PROMOTING AUTOMOBILE SAFETY BELT USE BY YOUNG CHILDREN

A program using behavioral practice, assertiveness training, and social and contrived reinforcers was developed to establish and maintain automobile safety belt use by young children. Sixteen children (ages 4.8 to 7 years) who never used their safety belts during a 5-day preexperimental observation period were randomly assigned to two groups of eight each. A multiple baseline design across groups was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. During the 8-day baseline period for Group 1, no children used their safety belts when unobtrusively observed while being driven from school. During the 26-day intervention period, the children were buckled up on 96% of the observations. Follow-up probes conducted 2–3 months after program discontinuance found safety belt use to range from 86% to 100%. For Group 2, the 14-day baseline safety belt use averaged 6% and increased to a mean of 81% during the 20-day training and maintenance program. Follow-up probes 2–3 months later found safety belt use to occur during 75% to 96% of the observations. Parent questionnaires indicated the generalizability and social validity of the program.     

MAINTAINING PERFORMANCE OF AUTISTIC CLIENTS IN COMMUNITY SETTINGS WITH DELAYED CONTINGENCIES

To facilitate the classroom and workshop integration of three autistic clients, we examined the feasibility of teaching them to respond appropriately without the continual presence of specially trained treatment providers. Within a multiple baseline design, a 4-step treatment process was implemented to promote durable responsive performance. Results indicated that the therapist could be removed from the treatment environment and that appropriate behavior could be successfully maintained in community settings with only infrequent and delayed contingencies.     

Saying and doing: A contingency-space analysis

Correspondences between verbal responding (saying) and nonverbal responding (doing) may be organized in terms of the classes of verbal/nonverbal relations into which particular instances of verbal/nonverbal response sequences can enter. Contingency spaces, which display relations among events in terms of the probability of one event given or not given another, have been useful in analyses of nonverbal behavior. We derive a taxonomy of verbal/nonverbal behavior relations from a contingency space that takes into account two conditional probabilities: the probability of a nonverbal response given a verbal response and that probability given the absence of the verbal response. For example, positive correspondence may be said to exist as a response class when the probability of doing is high given saying but is otherwise low. Criteria for other generalized classes, including negative correspondence, follow from this analysis.     

The manifest dream in psychoanalysis: a clarification

Controversies about the value of the manifest dream in psychoanalysis are usually a matter of semantics. The author concludes that two clinically meaningful questions about the manifest dream can be asked: Is the patient's report of a dream useful in formulating an interpretation if no formal associations to the dream elements are given? Inasmuch as such reports always include some kind of associations, and the analyst always possesses considerable knowledge about the patient, the answer to this question would seem to be "Yes, at least at times." In what ways can the manifest dream contribute to our understanding of the dream and the dreamer? Both the literature and clinical experience indicate that there are many ways; these are summarized in an appendix. One approach, the direct decoding of manifest dream elements, is discussed in some detail. Several examples of the undisguised appearance of memories of childhood traumatic experiences in the manifest dream are presented.     

Self-concept and anxiety of adolescent and adult fathers

This study examines the relationship between the age of unmarried fathers and their self-concept and anxiety level. A total of 24 unmarried fathers (12 adolescents and 12 adults) comprised the sample. No significant differences were found between adolescent and adult fathers on self-concept or anxiety level. Findings are discussed with regard to the current status of research on adolescent fathers.