A controlled evaluation of the impact of a parent training programme on child behaviour and mothers' general well-being

This study was designed to assess the impact of a parent training programme run by the Eastern Health Board (EHB) on two factors, child behaviour and mothers' general well-being. Thirty-nine mothers (Experimental group), and forty mothers on a waiting list for the course (Control group), were assessed before the Experimental group commenced the course and again when the Experimental group had completed the course. The Experimental group was also assessed one year after completing the course. Although initially the Control group started from a slightly better position, statistically significant for one of the four measures, mothers in the Experimental group changed more during the course and rated their children as having fewer and less intense behavioural problems, and saw themselves as having fewer psychological symptoms and increased levels of self-esteem at post-course assessment. These beneficial effects were maintained at follow-up.     

The Student Guided Functional Assessment Interview: An Analysis of Student and Teacher Agreement

Functional assessment strategies are used to guide the treatment of problem behavior with individuals who have severe disabilities. Also, researchers have extended functional assessment applications to individuals with emotional and behavioral disabilities. One such extension is the use of students as informants in the functional assessment process. The present study assessed an interview tool designed to elicit information directly from students regarding their problem behaviors. We examined agreement between students and their teachers. Results showed high agreement on the causes and functions of problem behavior with mixed agreement on support plan recommendations.     

A signal detection theory analysis of gap detection in the rat

An innocuous sensory event (a prestimulus) briefly preceding a startle-eliciting stimulus (SES) reduces the amplitude of the elicited reflex. This study used signal detection theory (SDT) techniques to quantify the effects of gaps (pauses in otherwise continuous noise) on the rat’s acoustic startle reflex. Sixteen rats were given four identical test sessions consisting of the randomized presentation of 150 trials of the SES alone and 150 trials of a gap-and-SES combination. Gap duration (1, 2, 4, and 8 msec) varied between sessions. Data analyses based on amplitude, difference scores, percentage scores, and SDT techniques identified similar patterns. The three longest gaps, but not the shortest, were reliably detected, and differences among these three were identified with percentage and SDT analyses. Analyses of amplitude changes over test sessions yielded different patterns for each measure. The results demonstrate that an SDT analysis is a sensitive index of prestimulus effects.     

Comprehension of complex sentences in children at three levels of cognitive development

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between level of cognitive development and the comprehension of complex sentences in children. Twenty males and 20 females at the preoperational and concrete operational levels of cognitive development who were attending regular first-, fourth-, and seventh-grade classes served as subjects. Four examples each of parallel and nonparallel function forms of center-embedded and right-branching sentences served as stimuli within an object-manipulation task. The sentences were also described in terms of those containing a reversed word order clause, a clause with a role change (nonparallel function), neither, or both. Preoperational children could interpret sentences containing neither reversed word order nor role change as well as concrete operational children. Concrete operational children providing identity and reversibility arguments during conservation tasks had a significantly higher accuracy rate on sentences containing either role change or reversed word order than preoperational children. Concrete operational children providing reversibility, identity, and compensation arguments had a significantly higher accuracy rate on sentences containing role change and both role change and reversed word order than any other group of children. Preoperational children were noted to rely heavily on the use of word-order strategy to decode the sentences. Reliance on this strategy decreased as cognitive level advanced.     

College student gender stereotypes: Expectations about the behavior of male subcategory members

Traditional research on gender stereotypes emphasized similarities among males in that all men were expected to exhibit stereotypic characteristics. Recent research described subcategories (family man, businessman, macho male) suggesting important differences among men. This study investigated college student expectations of similarities and differences among stereotypic male subcategories across five role characteristics: financial provider responsibilities, instrumental tendencies, assertiveness, familial responsibilities, and interpersonal tendencies. The white, middle-class students expected all men to take financial provider and familial responsibilities seriously, and to be assertive. As for differences, the family man and man in general were expected to be interpersonal, and the family man, businessman, and man in general were expected to be more instrumental than the macho male. Implications are discussed.     

The role of “chirp” identification in duplex perception

Duplex perception occurs when the phonetically distinguishing transitions of a syllable are presented to one ear and the rest of the syllable (the “base”) is simultaneously presented to the other ear. Subjects report hearing both a nonspeech “chirp” and a speech syllable correctly cued by the transitions. In two experiments, we compared phonetic identification of intact syllables, duplex percepts, isolated transitions, and bases. In both experiments, subjects were able to identify the phonetic information encoded into isolated transitions in the absence of an appropriate syllabic context. Also, there was no significant difference in phonetic identification of isolated transitions and duplex percepts. Finally, in the second experiment, the category boundaries from identification of isolated transitions and duplex percepts were not significantly different from each other. However, both boundaries were statistically different from the category boundary for intact syllables. Taken together, these results suggest that listeners do not need to perceptually integrate F2 transitions or F2 and F3 transition pairs with the base in duplex perception. Rather, it appears that listeners identify the chirps as speech without reference to the base.     

Rationale for Individualizing Interventions to Promote Adjustment to the Nursing Home

This study was designed to determine whether certain variables were predictors of nursing home residents' membership in groups representing qualitative categories of nursing home adjustment. Responses of 186 residents to an open-ended question about how they handled the change to nursing home life were coded as very good, fair, or poor; an adjustment variable was created on the basis of this classification. Analysis of variance of random samples from each adjustment group showed that affect and social support varied significantly with adjustment. However, when discriminant analysis was applied, the three groups could not be differentiated using measure of affect, life satisfaction, social support, participation in the decisions leading to admission, nursing home satisfaction, or health. Based on the conclusion that adjustment to the nursing home is a unique experience for each individual, strategies were proposed for individualizing interventions to enable adjustment.     

Effects of researcher follow-up of distressed subjects: tradeoff between validity and ethical responsibility

Researchers studying depression often encounter research participants in serious preexisting distress. Examining investigators' ethical responsibilities to these subjects, Stanton and New (1988) found that depression researchers reported actions that ranged from doing nothing to contacting both the distressed subject and a significant other. By experimentally manipulating consent form information regarding potential treatment referral, we examined whether subjects (n=357) adjusted their responses on depression measures as a function of the level of follow-up they expected to receive. Results reveal that subjects who potentially could receive the most intrusive intervention (i.e., experimenter contact with the subject and a significant other) were less likely to report depressive symptoms than were subjects who anticipated less intrusive follow-up. Willingness to report depressive symptoms in particular conditions varied in part as a function of subject sex. Thus, ethical safeguards used in studies with subjects in preexisting distress may have consequences for the validity of self-report depression measures.     

EXTENDING THE CONCEPT OF SOCIAL VALIDITY: BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS FOR DISEASE PREVENTION AND HEALTH PROMOTION

A broader definition of social validity is proposed wherein a socially valid behavior-change intervention is directed to a problem of verifiable importance, the intervention is valued and used appropriately by designated target groups, and the intervention as used has sufficient behavioral impact to substantially reduce the probability of the problem's occurrence in target populations. The verifiable importance of a problem is based on epidemiological data, and the value and appropriate use of an intervention are enhanced through the use of conceptual frameworks for social marketing and behavior change and considerable formative and pilot research. Behavioral impact is assessed through efficacy and effectiveness studies. Thus, the social validity of a behavior-change intervention is established through a number of interactive, a priori steps. This approach to defining social validity is related to critical analysis and intervention issues including individual and population perspectives and “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches to intervention design. This broader definition of social validity is illustrated by a project to reduce the risk of HIV infection among adolescents. Although the various steps involved in creating socially valid interventions can be complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, following all the steps can result in interventions capable of improving a nation's health.     

Scaling of apparent accentedness by magnitude estimation and sensory modality matching

In each of three experiments, 24 students judged the accentedness present in the speech of eight Spanish-English bilinguals.Ss gave magnitude estimations and also squeezed a hand dynamometer to indicate the amount of accentedness in the reading of an English passage by each of the speakers. There was significant agreement amongSs regarding the speech samples with each scaling method, and interscale agreement was good. Power functions fitted to the data had exponents falling in the range expected from earlier psychophysical studies. Scale values correlated significantly with the frequency of accented pronunciations by the speakers as judged by two independent judges. The use of these scaling methods for future research on linguistic features of accent and on the relation between accent and language attitudes is discussed.