An Ethical Decision‐Making Model to Determine Authorship Credit in Published Faculty–Student Collaborations

Publishing research is imperative to both counselor educators and students in counseling programs. Furthermore, faculty–student publication collaborations can often be a mutually beneficial professional endeavor. However, determining order of authorship can be a complex ethical issue. The authors review prior research to illustrate the complexities of authorship and suggest a decision‐making model and considerations for preventing and resolving these ethical dilemmas. Implications for counselors include future research studies on complex issues regarding authorship of faculty–student collaborations, future incidence studies investigating occurrence of ethics violations, and incorporation of publication ethics into course work in counselor education programs.     

The 'double face' illusion

We report three experiments intended to characterise aspects of the 'double face' illusion, formed by replicating the eyes and mouth below the originals. Such doubled faces are disturbing to look at. We find there are wide individual differences in the ability to detect that a face has been doubled when presented briefly and masked. These differences appear to relate to perceptual speed, since they correlate with the ability to identify a briefly presented famous face. Doubling has a significant effect on identification, though much less than inversion. In a reaction-time study, participants are faster to decide that a face has been doubled as it is rotated away from upright. The final study shows that normal and doubled faces do not pop out from each other, but reveals a processing overhead of 40-60 ms per doubled face. We offer some speculations as to the cause of the perceptual effects.     

Evidence for the Syndrome of Nonverbal Learning Disabilities in Children with Brain Tumors

This study examined the predicted utility of the Nonverbal Learning Disabilities syndrome (NLD) (Rourke, 1995) for characterizing neurocognitive and psychosocial outcomes in 123 children with brain tumors. Children with brain tumors were found to be at high risk of having a specific academic deficit, particularly in arithmetic. Children with arithmetic deficit evidenced a higher rate of impairment on nonverbal tasks than on verbal tasks, whereas children with reading deficit evidenced a higher rate of impairment on verbal tasks than on nonverbal tasks. However, significant differences between children with arithmetic and reading deficits were not found for all of the component features of the NLD syndrome, and arithmetic deficit was not related to treatment with irradiation.     

Predictors of Therapist Adherence and Emotional Bond in Multisystemic Therapy: Testing Ethnicity as a Moderator

This study examined the interaction between problem severity and race\ethnicity as a predictor of therapist adherence and family-therapist emotional bond. Data for this study came from a longitudinal evaluation of Multisystemic Therapy (MST) provided by licensed MST provider organizations in community settings. Outcome variables included mid-treatment levels of caregiver report of therapist adherence, changes in caregiver report of therapist adherence over the course of treatment, and overall levels of caregiver-therapist and youth-therapist emotional bond. Hypothesized predictors included race\ethnicity and levels of poly-substance use, externalizing behavior, and youth self-report of delinquency early in treatment as well as pre-treatment number of arrests. Participants were 185 adolescents (M age = 15.35, SD = 1.29) and their caregivers. Of the participating youth, 48 % self-identified as Caucasian, 20 % as African-American, 28 % as Hispanic\Latino, and 4 % as “other.” Two-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses revealed that for Caucasian youth, lower rates of self-reported delinquency were associated with greater increases in caregiver report of therapist adherence over the course of MST. For Hispanic\Latino caregivers, higher externalizing behavior and poly-substance use were associated with reports of lower therapist adherence at mid-treatment and poorer overall levels of emotional bonding with therapists. In contrast, for African-American participants, higher levels of youth externalizing behavior and poly-substance use were associated with higher overall levels of caregiver and youth report of emotional bonding with therapists, respectively. Results provide evidence that race\ethnicity interacts with problem severity in predicting therapist adherence and family-therapist emotional bond within real-world practice settings and suggest possible therapeutic process differences across race.     

Psychological Treatment Improves Hemoglobin A1c Outcomes in Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Adolescents diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus often exhibit reduced adherence to their medical regimen and poor glycemic control. A retrospective study examined longitudinal hemoglobin A1c (HgbA1c) outcomes for adolescent patients referred to the psychology service embedded within an endocrinology clinic. Three patient groups were examined: (1) Treatment: 59 adolescents referred who engaged in psychotherapy; (2) No Treatment: 40 adolescents referred yet failed to initiate psychotherapy; (3) Control: 58 adolescents not referred for treatment and matched on demographics to the two treatment groups. Over 1 year, the Treatment group had a sustained decrease in HgbA1c while the No Treatment and Control groups had an overall increase in HgbA1c. At study end, the Treatment group had HgbA1c values that were not significantly different from patients who were not considered in need of psychological treatment (Control). Adolescents that utilized the pediatric psychology service saw decreased HgbA1c values over time.     

Matching-to-Sample and Stimulus-Pairing-Observation Procedures in Stimulus Equivalence: The Effects of Number of Trials and Stimulus Arrangement

The Psychological Record - Studies comparing the effectiveness of the stimulus-pairing-observation and matching-to-sample procedures in facilitating equivalence relations have reported conflicting...     

Leadership in community mutual support groups for mental health: A qualitative case study from the leaders' perspective

This study explores the experience of leadership of member‐led community‐based mental health mutual support groups. Recent research has documented factors that affect these groups, including leader well‐being, but little is known about the experience of leadership at the individual level. We aimed to understand more about the experience of leadership and how leading members conceptualise their roles. Individual semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 14 leaders of a community mental health mutual support group in England and thematically analysed. Three themes were identified through which leading members conceptualised their roles and group dynamics: (a) “It's a family”; (b) professional values; and (c) working as a team. These knowledge frameworks appeared to influence leaders' well‐being and conceptualisations of their role. The potential impact of this on group stability is discussed. Recommendations are made that group and individual‐level processes be considered together in future research in mental health mutual support contexts due to their interconnected nature.     

A Comparison of Two Flashcard Interventions for Teaching Sight Words to Early Readers

Strategic Incremental Rehearsal (SIR) is a recently developed flashcard intervention that blends Traditional Drill with Incremental Rehearsal (IR) for teaching sight words. The initial study evaluating SIR found it was more effective than IR for teaching sight words to first-grade students. However, that study failed to assess efficiency, which is important to consider when evaluating and selecting interventions. Therefore, the current study evaluated both the efficiency and effectiveness of SIR compared with IR for teaching sight words to 4 general education students (3 in second grade and 1 in first grade) who were enrolled in 1 of 2 schools. An alternating treatments single-case design was used to compare the effects of SIR and IR interventions implemented 4 days per week across 4 or 5 weeks. Students’ accuracy with words that were introduced during the week was assessed on Fridays, and maintenance of these words was assessed the following Friday. Results indicated that both interventions were effective for teaching students sight words, but that SIR was slightly more effective and efficient than IR for 3 of the 4 students. Findings have implications for the selection of flashcard interventions for teaching sight word vocabulary to early elementary students.