Telephone Counseling for Smoking Cessation: What's in a Call?

Telephone counseling for smoking cessation has been gaining popularity as studies have demonstrated its efficacy. What comprises a successful program, however, has not yet been detailed in the literature. In this article, an innovative telephone counseling intervention for smoking cessation is described, with attention to the clinical issues of client assessment, motivation, self-efficacy, planning, coping, relapse-sensitive call scheduling, and self-image. Counselor training and supervision issues, ethical and legal considerations regarding this form of service delivery, and suggestions for future direction also are outlined.     

GESTURE, SPEECH, AND LEXICAL ACCESS:

Abstract— In a within-subjects design that varied whether speakers were allowed to gesture and the difficulty of lexical access, speakers were videotaped as they described animated action cartoons to a listener. When speakers were permitted to gesture, they gestured more often during phrases with spatial content than during phrases with other content. Speech with spatial content was less fluent when speakers could not gesture than when they could gesture, speech with nonspatial content was not affected by gesture condition. Preventing gesturing increased the relative frequency of nonjuncture filled pauses in speech with spatial content, but not in speech with other content. Overall, the effects of preventing speakers from gesturing resembled those of increasing the difficulty of lexical access by other means, except that the effects of gesture restriction were specific to speech with spatial content. The findings support the hypothesis that gestural accompaniments to spontaneous speech can facilitate access to the mental lexicon     

Reinforcer value may change within experimental sessions

Large and systematic changes in response rates often occur within sessions during operant conditioning procedures. In the present experiment, we asked whether the value of the reinforcer that supports responding also changes within sessions. Pigeons pecked a key for mixed grain available throughout the session. Occasionally, wheat was also provided for pecking a second key. The ratio of the rates of responding for mixed grain and wheat, a frequently used measure of relative reinforcer value, changed significantly within sessions when mixed grain was provided at high, but not at low, rates. Habituation to the reinforcer provides the most likely explanation for these changes in reinforcer value. Eventually, habituation may provide a unified explanation for the within-session changes in behavior that occur when many species of subjects respond on a wide variety of tasks.     

Children and adolescents discharged from public psychiatric hospital: Evaluation of outcome in a continuum of care

Ninety children and adolescents admitted to two state-operated psychiatric hospitals were followed from the time of their admission through one year post discharge. Data were collected from the children and adolescents, their families and clinicians at three intervals (during hospitalization, three months post discharge, and one year post discharge) to identify demographic, clinical, and service history characteristics of the children and adolescents, as well as to track their placement and other dispositional status following discharge from the hospital. The data indicated that the children and adolescents were seriously emotionally and behaviorally disturbed, came from families which were economically disadvantaged, and did not typically live in two-parent families. While the majority of the children and adolescents received recommended aftercare services during the three months following discharge from the hospital, there was a decline in placement stability for the children at the one-year post discharge followup. The most important predictors of successful outcome at discharge were living with a family member at the time of hospitalization and the participation of the family in the treatment planning during hospitalization.     

Applying person-centred principles to teaching large classes

An analysis was carried out of final-year undergraduate responses to innovations in a seminar class of 54 students to determine whether positive learning outcomes in large classes can be made possible by increasing the range of work in which students are involved. Relatively straightforward adjustments to approach and style produced positive learning outcomes, enabling students to acquire enthusiastically and effectively not only subject knowledge, but also a range of transferable skills giving them better preparation for the world of work. While course management of this kind requires a redirection of the time and effort of the lecturer, and therefore raises issues of professional development needs, it is not subject-specific and should be readily transferable.     

A STUDY OF VARIABLES RELATED TO SELECTED JOB PLACEMENT CRITERIA

A random sample of 70 training program graduates from the Georgia Rehabilitation Center was used in the present study. Three placement criteria were as follows: 1) salary; 2) number of weeks between graduation and employment; and 3) number of contacts by a field rehabilitation counselor between graduation and closure. Data were collected on 55 test and rating variables during the students' evaluation and training periods, and intercorrelations were examined to determine significant relationships between these variables and the selected criteria. The results were discussed in terms of program implications.