The use of a self-control package to enhance temporal generality of a parent training program

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of a self-control package in enhancing temporal generality of a parent training program. Sixteen mothers and their clinic-referred noncompliant children were assigned to either a parent training alone group, or a parent training plus self-control group. All mother-child dyads were treated individually by teaching the mother to reward compliance and other prosocial behavior, and to use time-out for noncompliance. In addition, mothers who also received self-control training learned to self-monitor their use of their new parenting skills and to reinforce themselves for use of the skill during a 2 month follow-up period. Assessment consisted of four home observations by independent observers prior to treatment, after treatment, and at a 2 month follow-up. The data indicated that the children in the parent training plus self-control group were significantly more compliant and less deviant at the 2 month follow-up than the children in the parent training alone group. Parental behavior did not differ between the two groups at the follow-up.     

Suppression and substitution in the treatment of nailbiting

The effectiveness of a package treatment for reducing nailbiting was studied. The package was composed of both positive procedures aimed at teaching adaptive behavior to substitute for nailbiting and negative procedures aimed at advancing skills for suppressing nailbiting. The design of the study permitted an analysis of the contributions of both positive and negative components of the package. Subjects assigned to combined, positive, negative and placebo groups received four weekly treatment sessions, and changes in their nailbiting behavior were compared with untreated controls. As in previous studies, nonspecific factors such as demand and attention to ones nails were found to be important determinants of outcome. In addition, positive procedures were found to be substantially more important than negative procedures in the maintenance of reductions in nailbiting over a 4-month follow-up period.     

A SUPERVISORY STRATEGY TO IMPROVE WORK PERFORMANCE FOR LOWER FUNCTIONING RETARDED CLIENTS IN A SHELTERED WORKSHOP

A multiple component strategy was investigated for aiding staff responsible for supervising production of lower functioning retarded clients on contract tasks in an institution-based sheltered workshop. The strategy was assessed in a combined multi-element, multiple baseline across groups design with a reversal component. Production performance increased during the production supervisory strategy with all 16 clients, with the range of increase varying from a few percentage points to 150% of baseline production. Both the clients and staff (responsible for conducting the research) preferred working under experimental conditions rather than under baseline conditions which approximated those found in “typical” sheltered workshops.     

Pyramid Power in Career Development

Stewart and Nejedlo discuss the use of the Career Development Pyramid as a model for career development and as a practical aid in career counseling. The model graphically depicts the synergistic relations of career choice factors, life-style, self-concept, and the specific job. The authors discuss the relationship between the quadrihedral model and current career development theories. They suggest applied uses of the pyramid and provide a working plan for copy and use by career development counselors.     

Picture perception: An analysis of visual compensation

Although geometric information is altered when a picture’s viewing point is changed, such changes often do not affect perception. Two experiments assessed pictorial perception relative to the distortions introduced by viewing point dislocation. Results provide a psychophysical demonstration of pictorial compensation and suggest that it is based on the discrepancy between the actual and an assumed-correct viewing position. An explanation of pictorial compensation is offered that could be applied to direct picture perception and to picture-in-a-picture perception.     

Intracranial cannulation of small animals

Special difficulties are encountered when attempting to provide intracranial cannulation of small animals that have floating or fragile skull bones. The technique described was developed for mice but seems applicable to other species. The cannula system is inexpensive and easy to use. A wound clip anchor seems superior to either skull screws or bonded acrylic, producing less damage to the brain and no necrosis of bone or tissue on the wound margin. Patency data up to 25 days is presented, and the system is as efficacious as other techniques.     

Delayed alternation in the rat: Effect of contextual stimuli on proactive interference

The effect of contextual stimuli on proactive interference in the rat was investigated in three experiments. The task was a modified delayed alternation procedure in which the rat was initially forced to one side of a T maze (the interfering forcing) followed by a forcing to the opposite side (the target forcing). A free choice run followed the target forcing in which a turn in either direction could be made. In order to obtain reinforcement on the free choice run, the rat was required to turn in the direction opposite that of the target forcing (i.e., in the same direction as the interfering forcing). Manipulation of the context prevailing during the interfering forcing, target forcing, and free choice runs revealed that free choice accuracy was (a) greater when the interfering and target forcings were conducted in different contexts than when they were conducted in the same context and (b) influenced only slightly, if at all, by whether the free choice context coincided with that prevailing during the interfering forcing or with that prevailing during the target forcing.     

Factors in the referral of children for behavioral treatment: A comparison of mothers of clinic-referred deviant,clinic-referred non-deviant and non-c

The purpose of this study was to compare a non-clinic sample of mothers and children to two groups of clinic-referred children and their mothers. The two clinic-referred groups differed from one another in that the selection criterion for one group of children (Clinic Deviant) was that they were significantly more deviant and non-compliant than the non-clinic group whereas the selection criterion for the second group of children (Clinic Non-deviant) was that they did not differ significantly from the non-clinic group on deviant and non-compliant behavior. Home observations by independent observers and parent questionnaires examining parental adjustment and parental perceptions of child adjustment were completed. The results indicated that both clinic groups perceived their children as more maladjusted than parents in the non-clinic groups perceived their children. Parents of the children in the Clinic Non-deviant group were significantly more depressed than those in the remaining two groups, whereas parents in the Clinic Deviant group issued more vague, interrupted commands than those in the Clinic Non-deviant group. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Behavioral treatments of primary dysmenorrhea: A review

Behavioral interventions for primary dysmenorrhea are reviewed under four categories: hypnotherapy; Lamaze exercises; biofeedback training; and desensi found in only the last category and even here, the extent to which positive results stem from desensitization-based treatments themselves as opposed to nonspecific factors associated with these treatments is unresolved. Additional issues that bear upon behavioral treatments for primary dysmenorrhea are: (a) the need for further taxonomic refinement; and (b) the need to incorporate pathophysiological findings within the treatment of this disorder.     

Orientation in cognitive maps

In 14 experiments, subjects had to “point to” surrounding environmental locations (targets) while imagining themselves in a particular spot facing in various directions (orientations). The spatial information was either committed to memory (cognitive maps) or directly presented on each trial in the visual or tactile modality. Reaction times (RT) indicated that orientation shifts were achieved through mental rotation in the visual task, but not in the cognitive map or tactile tasks. Further, in the latter two tasks targets were located most quickly when they were adjacent to or opposite the imagined orientation. Several explanations of this finding were tested. Various aspects of the data suggest that cognitive maps are not strictly holistic, but consist of orientation-specific representations, and—at least in part—of relational propositions specific to object pairs.