SOME EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES IN TEACHING PICTURE NAMES TO RETARDED CHILDREN1

The effects of several different schedules of primary reinforcement were compared in a picture-naming task with retarded children. In Experiment I, number of correct responses and learning rate were higher under fixed-ratio schedules than under continuous reinforcement. In Experiment II, number of correct responses and learning rate tended to be greater under intermediate than under low or high fixed-ratio schedules. In Experiment III, number of correct responses was higher under interlocking schedules, in which the response requirement increased with time following the previous reinforcement, than under comparable fixed-ratio schedules. Learning rates were generally low and, perhaps because of this, not very different under the two types of schedules in this experiment. Accuracy (i.e., proportion of trials on which correct responses occurred) was typically high and insensitive to variations in schedule and schedule parameter throughout each experiment.     

A classroom program teaching disadvantaged youths to write biographic information

Little attention has been given to how formal classroom instruction can be adapted to teach youths everyday skills such as the correct writing of biographic information frequently requested in transactions like applying for a job or a social security number and cashing a check. In this study, six youths in a special education classroom were taught to complete job application forms with the date, their name, signature, address, telephone number, date of birth, and a reference's name, address, and occupation. Each youth was trained on one item of biographic information at a time, after which he was tested on four application forms, including one on which he had not been trained. The tests show that after an item had been taught, it was correctly used in completing application forms on which the youths had been trained and forms on which they had never been trained. The study demonstrates the feasibility of teaching community-living, vocation-related skills to special-education youths in a classroom setting.     

SKED systems: Paper tape,Tennecomp, and OS/8

The SKED system has been developed at different levels of complexity and power for differing hardware configurations. The simplest of these, and the least expensive, is the paper-tape SKED system. Some of the drawbacks associated with the use of paper tape are absent in the Tennecomp magnetic tape cartridge system. Users with mass storage capabilities can make use of the OS/8 operating system (copyright DEC) to speed up all aspects of the SKED system (especially editing, compilation, and loading of programs), and take advantage of a file-oriented system structure for data storage and analysis.     

Stressful situations in caregiving: relations between caregiver coping and well-being

We examined ways in which caregivers cope with stressful caregiving situations and the relations between coping strategies and caregivers' psychosocial well-being. Respondents were 58 family caregivers to patients discharged from a rehabilitation hospital. Caregivers identified a recent stressful event in caregiving and indicated strategies used to cope with this event. After controlling for patients' impairment level, analyses indicated that caregivers engaging in more escape-avoidance coping reported greater depression and more conflict in their personal relationships. Those using more positive reappraisal demonstrated greater positive affect. Younger caregivers, many of whom were women, used more avoidance strategies. Results have implications for therapeutic interventions with family caregivers.     

Cheap thrills and humble pie: the adolescence of female suicide attempters

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe characteristic social and psychological patterns of the adolescence of females who become suicide attempters during adulthood. To accomplish this retrospective study, life histories of 50 adult female suicide attempters were obtained; these were supplemented by a content analysis of personal documents written by the subjects during their adolescence. Two disparate social and psychological patterns were identified: "Cheap Thrills" and "Humble Pie." Cheap Thrills was a pattern of defiance, rebelliousness, acting-out behaviors, drug involvement, and indiscriminate sexuality. Humble Pie was in polar contrast and involved overconformity, docility, passivity, and emotional submergence. The significance of these findings lies in the identification of the second pattern, Humble Pie; this pattern is a stark contrast to the prevalent image in the suicide literature. More generally, the present study may contribute to an understanding of the long-term and processual nature of the suicidal careers of females.     

Effect of Person

The role of the experimenter in the behavioral study, although recognized by Darwin, Pavlov, psychiatrists and others, has not been adequately evaluated in terms of the quantitative measures of the CR. Our study in this paper concerns especially the cardiac changes induced by “Person” in normal and pathological animals—monkey, dog, cat, opossum, guinea pig and rabbit. Owing to the greater sensitivity of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, these are more reliable and delicate measures than the usual somatic muscular ones. The Person can be used as an unconditional stimulus on the basis of which conditional reflexes are formed. Person has an especially pronounced effect on neurotic animals—shown often in a more pronounced way in the cardiorespiratory responses than in the more superficial behavioral ones. This Effect of Person may provide insights into the production of neurosis as well as some of the beneficial effects of therapy, e.g., the personal factor of the therapist.