Intersections Between Nativity, Ethnic Density, and Neighborhood SES: Using an Ethnic Enclave Framework to Explore Variation in Puerto Ricans’ Physical Health

Although past research has demonstrated a “health disadvantage” for Puerto Rican adults, very little is known about correlates of health among this group. Given Puerto Ricans’ unique experiences of migration and settlement, an ethnic enclave framework that integrates nativity, ethnic density, and neighborhood SES may offer insight into factors influencing Puerto Ricans’ health. This study uses a sample of 449 adult mainland- and island-born Puerto Ricans living in New York City and Chicago. The data, collected as a part of the MIDUS Survey of Minority Groups, are stratified by neighborhood ethnic density and neighborhood SES, allowing for the examination of the individual and joint influences of neighborhood characteristics on physical health. Results revealed that ethnic density and neighborhood SES were not independently or interactively related to physical health for mainland-born Puerto Ricans. However, the interaction between ethnic density and neighborhood SES was related to self-reported health, functional limitations, and health symptoms for island-born Puerto Ricans. Island-born Puerto Ricans living in ethnically dense, low SES neighborhoods reported worse health than island-born Puerto Ricans living in other types of neighborhoods. This may be a result of isolation from resources both within and outside the neighborhood.     

Tool-use and the left hemisphere: What is lost in ideomotor apraxia?

Impaired tool related action in ideomotor apraxia is normally ascribed to loss of sensorimotor memories for habitual actions (engrams), but this account has not been tested against a hypothesis of a general deficit in representation of hand-object spatial relationships. Rapid reaching for familiar tools was compared with reaching for abstract objects in apraxic patients (N = 9) and in a control group with right hemisphere posterior stroke. The apraxic patients alone showed an impairment in rotating the wrist to correctly grasp an inverted tool but not when inverting the hand to avoid a barrier and grasp an abstract object, and the severity of the impairment in tool reaching correlated with pantomime of tool-use. A second experiment with two apraxic patients tested whether barrier avoidance was simply less spatially demanding than reaching for a tool. However, the patient with damage limited to the inferior parietal lobe still showed a selective problem for tools. These results demonstrate that some apraxic patients are selectively impaired in their interaction with familiar tools, and this cannot be explained by the demands of the task on postural or spatial representation. However, traditional engram theory cannot account for associated problems with imitation of novel actions nor the absence of any correlated deficit in recognition of the methods of grasp of common tools. A revised theory is presented which follows the dorsal and ventral streams model ( Milner & Goodale, 2008) and proposes preservation of motor control by the dorsal stream but impaired modulating input to it from the conceptual systems of the left temporal lobe.     

LEADERS IN READING RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTION

Five reading lesson instruction characteristics were examined in relation to first and second graders' end-of-year instructional reading level: (a) teacher's preferred interaction style (indicated by extent of teacher telling and coaching); (b) teacher's preferred grouping (indicated by extent of whole class and small group instruction); (c) teacher's preferred focus of reading activity (indicated by extent of focus on words/letters and comprehension); (d) degree of student active response; and (e) instruction material (indicated by extent of use of narrative text and worksheets). Sixteen first- and second-grade teachers and 166 of their students were observed during reading instruction three times across the school year. Analyses of covariance were conducted. Complex relationships heretofore not revealed appeared. Different patterns of relationships between instructional characteristics and instructional reading level emerged for higher achievers compared to lower achievers and for first compared to second grade.     

Relationship Between Psychological Skill Profiles and Soldier Physical Fitness Performance

We examine the structure of soldier's psychological skills and assess the relationship between psychological skills profiles and physical performance with data from 427 soldiers from a Stryker Brigade. Exploratory factor analyses results provided empirical support for a three-factor structure that included foundation skills, psychosomatic skills, and cognitive skills. Cluster analysis revealed three emergent psychological skills profile groups: (a) strong skills, (b) weak skills, and (c) fearful focus clusters. Soldiers in the strong psychological skill profile group performed better than their peers in the other profile groups on the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) performance measure. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, research, and practice.     

Sensory modality and stimulus control in the pigeon: Cross-species generality of single-incentive selective-association effects

In earlier studies with rats, the effectiveness of the auditory element of a tone–light discriminative stimulus was enhanced when the conditioned incentive value of the compound was negative rather than positive. The present experiment systematically replicated these results in pigeons trained to press a treadle in the presence of a tone–light compound under food-reinforcement or shock-avoidance schedules. Positive incentive value was conditioned to the compound by associating it with either food or relative safety from shock. The compound was made negative in other groups by associating it with shock or the absence of food. When tone and light were presented separately following this training, control by the auditory element was significantly enhanced in the conditions designed to make the compound negative rather than positive. The similarity of this constraint on learning in rats and pigeons suggests that it involves a fundamental attentional and incentive-motivational process with widespread species generality.