Meeting the Psychological Needs of Gifted Black Students: A Cultural Perspective

In the literature, one finds rich analyses of the psychological, emotional, and social needs of gifted people. The data on the specific psychological needs of gifted minority children, however, are lacking; one finds even less information on their cultural needs. This article examines the psychological and social difficulties confronting gifted Black students. Racial identity development theory is described briefly, including the significance of culture on achievement and psychological well-being. Finally, recommendations are made for counselors who wish to work effectively with gifted Black students.     

Psychometric properties of attitudinal measures of behavioral treatment in geriatric settings

Internal consistency of two forms of the Geriatric Treatment Acceptability Survey (GTAS) and the Attitudes toward Behavior Analysis Scale (ABAS), a global measure of attitudes toward behavior modification, was evaluated. Alpha coefficients regarding treatment acceptability ratings for GTAS Form H were: (a) wandering 0.94; (b) hoarding 0.96; (c) disruptive behavior 0.92; (d) property destruction 0.95; and (e) aggression 0.94. Internal consistency for Form NH was: (a) wandering 0.96; (b) hoarding 0.97; (c) disruptive behavior 0.96; (d) property destruction 0.97; and (e) aggression 0.76. Internal consistency of the ABAS resulted in alpha coefficients of 0.90 (total score); 0.87 (ethics and humaneness); and 0.76 (use). These measures appear useful in assessing older adults, nursing home patients' and geriatric nursing staffs' global and specific attitudes regarding the use of behavioral treatments with older adults. Further research is needed to establish psychometric constructs assessed by the instruments and sensitivity to detecting change in attitudes based on educational or clinical interventions.     

Teaching minority high school students to recruit helpers to attain personal and educational goals

Recruiting help from mentors and other potential helpers is a promising strategy for helping disadvantaged and minority youths meet their personal and educational goals. Three African-American high school seniors participated in a project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of training procedures that would allow them to ask for help in attaining educational and other personal goals. A behavioral training procedure that included instructional materials, role-play practice, praise, and feedback was used. Targeted skills included goal setting and 30 responses involved in the process of meeting with a potential helper. Role-play situations were used to evaluate participants' help-recruiting skills before and after training. Participants increased their help-recruiting skills from an average of 38% during baseline, to an average of 75% after training. Self-reported measures of goal attainment suggested that the students benefited from the training. Implications for mentoring programs designed to increase minority students' opportunities to reach educational goals were discussed.     

Covariance structure analysis in several populations

This paper is concerned with the study of covariance structural models in several populations. Estimation theory of the parameters that are subject to general functional restraints is developed based on the generalized least squares approach. Asymptotic properties of the constrained estimator are studied; and asymptotic chi-square tests are presented to evaluate appropriate model comparisons. The method of multipliers and the standard reparametrization technique are discussed in obtaining the estimates. The methodology is demonstrated by a set of real data.Computer facilities were provided by the Computer Services Center, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors are indebted to several anonymous reviewers for suggestions for improvement of this paper.     

On the use of symmetry in the Rorschach Test.

Rorschach's justifications for the use of symmetry in his inkblots are evaluated in the light of recent empirical research concerning the perception of symmetry. The role of symmetry in response facilitation, in the production of whole and movement responses, in the creation of similar conditions for left- and right-handers, and as a response determinant, is discussed and re-evaluated.     

Fact and fantasy: the roles of accuracy and variability in confusing imaginations with perceptual experiences

In Experiment 1, pictures were presented to subjects two, five, or eight times, and subjects were asked to imagine each pciture two, five, or eight times. Subsequently, subjects estimated the number of times each picture had been presented. Their estimates of the frequency of these external events were influenced by imagination trials; this effect was greater for good imagers than for poor imagers. Experiment 2 involved a similar design in which subjects were asked either to imagine the same referent for a word or to imagine a different referent for a word on successive imagination trials. Consistency (same referent) did not increase the influence of imaginations on immediate judgments of external frequency. Thus, the results of Experiment 1 were attributed to the greater accuracy (as opposed to greater consistency) of good imagers' internal generations of the stimuli. Furthermore, variation (imagining different referents), like greater accuracy, increased the effects of imagination trials on immediate but not on delayed judgments of frequency. Possible mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed. In general, the two studies show that qualitative characteristics of completely covert generations influence their impact on estimates of the frequency of external events.     

Paperwork,Pressure, and Discouragement: Student Attitudes Toward Guidance Services and Implications for the Profession

This article goes beyond the traditional survey of student attitudes toward the school guidance service. The student data are used as a springboard to the broader issues affecting the counseling profession. The focus is on counselor discouragement and what all concerned practitioners can do to revitalize the profession.     

The effects of attention-directing training on recognition memory task performance of three-year-old children

Thirty-eight 3-year-old children served as subjects in an investigation of recognition memory in which schematic faces differing only in the orientation of the eyes were employed as stimuli. A pretest was administered to all children, after which the two experimental groups received training in either attention to the distinctive feature of the training stimuli (also schematic faces) by means of a matching task, or in labeling the faces according to how they looked (sleepy, happy, sad, mad) and in using the labels to perform a matching task. After the training session all children were given a posttest on recognition memory of the faces. The verbally trained group obtained significantly higher scores on the posttest than either the feature or control groups. These results indicate that although the children were able to discriminate the faces, evidenced in their ease of performance on the training tasks, they were not able to use this knowledge unless given training in attaching labels to the stimuli, which enabled them to store the information for later use. Results are discussed in light of Gibson's (1969) theory of the developmental interrelations of cognitive processes.     

Differences in the search rate of children and adults in short-term memory

When people recognize a test item as belonging or not belonging to a previously presented set, recognition latency increases with the number of items in the set. Although some evidence suggests otherwise, it is currently held that the rate of this increase is the same for children and adults. In contrast, the present experiments indicated a much slower search rate for second graders (mean age = 7.33 years) than for seventh (mean age = 12.50 years) and twelfth graders (mean age = 17.25 years). Moreover, search rate for second graders was invariant under instructions which did or did not emphasize speed and with presentation of the memory set in either the auditory or visual modality. Experiment II showed that the slow search rate for children was not due to differences in encoding between children and adults.