Training Counselors for Special Education

Through a one-year internship, counselors develop attitudes and competencies needed to promote the career development of handicapped high school students. This new specialty in the counseling field, although it incorporates elements of rehabilitation, school, and vocational counseling, occurs within the framework of special education classes in regular high schools, and therefore is markedly different from any existing specialty. The role model developed in this project, now in its fifth year, stresses outreach, planning, and an active part for the counselor. This approach has been found effective both with handicapped and with learning disabled students in several urban schools.     

A critique and extension of Bronfenbrenner's Moral Dilemma Test

Critical reading of Bronfenbrenner's Moral Dilemmas Test (MDT) suggests that it measures two basic kinds of moral dimensions: (1) “Negative-passive” moral choices which require the child to resist peer pressure to violate conventional norms in situations fraught with potential adult sanctions, and (2) “Positive-active” moral choices which require performance of an act that affirms a moral principle and implies a benefit for recipients of the act. To test the validity of these distinctions, additional positive-active type dilemmas were constructed to balance the overemphasis on negative-passive situations found in the original MDT. This expanded MDT was then administered to samples of Mormon, Catholic and public school children. Responses from all samples were subjected to factor and cluster analyses and then to a “multitrait-multimethod matrix”. These analyses provide support for the need for making moral sub-distinctions by producing item clusters that are consistently based on the a priori defined negative-passive and positive-active dimensions. A third dimension is also discernable among certain of the original MDT items, but it represents an achievement orientation of only-secondary moral significance. Implications of these conceptual distinctions for linking different kinds of moral responses to different kinds of social contexts are discussed.     

Adaptation to delayed auditory feedback

Delayed auditory feedback disrupts the production of speech, causing an increase in speech duration as well as many articulatory errors. To determine whether prolonged exposure to delayed auditory feedback IDAFI leads to adaptive compensations in speech production, 10 subjects were exposed in separate experimental sessions to both incremental and constantdelay exposure conditions. Significant adaptation occurred for syntactically structured stimuli in the form of increased speaking rates. After DAF was removed, aftereffects were apparent for all stimulus types in terms of increased speech rates. A carry-over effect from the first to the second experimental session was evident as long as 29 days after the first session. The use of strategies to overcome DAF and the differences between adaptation to DAF and adaptation to visual rearrangement are discussed.     

Brief Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Suicidal Inpatients

Suicide risk is elevated in psychiatric patients following discharge from inpatient care. Despite this vulnerability, there has been limited research investigating suicide prevention protocols that take into account the unique system characteristics of this setting (e.g., short lengths of stay, crisis stabilization treatment model, multidisciplinary team coordination). Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has demonstrated efficacy for improving suicide risk in outpatients, but has not been validated with inpatients. The current study was a treatment development and pilot feasibility open trial that modified brief cognitive-behavioral therapy (BCBT) for an inpatient setting (BCBT-I). Key treatment modifications included administering up to 10 sessions (depending on patient length of stay), daily, and in a standardized order, with core crisis management skills introduced during the first three sessions. In addition, coordination with the inpatient treatment team was included in BCBT-I implementation. Six adult inpatients with a recent suicide attempt enrolled and completed an average of 4.67 BCBT-I sessions (SD = 1.36). The treatment was highly acceptable (Client Satisfaction Questionnaire total score M = 3.49, SD = 0.73). Pre- to posttreatment effect sizes demonstrated improvements in suicidal ideation (d = 0.97), depression (d = 1.33), and suicidal implicit associations (d = 1.28). All but one of the participants (83%) completed follow-up assessments 1-, 2-, and 3-months postdischarge. Over follow-up, two participants reported suicidal ideation (both without intent), and none reported suicide attempts, preparatory acts or behaviors, or nonsuicidal self-injury. This study provided preliminary evidence supporting the feasibility of CBT to treat suicidal inpatients. Future research is needed to validate BCBT-I in a larger, randomized controlled trial to determine whether BCBT-I reduces suicide risk beyond that afforded by inpatient treatment alone.