge. Chinese philosophy must greatly emphasize the importance of philosophical methodology, so as to reconstruct the framework of Chinese philosophy as it stands today.