Characteristics and consequences of help-giving practices in contrasting human services programs

Relationships between human services program models and help-giving practices, and between both program models and help-giving practices and help-seeker control appraisals were examined in a study of 107 low socioeconomic background families. Three kinds of human services agencies were included in the study, each of which differed in terms of their implicit and explicit assumptions about the families they served and the roles professionals and families played as part of helping relationships. Results support the hypotheses that (a) a program philosophy that was family centered would be associated with more empowering help-giving practices compared to more professionally centered philosophies and (b) a family-centered program philosophy and empowering help-giving practices would be related to an enhanced sense of personal control over needed supports and resources from a target help-giver.     

Performance contracting for human services

Traditional counseling approaches to providing human services either are inapplicable, were never given the chance to work, or did not work for large numbers of persons. This article suggests that performance contracting may be one answer to pressing domestic problems. In this approach, emphasis is placed on client, student, or applicant performance in terms of predetermined, commonly agreed-upon goals. It places little emphasis on agency structure or professional discipline or on special applicant or client groups. Important by-products include the promotion of experimentation and demonstration, the establishment of administrative and professional accountability, and the protection of the service consumer.     

School psychologists' services in special education programs

Reviews school psychologists' services in special education programs. Fifty-eight credentialed school psychologists in 10 school districts were interviewed individually about background and training, professional duties, favored clinical techniques, and opinions and recommendations for improved services. According to self-reports, the bulk of time was devoted to activities directly related to assessment of pupils with little involvement in research, in-service training, or other clinical activities. Professional association memberships were primarily local. Assessment techniques tended to be limited to a few standardized tests. Overall findings support sample psychologists' expressed concerns as to need for changes in preservice and in-service training.     

The human Turing machine: a neural framework for mental programs

In recent years much has been learned about how a single computational processing step is implemented in the brain. By contrast, we still have surprisingly little knowledge of the neuronal mechanisms by which multiple such operations are sequentially assembled into mental algorithms. We outline a theory of how individual neural processing steps might be combined into serial programs. We propose a hybrid neuronal device: each step involves massively parallel computation that feeds a slow and serial production system. Production selection is mediated by a system of competing accumulator neurons that extends the role of these neurons beyond the selection of a motor action. Productions change the state of sensory and mnemonic neurons and iteration of such cycles provides a basis for mental programs.     

Measuring the economic impact of human resource programs

Methods that allow estimating the dollar impact of human resource programs are now available to Industrial/Organizational (I/O) psychologists and other human resource professionals. Dollar estimates running into the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars (and higher) have been established for various recruitment, selection and training programs across a wide variety of white and blue collar jobs. Most of this work has gone largely unnoticed by mainstream business communities due in large part to the inability of psychologists and other human resource professionals to communicate their research findings in a manner that is clear and credible to organizational decision makers and consistent with typical business conventions. It is concluded that I/O psychologists and other technical human resource professionals should place more emphasis on adequately communicating cost-benefit estimates to managers and other organizational decision makers, and that managers and organizational decision makers should routinely request such estimates from internal professional staff members and/or outside consulting firms.John M. Rauschenberger is a personnel research consultant in the Workforce Research and Selection Systems Section of Ford Motor Company. Frank L. Schmidt is the Sheets Distinguished Professor of Human Resources at the University of Iowa. He is on the Editorial Board of theJournal of Applied Psychology, and has been the recipient of the James McKeen Cattell Award for Research Design.     

Restructuring help: A human services paradigm for the 1990s

Conclusion The new paradigm calls for the restructuring, redistribution, and expansion of helping behavior by those who ordinarily function as consumers of help. Consumers are to become producers of prosumers. By so doing they expand the help-giving resources quantitatively by converting helpees into helpers. The help is also changed qualitatively because the peers and the self-helpers possess an indigenous or inside understanding of the problems and the people to whom they offer help. Heins Kohut, the brilliant psychoanalyst, suggests that the key to therapeutic change may not be insight or understanding, but rather being understood. Who better to understand than those who have been there?Invited address to Division 27 of the American Psychological Association, August 1989.     

Relationship of age and sex-role conflict for professional women in human services

This study provides external validation of the Sex-role Conflict Scale. The relationship between age and sex-role conflict among women with educational interests was investigated. 128 female students in education were assessed on the conflict they experienced in various settings. The mean sex-role conflict scores, although hypothesized to be significantly different, were not among women ages 25 yr. and below, ages 26 to 39 yr., and ages 40 yr. and over. Also investigated was the relationship between age and sex-role conflict in dual-career respondents. Of the 29 respondents who met the criterion for classification, mean sex-role conflict scores were not significantly different for the three age groups. The nonlinear relationship between sex-role conflict and age does not have support for professional women who work in fields other than business.     

Formal Requirements of Markov State Models for Paired Associate Learning

Discrete state learning models that make Markov assumptions are a powerful tool for the analysis and optimization of performance in paired associate tasks. We seek here to derive bounds on the complexity needed by such models in order to account for the critical effects of lag and retention intervals on paired associate learning. More specifically, after establishing that two different Markov chains are needed (one for describing the effects of trials where a paired associate is presented and one for describing the effects of trials where the paired associate is not presented), we determine the minimum number of states required in a Markov model with two chains. It is shown formally that, under certain psychologically plausible assumptions, more than three states are required. A model with two chains and four states is presented and it is shown empirically that it can account for the lag and retention effects in paired associate learning. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

Training and careers in law and psychology: The perspective of students and graduates of dual degree programs

Over the last 15 years, commentators have discussed the relative merit—or lack of merit—of J.D.-Ph.D. training programs in law and psychology. Missing from the discussion, however, are the views of those who have enrolled in and completed dual degree programs. The authors, graduates of a law-psychology training program, provide both empirical data and their own views concerning the merit of joint degree training in law and psychology. As part of an effort to generate testable hypotheses regarding dual degree programs, the authors conclude that J.D.-Ph.D. training in law and psychology provides unique insights, skills and opportunities which may be unequalled by other approaches to training in the area.     

Health and human services for persons who stutter and education of logopedists in East-European countries

The International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) assessed the therapy status of fluency disorders, service opportunities, and education of logopedists (speech-language pathologists) with a mail survey in Eastern Europe. Information was collected on the following aspects: incidence, prevalence, availability of information, non-therapeutic support for persons who stutter (PWS), providers of diagnostics and therapy, cooperating professionals, therapy approaches, forms, goals, financing, early detection and prevention, training of professionals, specialization in stuttering therapy, needs for improving the situation of PWS, and problems which hinder better care. Stuttering therapy for children is available in many countries and is frequently provided by the educational system. Therapy for adults is provided best by the health services but is not satisfactorily available everywhere. Modern therapeutic approaches coexist with obsolete ones. Lack of resources, awareness, entitlement, and assessment of therapy effectiveness are pervasive problems.

Educational objectives: Readers will be able to describe and evaluate: (1) the therapy status of fluency disorders and service opportunities in various East-European countries; (2) the training of logopedists (speech-language pathologists); (3) specialization in stuttering therapy; and (4) the organizational services for PWS within the health and human service systems.     

Student statistics programs for the Macintosh

This paper reviews 15 statistics programs for the Macintosh. All are intended for student use, often in conjunction with a statistics course, and are available for under $100. Of the general-purpose programs, Data Desk and StatView offer the most appealing combination of features, Macintosh interface, and student-accessible manual. Minitab is also recommended, especially in situations where some students will be using Macs and others using PCs. In addition to the analysis-only programs, two other applications present interesting combinations of statistics and other features. DataSim offers outstanding data generation and experiment simulation along with very complete, and psychology-oriented, statistical analysis. HyperStat combines an entire statistics textbook in hypertext format with a complete data analysis package. Finally, for special situations where simple statistics are all that are required, InStat is recommended because of its tutorial features and very simple interface.