Functional Communication Training and Demand Fading Using Concurrent Schedules of Reinforcement

Demand fading, a schedule thinning procedure for escape-maintained behaviors, typically includes an escape extinction component. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of demand fading with alternative reinforcement utilizing concurrent reinforcement schedules without extinction. During demand fading, aggression and requests emitted prior to meeting the task completion criterion were reinforced with short, low-quality breaks, but requests emitted following the task completion criterion were reinforced with long, high-quality breaks. Results suggest that concurrent schedules of reinforcement may be an effective alternative to extinction as a component of demand fading.     

Engaging with Buddhism

In his new book, Jay Garfield invites philosophers of all persuasions to engage with Buddhist philosophy. In part I of this paper, I raise some questions on behalf of the philosopher working in the analytic tradition about the way in which Buddhist philosophy understands itself. I then turn, in part II, to look at what Orthodox Buddhism has to say about the self. I examine the debate between the Buddhist position discussed and endorsed by Garfield and that of a lesser-known school that he mentions only briefly, the Pudgalavāda (“Personalists”). I suggest that the views of the Pudgalavādins are strikingly similar to a position held, in the twentieth century analytic philosophy, by Peter Strawson.     

“Inside out”: Appraisals for achievement emotions from constructive,positive, and negative feedback on writing

Even with the recent surge of research on achievement emotions, few studies have investigated emotions in feedback situations and the appraisals associated with such emotions. The purpose of this study was to examine emotion appraisals of constructive criticism, negative, and positive feedback, to aid us in determining whether these appraisals differed by feedback type. In a task asking them to provide open-ended responses as they imagined receiving feedback on a writing task, undergraduates (N?=?270) gave reasons for why they might experience unpleasant emotions from positive feedback and pleasant emotions from negative feedback along with reasons for both pleasant and unpleasant emotions emanating from constructive feedback. Open coding of responses yielded categories for each emotion-feedback pairing that, across all emotions, were collapsed into five appraisal categories: feedback suggests ways to improve, a mismatch between feedback and task exists, feedback targets the self or one’s ability, feedback says something about the relationship between feedback giver and receiver, and the task is judged for its value. Distributions of appraisal categories distinguished constructive feedback from positive and negative feedback. Implications are drawn for control-value theory and for classroom feedback practices.     

Dreams of Life and Death

This article examines the personal and archetypal aspects of images from six dreams that occurred during the illness and after the death of the dreamer's sister. It connects the dream images to the unresolved issues in the relationship between siblings and to the dreamer's own reflections on typology. It also explores the larger questions concerning the psychological process of grief, the common occurrence of synchronistic events related to death and loss, and includes Jung's comments on life and death. Finally, the article suggests solutions to our very human fears of death and encourages the development of our capacity to discover a personal mythology, a working sacred story, of “the beyond” or “life” after death.     

Angels: a bridge to a spiritual pedagogy?

This article is the result of an Early Childhood Care and Education undergraduate pilot project through a university on the West Coast of Canada. It weaves together poststructural interpretations and a hermeneutic phenomenological recounting of an experience of inquiring about angels with young children. The angel inquiry became a point of entry into a holistic spiritual pedagogy that attends to the whole of a matter, while also paying attention to the significance of each part. Contributing to the interpretations made in this study is Ted Aoki’s philosophy of the space between where the planned curriculum and the lived curriculum (or lived experiences) meet in a third and overlapping tensional space; Max van Manen’s emphasis on lived experiences as ‘breathing meaning’ also contribute to the choices and interpretations made. Blended through the study are the understandings of Tobin Hart and Kate Adams from their investigations of children’s lived experiences with mystical unseen worlds. The area of invisible mystery proves to be more delicate to negotiate than the world of physical embodiments and the world of complete fantasy of the mind; this is the area of the spiritual – the meeting of body and mind with a third and overlapping space. This space goes by many names and many definitions, but ultimately remains indefinable and intangible. But during the pilot project, meaning did come through the inquiring and through the themes that emerged of ‘who we are’ in relation to angels; race, gender and the role of nurturer; and familial angel ownership. Children yearn for allowing spaces to safely express these ideas about, and experiences with, mystery worlds. It is the connection with the inner life through small moments and engagements with the big life questions that the entangling of the physical, the mental and the spiritual creates the intuitive, integrated heart space of a holistic spiritual pedagogy.