Postnatal development of heart rate patterns elicited by an aversive CS and US in cats

Heart rate and motor responses were recorded in cats of different ages during classical conditioning. A deceleratory-acceleratory heart rate pattern observed during the CS-US interval in one and four-week-old kittens is an alpha conditioned response, a potentiated original response to the CS. At eight weeks of age two new distinct patterns of pure acceleration or pure deceleration are acquired during conditioning and in the absence of motor learning. At 12 weeks of age and in adult subjects, heart rate patterns during the CS-US interval become more complex and conditioned motor responses can be observed. A covariance of HR acceleration and motor responses during the CS-US interval is absent in eight-week-old subjects, but quite high in 12-week-old subjects and adult cats. The data are interpreted as suggesting separate elicitatory mechanisms of HR and motor responses which may show synchrony later in ontogeny.     

Development of syntax in a retarded girl using procedures of imitation, reinforcement, and modelling

Three experiments demonstrated the development and generalized use of a singular and plural declarative sentence in a child initially lacking sentence form responses. In each experiment, an adult(s) served as a language model(s), and consequences (sweets) were provided for imitation of the model. During training trials, an item(s) was displayed first to the model(s) then to the subject; these displays were accompanied by requests to label the item(s). Generalization was assessed by a number of probe trials that were periodically interspersed among training trials. During these trials, the subject was requested to label the displayed item(s) without any preceding labelling response from the model. Using these procedures, generalized use of a singular sentence ("That is one-") resulted in Experiment I, and generalized use of a plural sentence ("These are two-") resulted in Experiment II. In Experiment III, two models (a singular and a plural sentence model) were made available to the subject but imitation of only one model was reinforced during any one condition. Results indicated the subject labelled probe (generalization) items with the same sentence form that was modelled and reinforced during training trials.     

The abstraction of visual prototypes by children

The present studies demonstrated that children as young as second graders could form prototypical representations from a set of highly similar stimuli. The prototype-plus-transformation model of this performance (Franks & Bransford, 1971) was contrasted with an attribute-frequency model (Neumann, 1974). Results supported the latter model when trigram stimuli were used to test differential predictions from the models.     

COMPETENCES A COMMUNIQUER ET RELATIONS PRIVILEGIEES ENTRE ENFANTS: COMPARAISON ENTRE DEUX GROUPES D'AGE*

The purpose of this study is to analyse the specificity of interactions between preschool friends, whose relationships are built on a voluntary and stable choice of a particular partner. The sample consisted of 18 unisexual triads of children aged 3 to 4 years (9 male and 9 female) from 5 Parisian kindergarten. These triads were compared with 18 others, composed of children aged 4 to 5 years (9 male and 9 female), from a previous study (Werebe et Boudonnière, in press). Each triad was composed of a dyad of friends plus a third familiar partner, all three classmates. The dyads of friends were selected on the basis of the following criteria: (1) a reciprocal and preferential search for one another; (2) a voluntary choice of the friend, without intervention from parents or teachers. The children were videotaped without their knowledge, without adult presence, in a familiar room of their school. The experimental setting was standardized in each of the 5 schools. The experimental paradigm was a variant of the one created by Nadel and Baudonnière (1980, 1982), with an important modification: the ten categories of matching objects were provided in double sets for the three children. Four indices were used for the data analysis: holding and appropriation of objects; offering of objects; competition to hold objects and verbalizations. The findings confirmed the principal hypothesis: that interactions between friends differ from those with the third partner, in both age groups, quantitatively (density of interactions) and qualitatively (reciprocal offerings and verbal communications). Furthermore, the findings revealed that the younger children had more difficulty than the older ones, to manage the triadic situation, especially in this situation with the constraint imposed by the presence of two sets of matching objects for three partners.     

An investigation of children's fears and their mothers' fears

Children (75 female, 52 male) in grades 2 through 8 completed the Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSS-FC). Their mothers completed the same questionnaire twice: once for themselves and a second time to estimate their children's fears. Spearman's rhos indicated that there was a high degree of correspondence between the mothers' rank-ordered estimates of their children's fears and the children's rank-ordered self-reports (=.86 for males, =.96 for females.However, mothers' overall estimates of their children's general fearfulness were significantly correlated only with their daughters' fearfulness, not with their sons'. Further analyses showed that mothers could generally identify their children's highest-rated fears. All test-retest measures were significant. In summary, these results suggest that mothers may provide useful clinical information about their children's specific fears and that the FSS-FC is a reliable instrument with which to assess children's fears.     

A pilot study of the effects of expressive writing on psychological and behavioral adjustment in patients enrolled in a Phase II trial of vaccine therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Forty-two patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma who were participating in a Phase II clinical trial were randomly assigned to an expressive writing (EW) or neutral writing (NW) group. Patients in the EW group wrote about their cancer, and patients in the NW group wrote about health behaviors. No statistically significant group differences were found in symptoms of distress, perceived stress, or mood disturbance, except for the Vigor subscale of the Profile of Mood States. However, patients in the EW group reported significantly less sleep disturbance, better sleep quality and sleep duration, and less daytime dysfunction compared with patients in the NW group. The results suggest that EW may have sleep-related health benefits in terminally ill cancer patients.