The role of Canadian school psychologists: Perceptions of a sample from the general public

A sample of 77 subjects responded to a questionnaire designed to collect information about their perceptions of the role of school psychologists. The results indicate that overall the respondents had a fairly accurate sense of what a school psychologist does, although they overestimated the importance of psychotherapy as one of the school psychologist's functions. It is recommended that school psychologists more clearly specify their function when dealing with members of the general public.     

A comparison of parent and teacher reports of selected adaptive behaviors of children

Assessment of children's adaptive behavior has been recommended for full multidimensional and nondiscriminatory evaluations. Additionally, previous research has reported discrepancies between teacher and parent reports on adaptive behavior. The purpose of this study was to compare mother and teacher reports on two scales from the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children of the System of Multicultural and Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA). Black students from second through fourth grades (N = 24; 4 males and 4 females per grade) in an urban, parochial school were selected. The interviewers were two trained female graduate students (one white, one black). Each child's mother and teacher were interviewed in accordance with SOMPA assessment procedures. The results indicated that there was little agreement (.38 to .64) between mother and teacher reports. Additionally, mothers tended to provide higher ratings of adaptive behaviors than did teachers, irrespective of grade level. Implications of these findings for the assessment of children's adaptive behaviors are discussed.     

The effect of phonemic processing on the retention of graphemic representations for words and nonwords

The three experiments reported in this study were each conducted in two phases. The first phase of Experiment 1 involved a same-different comparison task requiring “same” responses for both mixed-case (e.g., MAIN main) and pure-case (e.g., near near) pairs. This was followed by Phase 2, a surprise recognition test in which a graphemic effect on word retention was indicated by the superior recognition accuracy obtained for pure-case compared with mixed-case pairs. The first phases of Experiments 2 and 3 involved pronounceability and imageability judgment tasks, respectively. Graphemic retention was assessed by contrasting recognition accuracy for letter strings presented, during Phase 2, in their original Phase 1 case, with letter strings presented, during Phase 2, in. a graphemically dissimilar new case. The experiments provided evidence that there was minimal retention of the graphemic representations from which the phonemic representations of words are generated and, further, that the locus of this effect is probably postlexical. Nonwords were recognized more accurately than words in all three experiments. The latter result was attributed to differences between nonwords and words in both graphemic retention and semantic distinctiveness.     

Meeting a deviant person: Subjective norms and affective reactions

Studied differences in verbal, nonverbal, and physiological responses during a confrontation with a male confederate role-playing either a physically handicapped (PH), homosexual (HS), or normal (NOR) person. One hundred and eight males from colleges of economics and engineering listened in a laboratory experiment to personal introductions by two confederates in succession. Whereas the first confederate always appeared normal, the second took one of the three roles mentioned. A further informal meeting with this confederate was arranged outside the laboratory; all subjects had taken a stereotype test before. Normative differences between PH and HS (p ≤ 0.05) are found on verbal measures including the stereotype test, self-rated emotion and consent to a further contact. General effects of deviance separating PH and HS from NOR (p ≤ 0.05) emerge on observed emotion, interpersonal distance during the informal meeting, and skin-resistance responses. The results largely confirm the hypotheses. They are interpreted as supporting a distinction between intended (action-type) components of behaviour which are strongly influenced by subjective norms, and unintended (reaction-type) components reflecting undifferentiated reactions to deviance.     

Perception of emotions by accepted and rejected children

The purpose of this study was to assess the perceptions of emotions by accepted and rejected children. Peer ratings and peer sociometrics were used to identify accepted and rejected children. All children were administered a task specifically designed to measure their ability to perceive emotions. This task consisted of a series of videotaped interactions involving two individuals—either two adults or two children—portraying one of three affective states: happiness, sadness, and anger. After viewing each interaction, children were asked to identify what the person was feeling. In addition, teachers and peers rated the children on their ability to perceive emotions in others. The results indicated that accepted children obtained significantly higher scores than rejected children on the identification of emotions in the interactions. Teachers and peers also rated accepted children as better perceivers of emotions than rejected children. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Hemiplegic writing in severe aphasia

Three patients with severe aphasia and right hemiplegia are described who could write to dictation with the right arm using a limb prosthesis though agraphic with the "intact" left hand. The phenomenon of "hemiplegic writing" is explained as an access to submerged or preprocessing levels in language and action structure, through the use of older proximal motor systems. This interpretation has implications for our understanding of language and brain function, as well as for approaches to the treatment of patients with severe language disorders.     

Programmed stuttering therapy for children: Comparison of four establishment programs

Four different establishment programs (programmed traditional, delayed auditory feedback, pause, and gradual increase in length and complexity of utterance) for improving the fluency of school-age children who stutter were compared. The programs were carried out by eight public school clinicians with 16 children (eight elementary and eight junior-senior high school) in their respective schools. All four programs produced important improvement in the speech fluency of the 16 children. All the children demonstrated transfer of fluency to extratraining settings. The delayed auditory feedback program required the least therapy hours, but it was difficult for the clinicians to operate correctly. The gradual increase in length and complexity of utterance programs produced the best overall results. The transfer and maintenance programs provided for additional generalization and permanency of fluency. Follow-up revealed that the children continued their increased level of fluency.     

Equality and differentiation of time spent in paid work in two-income families

The cumulative data from the National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey for 1972–1978 are used to test a model of allocation of time to work in families in which both spouses are employed. Using number of hours worked during the previous week as a dependent variable, we find that for white respondents, women work fewer hours than men; fathers of preteenaged children work more hours than other men, while mothers of preteens work fewer hours than other women; both men and women work more hours when they have higher prestige occupations; and both work more hours if their status (measured by education and prestige) is equal to or higher than their spouses'. Number of hours reported for spouse in the previous week is positively related to number of hours reported by respondent. The model suggests that within two-income families equality of occupational status is associated with equality of occupational involvement, while inequality of occupational status is associated with lower occupational involvement of the spouse with lower status.     

Students' self-estimated and actual knowledge of gender traditional and nontraditional occupations

This study investigated the degree and congruence of students' estimated and actual information about gender traditional and nontraditional occupations. Twenty-nine female and 29 male college students completed an instrument on which they rated how much they thought they knew about 18 male-dominant and 18 female-dominant occupations. They also completed an instrument measuring their actual knowledge of these and an additional wide variety of occupations. Results showed that subjects of each sex perceived themselves as less informed about nontraditional occupations. This result was much more pronounced for women than men. Each sex also tended to underestimate their actual knowledge of nontraditional occupations. Men and women did not differ in their actual knowledge, which was fairly limited for both sexes.