Time-out with children

The purpose of the present study was twofold: (a) to determine the effect of an explanation prior to or after time-out on child compliance and on child disruptive behavior during time-out and (b) to determine the effect of brief parent training in time-out on child and parent behaviors. Thirty-two mother—child pairs served as subjects and were assigned to one of the following four groups: control, time-out only, explanation prior to time-out, or explanation following time-out. Each mother—child pair was observed for one session under pretraining, training, and posttraining conditions. The results indicated that time-out significantly increased compliance but the addition of an explanation did not further alter the effectiveness of time-out. Training in the use of time-out decreased the incidence of maternal interruptions but did not affect maternal responses that were not trained. Finally, following brief time-out training for noncompliance, the mothers used the procedure only 50% of the time following noncompliance.This study was supported in part by a University of Georgia Research Council grant.     

The relation between gesture and language in aphasic communication

Effective communication in aphasia depends not only on use of preserved linguistic capacities but also (and perhaps primarily) on the capacity to exploit alternative modalities of communication, such as gesture. To ascertain the capacity of aphasic patients to use gesture in their spontaneous communication, informally structured interviews were conducted with two Wernicke's aphasics and two Broca's aphasics, as well as with four normal controls. The performances of the patient groups were compared on the physical parameters of gesture, the points in the communication where gestures occurred, and several facets of the semantics and pragmatics of gesture. Generally speaking, the gestures of the aphasics closely paralleled their speech output: on most indices, the performance of the Wernicke's aphasics more closely resembled that of the normal controls. Wernicke's aphasics differed from normals in the clarity of their language and gestures: While individual linguistic units were often clear, the relation among units was not. In contrast, the Broca's aphasics equaled or surpassed the normal controls in the clarity of their communications. The results offer little support for the view that aphasic patients spontaneously enhance their communicative efficacy through the use of gesture; these findings can, however, be interpreted as evidence in favor of a “central organizer” which controls critical features of communication, irrespective of the modality of expression.     

Effects of federal human subjects regulations on data obtained in environmental stressor research

A series of experiments on environmental noise was performed over a 3-year period. Those experiments in the series that incorporated federal subjects guidelines concerning informed consent failed to replicate the negative aftereffects of noise found earlier by Glass and Singer. The experiments that were performed before implementation of the federal guidelines, however, successfully replicated the Glass and Singer findings. To clarify this pattern of results, a final experiment was performed on two groups of subjects treated identically except that one group gave informed consent while the other did not. The results confirmed that the subject procedures involving informed consent as defined by the federal guidelines prevent the emergence of negative aftereffects of noise, possibly because these procedures give the subjects what amounts to control over the stressor. Similar phenomena may occur in research on other environmental stressors, such as crowding and electric shock, in which subject's perception of control is a critical variable. Possible techniques for performing future research of this type are discussed.     

The role of muscle tension in “repression”

Using an active partial avoidance conditioning paradigm, muscle tension was conditioned to a verbal conditional stimulus (CS), and recall of words semantically unrelated and related to the CS was tested under conditions of three levels of induced muscle tension with 20 subjects (Ss). Results showed the expected decrease in latency of response with moderate tension for all stimuli during the pretreatment period and for the unrelated words during the posttreatment period and a significant increase in latency of response for the related words during the posttreatment period. It is suggested that if the level of muscle tension associated with the conditional response (CR) is induced in Ss, then recall of CS-related material will be inhibited or “repressed.”     

The correlates of dyadic synchrony in high-risk, low-income toddler boys

Synchrony has been broadly conceptualized as the quality of the parent-child dyadic relationship. Parenting, factors that compromise caregiving quality, and child characteristics have all been theoretically linked to synchrony, but little research has been conducted to validate such associations. The present study examined correlates of synchrony including parenting, maternal psychological resources and child attributes, among a sample of 120 mother-son dyads who were participating in a treatment study for children identified as being at risk for developing early conduct problems. There families participated in an at-home assessment, which included a series of mother-son interactions. Synchrony was associated with aspects of parenting and child attributes, including maternal nurturance, and child emotional negativity and language skills. The findings are discussed in terms of parent and child contributions to the development of synchrony.     

Semantic differential techniques in the identification of individuals assessment of health state: A case study of a patient within a homoeopathic regime

A retrospective study of patients (n = 166) on a wheat free diet showed improvements in patients diagnosed as wheat sensitive over patients not so diagnosed (p = 0.05). Clinical history indicated marked differences between these groups in perceptions of health. Individual follow up studies indicated that a Semantic Differential grid, derived from a patient group (n = 20) through semantic and repertory techniques, was a good indicator of these clinical perceptions. The results of one patient in this group are presented and show the typical results obtained by principal component analysis of the semantic grid administered over two visits to the hospital. Patient perception of well being shown by the grid analysis was confirmed by clinical history. The implications of this semantic approach for patient self reporting and clinical counselling are discussed. Larger scale studies are currently being planned on wheat sensitivity and associated psychological effects, using a variety of psychological measures, in a large range of patient groups (including Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis).     

Analysis of behavioral durations in observational studies of social interaction

Many social science disciplines investigate dyadic or triadic social interaction by recording the interactive behaviors as qualitative codes. This article introduces a method for analyzing and interpreting variation in the durations of coded behaviors obtained during such interactions. Using survival analysis and event history analysis as its basis, this article discusses the use of regression techniques that enable the researcher to assess how the distributions of behavioral durations depend on covariate observations. An analysis of conflicts between mothers and children illustrates the discussion, using the proportional hazards model. Behavioral and attitudinal differences among the mother-son dyad predicted variation in the durations of mothers' negative statements to their sons.     

Denial of the Parental Alienation Syndrome Also Harms Women

Denying reality is obviously a maladaptive way of dealing with a situation. In fact, denial is generally considered to be one of the defense mechanisms, mechanisms that are inappropriate maladaptive, and pathological. In the field of medicine to deny the existence of a disease seriously compromises the physician's ability to help patients. If a physician does not believe that a particular disease exists, then it will not be given consideration when making a differential diagnosis, and the patient may then go untreated. This is in line with the ancient medical principle that proper diagnosis must precede proper treatment. Or, if for some external reason the physician recognizes the disorder, but feels obligated to use another name, other problems arise, for example, impaired communication with others regarding exactly what is going on with the patient, and hence improper treatment. This is what is occurring at this point with the parental alienation syndrome, a disorder whose existence has compelling verification. In this article I discuss the reasons for denial of the PAS and the ways in which such denial harms families. Particular emphasis will be given to the ways in which this denial harms women, although I will certainly comment on the ways in which the denial harms their husbands and children. In the past, denial of the PAS has caused men much grief. Such denial is now causing women similar grief.