THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A CONSTANT TIME-DELAY PROCEDURE TO TEACH CHAINED RESPONSES TO ADOLESCENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

The effectiveness of a 5-s constant time-delay procedure to teach three chained food preparation behaviors to four moderately retarded adolescent students was evaluated within a multiple probe design across behaviors. Results indicate that the procedure was effective in teaching all four students to make a sandwich, boil a boil-in-bag item, and bake canned biscuits. The skills maintained with at least 85% accuracy over a 3-month period. Training generalized from the school to the home setting for the 2 subjects that completed generalization probe sessions. The percentage of errors across all skills and students was less than 9%.     

A Well-Kept Secret: What Counseling Psychology Can Offer Social Psychology1

Although social psychology has increasingly influenced counseling psychology, the impact that counseling psychology has had or could have on social psychology is less well developed. This paper considers factors that have limited counseling's influence on social psychology. In addition, contributions that counseling can make to social psychology are presented. It is argued that both disciplines have evolved to investigate the behavior of “normal” individuals in social contexts. It is concluded that there is much to be gained by both specialties in a fuller and more comprehensive integration and understanding of the findings and methods of the other.     

The relationship of undershooting (anticipation) error in space localization to spatial dimension and spatial category width

In this study I explored whether the degree of anticipation/habituation (undershooting/overshooting) varies with the dimension to be localized, when the method of adjustment is used in space localization. In this study, undershooting occurred for both the vertical (Group 1) and the horizontal (Group 2) dimensions, but was significant only for verticality. The magnitude of undershooting observed for verticality was significantly greater than that for horizontality. A secondary issue regarding the possible relationship between spatial category width and undershooting/overshooting was examined. It was hypothesized that greater degree of spatial category width would be associated with greater undershooting. The opposite was found: Spatial category width was negatively related to undershooting. Finally, within each group, very high consistency of magnitude of spatial category width was observed (rs greater than .90), despite the fact that spatial category width showed shrinkage over the course of the study.     

The effect of mood and pleasant versus unpleasant information feedback on performing a motor skill

The effect of negative, positive, or neutral feedback on a rotary pursuit task as a function of the subject's depressed or elated mood was ascertained. Specifically, the self-schema hypothesis was examined. Ninety female volunteers, ranging in age from 18 to 25 years, participated. They were randomly assigned to one of eight conditions based on depressed or elated mood states, elicited by Velten's (1968) mood induction procedure, and feedback. A control group received no feedback and was not subjected to a mood inducing treatment. Baseline measures and changes in mood were determined by the Multiple Adjective Affective Checklist (MAACL). Bogus feedback was offered after all but one of the trials. The subjects' mood changed significantly during the mood-inducing treatment. For motor performance, partial support was lent to self-schema. Elated and depressed subjects performed best under positive and negative feedback, respectively. The effects, however, were temporary.     

The impact of the therapeutic environment

This paper emphasizes the impact of the setting, space, and general physical properties of the clinic upon the difficult patient's profound neediness and absence of inner regulatory structure. Moreover, the clinic's administrative style and requirements often related to fiscal restraints, demands for accountability for both how funds are spent and treatment outcome, all impinge upon the patient. Humanizing clinics so they have the capacity for psychotherapeutic holding and provision of safety for difficult patients are discussed in detail in this contribution.     

Robustness of normal theory methods in the analysis of linear latent variate models

The structure of the covariance matrix of sample covariances under the class of linear latent variate models is derived using properties of cumulants. This is employed to provide a general framework for robustness of statistical inference in the analysis of covariance structures arising from linear latent variate models. Conditions for normal theory estimators and test statistics to retain each of their usual asymptotic properties under non-normality of latent variates are given. Factor analysis, LISREL and other models are discussed as examples.