Therapeutic factors in two forms of inpatient group psychotherapy: Music therapy and verbal therapy

Therapeutic processes in one type of creative arts group psychotherapy, music therapy, were compared with verbal group psychotherapy. Sixty-one short-term inpatients ranked group psychotherapy curative factors and completed satisfaction ratings. Therapists rated 201 group therapy sessions— 109 music therapy and 92 verbal therapy. Statistical analysis revealed that patients highly valued both group formats. The mean curative factor rankings for both groups included cohesiveness, instillation of hope, and altruism among the most helpful factors. Therapists' ratings indicated qualitative differences between the two groups. Music therapy involved more therapeutic interaction among patients and emotional expression, whereas verbal therapy emphasized concrete problem solving.Supported in part by Biomedical Research Support Grant Program grant #S07-RR05755 from the Division of Research Resources, National Institutes of Health.     

Children's early productivity with verbal morphology

Three studies using the intermodal preferential looking paradigm examined onset of productive comprehension of tense/aspect morphology in English. When can toddlers understand these forms with novel verbs and novel events? The first study used familiar verbs and showed that 26–36-month olds correctly matched a past/perfective form (-ed or irregular past) to a completed version of an event and a present/imperfective (is V-ing) to the ongoing version of the same event. The second study used novel verbs and events and found that 33-month olds failed to use tense/aspect morphology to choose between completed and ongoing versions of the same event. The third study also used novel verbs and events but simplified the processing demands of the task in several ways (using initial priming of the events and classes of meaning, using different events within test pairs). This study found that 30-month olds successfully used tense/aspect morphology to choose between ongoing and completed novel events. The results demonstrate that children have productive command of tense/aspect morphology by 30 months and have therefore begun the process of creating an abstract grammar containing this element.     

Quantifying talk: developing reliable measures of verbal productivity

Measuring talkativeness is of interest to several areas of research. However, there are few brief, validated measures available. We examined test-retest reliability, inter-relationships and convergent/divergent validity for five brief measures of verbal productivity. Nineteen men and 32 women participated in four sessions, completing five speech tasks that varied in demand, purpose of speech and sociability. Several potential metrics (word count, duration and rate) were examined. All tasks except a novel Unprompted Speech task demonstrated good word count test-retest reliability (interclass correlation coefficients from .71 to .85). Factor analysis revealed low-demand, non-functional tasks formed one factor (“Voluntary Talkativeness”), while higher demand tasks formed a second factor (“Speech Ability”). This finding and examination of relationships with IQ, personality and gender indicate “Voluntary Talkativeness” is not wholly accounted for by verbal ability, and is only weakly related to self-reported personality. Recommendations for the measurement of “Voluntary Talkativeness” are made.     

Reinforcement therapy in the classroom

Teachers were trained in the systematic use of attention and praise to reduce the disruptive classroom behavior of four first-grade children. Observation measures showed a significant improvement from baseline to treatment for these children and no significant changes for same-class controls. While the amount of teacher attention to target children remained the same from baseline to treatment, the proportion of attention to task-relevant behavior of these children increased. Psychological tests revealed no adverse changes after treatment.