The WISC-R and the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement: correlations for exceptional children

The present study concerns correlations of scores on the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement with those on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised (WISC--R). Correlations between WISC--R Full Scale, Verbal, and Performance IQ and the Reading Aptitude Cluster, the Mathematics Aptitude Cluster, and the Written Language Aptitude Cluster of the Woodcock-Johnson were expected to be high and support the contention that conventional measures of ability do predict achievement for children. Results confirm the hypothesis. The Verbal IQ was the best one-variable predictor of each aptitude cluster, with R s ranging from .32 to .78.     

A comparison of depressed and nondepressed disturbed children on measures of attributional style,hopelessness, life stress,and temperament

Upon admission to a hospital treatment program, clinically depressed and nondepressed children (aged 9–17 years) were assessed on measures of attributional style, hopelessness, depression, life stress, and child temperament. The depressed group tended to attribute positive events to specific and unstable factors when compared with the nondepressed sample. Group differences also were found on child temperament measures. However, no differences were reported between the diagnostic groups on self-reported depression, hopelessness, or life stress. The findings suggested that there may not be a unique constellation of cognitive characteristics in depressed children when compared with a nondepressed clinical sample. For both depressed and nondepressed groups, treatment did appear to affect self-reported depression and overall ratings of depressogenic attributional style.     

Subacute apomorphine injections in rats: effects on components of behavioral stereotypy

This study was aimed at documenting the changes in the frequency and duration of bouts of behavior of Sprague-Dawley male rats in the open-field following each of four injections of apomorphine (Apo, 5 mg/kg, sc, immediate), or normal saline, delivered at 3-day intervals. Independent quantification of locomotion, sniffing, rearing, grooming, inactivity, gnawing, nodding, and jumping was obtained continuously throughout the 78-min sessions. Apo eliminated grooming and inactivity on all sessions. The large increases in locomotion and sniffing seen in the Apo rats compared to the saline rats on the first session were sustained throughout subsequent sessions. However, the Apo-induced potentiation of nodding of the head and gnawing, seen acutely, declined across sessions. These observations reconcile inconsistencies in the literature on subacute Apo effects. Finally, the individual differences in behavioral scores of Apo-treated rats were more stable than were those of saline-treated rats. This finding supports evidence in the literature that individual differences in neurochemistry are more likely to be predicted from the behavioral scores of Apo-challenged rats than from the scores of untreated rats.     

Effects of parent enhancement therapy on the treatment outcome and generalization of a parent training program

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of parent enhancement training in facilitating treatment and maintenance effects of a parent training program. Seventeen mothers and their clinic-referred noncompliant children were assigned to either a parent training alone group or a parent training plus parent enhancement therapy group. Fifteen mothers and their nonclinic children served as a quasi-control group. All clinic-referred mother-child dyads were treated individually by teaching the mother to reward compliance and other prosocial behavior and to use time-out for noncompliance. In addition, mothers in the parent training plus parent enhancement group also received treatment related to the following areas: parent's perception of their child's behavior, parent's personal adjustment, parent's marital adjustment, and parent's extrafamilial relationships. Assessment consisted of four home observations by independent observers prior to treatment, after treatment, and at a 2-month follow-up. The data indicated that the parent training plus parent enhancement therapy was more effective than parent training alone in changing child deviant behavior at posttreatment and in maintaining child compliance, child deviant behavior, parental rewards and parent contingent attention at follow-up. The control group did not change over the three assessment periods.     

Directionality and temporal factors in conditional reasoning

An experiment is reported which tests psycholinguistic hypotheses about conditional rules of the form ‘If p then q’ (IT) and ‘p only if q’ (OI). It is postulated that each rule has a ‘directionality’ determined by linguistic usage which is ‘forwards’ for IT rules and ‘backwards’ for OI rules. It is further suggested that where temporal relations exist between the events denoted by p and q, the rules will be understood and processed more rapidly if the directionality of the rule is congruent with the temporal order. The results supported these hypotheses and provide a useful replication and extension of previous work.     

Exposure and response prevention of morbid ruminations and compulsive avoidance

Two patients with morbid ruminations and compulsive avoidance behavior were independently treated by the authors with exposure and response prevention strategies. The patients were quite different with respect to age (23 vs 58), occupational status (student vs civil servant) and length of disorder (2 vs 40 years), although their disorders were quite similar. The present report describes the patients and treatment procedures and reports on dramatic behavioral changes that occurred within brief time periods.