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.     

Exposure is a necessary condition for fear-reduction: a reply to de Silva and Rachman

de Silva and Rachman (1981) have recently suggested that although non-reinforced exposure of a fear-evoking stimulus constitutes a sufficient condition for unlearning fears, it does not represent a necessary condition. This conclusion was reached, in part, by examples they provide which appeared to them to suggest that fear-reduction can occur in the absence of exposure to the fear stimulus. They then call for an extended search for non-exposure types of intervention, especially those involving ‘sources of information’ and ‘expectations’. After reviewing in detail the arguments advanced, the present authors adopt the position that de Silva and Rachman's conclusions are premature and unwarranted. To abandon or lose sight of one of the most effective and perhaps most important therapeutic principles, CS exposure, would be myopic and detrimental to the advancement of effective behavior change. At this point in time what is needed is a more careful analysis of the extinction process especially at the stimulus level so the effectiveness of this principle can be maximized.     

Interpersonal Reactions to Depression and Physical Disablllty In Dyadic Interactions1

Examined the interpersonal responses of persons engaged in dyadic interactions with confederates who enacted either depressed or socially appropriate roles and appeared either with or without a physical disability. Subject negative evaluations of confederates were indirectly obtained from a thought-listing measure. The overt behaviors of subjects were surreptitiously recorded on videotape and measures of verbal and nonverbal behavior were acquired. Subjects spoke less to the depressed targets and had significantly higher rates of negative evaluations of these persons. In addition, subjects gazed less at the depressed confederates. These effects were not moderated by target physical appearance. Findings are discussed as they relate to social models of depression and the stigmatizing effects of disability.     

New assessments of weight-related body image derived from extant instruments

A study of 79 female college students examined the reliability and validity of two new size/weight-related measures of body image. The Body-size Appraisal Scale and the Overweight Preoccupation Scale were derived from existing instruments. Analyses supported the internal consistency and 2-wk. test-retest reliability of both new scales. Correlations of scores on each scale with measures of anxiety about being fat, negative body-image affect and avoidance, restrained and bulimic eating, and depression support their concurrent and construct validity. Scores on the Overweight Preoccupation Scale were also related to the extent of investment in physical appearance. Regression analyses indicated that each new scale could be predicted from several other conceptually relevant body-image attitudes, even after actual body weight was controlled.     

Spatial and conjoint models based on pairwise comparisons of dissimilarities and combined effects: Complete and incomplete designs

In pairwise multidimensional scaling, a spatial representation for a set of objects is determined from comparisons of the dissimilarity of any two objects drawn from the set to the dissimilarity of other pairs of objects drawn from that set. In pairwise conjoint scaling, comparisons among the joint effects produced by pairs of objects, where the objects in a pair are drawn from separate sets, are used to determine numerical representations for the objects in each set. Monte Carlo simulations of both pairwise dissimilarities and pairwise conjoint effects show that Johnson's algorithm can provide good metric recovery in the presence of high levels of error even when only a small percentage of the complete set of pairwise comparisons are tested.     

The place of human values in the language of science: Kuhn,Saussure, and structuralism

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models of science and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process.