Stereotyped movement disorder in an adult following acquired brain injury: Effect of environmental stimulation

In the present study, a naturalistic functional analysis procedure was used to assess the effect of environmental stimulation on the stereotypic behavior (body rocking) of an adult whose stereotypy appeared to be induced by an acquired brain injury. Environmental stimulation, operationalized in terms of both physical and social characteristics, resulted in only minimal changes in the occurrence of body rocking. Body rocking occurred in excess of 50% of the observations in all environmental stimulation conditions and in a naturally occurring baseline condition. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of a functional analysis of stereotypy associated with acquired brain injury.     

Effects of surface texture on weight perception when lifting objects with a precision grip

In this paper, we show that, when lifting an object using a precision grip with the distal pads of the thumb and index finger at its sides, the perceived weight depends on the object’s surface texture. The smoother the surface texture, the greater the perceived weight. We suggest that a smoother object is judged to be heavier because the grip force, normal to the surface, required to prevent it from slipping is greater. The possibility of there being an influence of surface texture per se is excluded by a second experiment that employed a variant of the precision grip in which the thumb supports the weight of the object from underneath. With the grip oriented in this way, there is no need to match grip force to surface texture and, under these conditions, there is no effect of surface texture on weight perception. In the first two experiments, the test and comparison weights were lifted successively by the same hand. In a third experiment, the effect of surface texture was replicated for sequential lifts made with separate hands. Thus, the effect is not restricted to comparisons made with the same hand.     

A Playroom Observation Procedure to Assess Children with Mental Retardation and ADHD

Forty-two children (ages 6 to 12 years old) with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning were studied in a laboratory playroom setting to determine whether children identified as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or controls differed on activity and attentional measures. Children with ADHD were further divided into ADHD + conduct problems (ADHD + CD) and ADHD-only subgroups (with an ADHD-combined group comprising children of both subgroups). An interval recording system was used to code observations of independent play and a restricted academic task. Results indicated that the ADHD-combined group was significantly more vocal and engaged in a significantly greater number of toy changes than controls during independent play. Significant group differences were also noted during the restricted academic task, with the ADHD-combined and ADHD + CD groups more off-task and engaging in a greater number of toy touches than controls. Discriminant analyses found independent play measures to predict group membership in 70 percent of cases (ADHD-combined vs. controls), but in only 64 percent of cases using measures from the restricted academic task. No significant findings resulted when the ADHD subjects were further divided into two subgroups. Despite some inconsistent findings, such laboratory-based observations may be of value in the diagnosis of ADHD in children with moderate mental retardation to borderline intellectual functioning.     

Fluid and crystallized intelligence and primacy/recency components of short-term memory

Primacy and recency recall measures, obtained from both free and probed-recall tasks, were included in a battery of tests which also contained markers for fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, and cognitive speed factors. Our results confirmed previous findings that for subjects within the normal range of abilities, recency recall from probed-recall tasks is more closely linked to intelligence than is primacy recall. A new finding was also obtained: that primacy recall is correlated more with measures of cognitive speed than is recency recall. These results are discussed in terms of the concept of working memory and its relation to intelligence.     

The development of therapeutic consultations in child-focused family work

This paper outlines the theoretical influences that have led to our use of a consultation approach to work with children and families. Winnicott's notion of therapeutic consultation, the narrative approach in family therapy, the use of letters in therapeutic work and the two-plus-one model of therapeutic contact are discussed. A model of the consultation interview and process is presented together with examples of consultation letters responding to typical client expectations of the process.     

Attentional scanning and space errors

Using the method of paired comparisons, pairs of simultaneous horizontal or vertical lines, with one line above and one below or one on the left and one on the right of a fixation point, respectively, were presented tachistoscopically for length comparison. Space errors were found to have a pattern similar to that of time errors. The tendency to guess the comparative response from the absolute magnitude of stimuli is proposed as a basis for time and space errors. Manipulation of attentional scanning, which implies a more frequent usage of this guessing strategy for one of the two lines in a pair, was shown to affect space errors.     

Conditioned tilt naming: A modified absolute judgment method is used to measure the oblique effect

Two naive human observers were conditioned to report on the slant of a 3.8-cpd sinusoidal grating viewed monocularly with a light-adapted eye and presented at various orientations extending from ?45 to +135 deg. The procedures used yielded a baseline measure of performance and measures obtained during conditioning, extinction, and reconditioning of the tilt-naming response. Both subjects learned rapidly, achieving a level of performance that permits efficient measurement of meridional differences in perceived orientation Ithe oblique effect) at a large number of angles.     

Behavioral control of visual fixation of the rhesus monkey.

A paradigm for the control of visual fixation of the macaque monkey in vision experiments was described. Using a Maxwellian view, the procedure permits the placement of discrete test-light stimuli in a specific area of the retina as the monkey fixates a primary target. This procedure holds foveal fixation as other behaviorally significant visual stimuli are presented to the visual field. By a methods-of-limits procedure, the sensitivity of the monkey eye was measured at different retinal locations under both photopic and scotopic visual adaptation.