Stuttering adaptation under distributed and massed conditions

An identical-subject-repeated-measures design, involving two counterbalanced conditions, was employed to investigate adaptation when the presentation of a 100-word list is distributed and when it is massed. In Condition I, the entire list was read aloud during each of five successive trials. Since a specific word reoccurred only after all of the others were displayed, the presentation may be said to be distributed. In contrast, the Condition II presentation was massed. Only after a word was read five times was the next one presented. The results indicate that significant adaptation occurred in both conditions. However, adaptation plateaued in the distributed condition. This was not the case when massing was employed. The among-condition analyses revealed that significantly more adaptation occurred in the massed than in the distributed condition.     

Intellectual property and biotechnology: the U.S. internal experience--Part I

In the development of biotechnology in the United States, many questions were raised about the appropriateness of applying to this area a traditional robust system of intellectual property rights. Despite these hesitations, the U.S. rejected suggested modifications. This was a mistake, and there is a need to develop a modified system that promotes more of the relevant ethical values.     

Comparison of two self-report instruments for assessing binge eating in bariatric surgery candidates

This study compared two self-report methods for assessing binge eating in severely obese bariatric surgery candidates. Participants were 249 gastric bypass candidates who completed the Questionnaire on Eating and Weight Patterns-Revised (QEWP-R) and the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q) prior to surgery. Participants were classified by binge eating status (i.e., no or recurrent binge eating) with each of the measures. The degree of agreement was examined, as well as the relationship between binge eating and measures of convergent validity. The two measures identified a similar number of patients with recurrent binge eating (i.e., at least 1 binge/week); however, overlap was modest (kappa=.26). Agreement on twice weekly binge eating was poor (kappa=.05). The QEWP-R and EDE-Q both identified clinically meaningful groups of binge eaters. The EDE-Q appeared to differentiate between non/infrequent bingers and recurrent bingers better than the QEWP-R, based on measures of convergent validity. In addition, the EDE-Q demonstrated an advantage because it identified binge eaters with elevated weight and shape overconcern. Using the self-report measures concurrently did not improve identification of binge eating in this study. More work is needed to determine the construct validity and clinical utility of these measures with gastric bypass patients.     

A comparative investigation of the speech-associated attitude of preschool and kindergarten children who do and do not stutter

The data of recent research studies have shown that by 3 years of age children show an awareness of dysfluency and that by at least the age of six, youngsters who stutter have a speech-associated attitude that is more negative than that of their peers. These findings led to the present study in which the KiddyCAT, a self-report measure, was used to compare the attitude toward speech of 45 children, between the age of three and six, who stuttered with that of 63 who did not. The data of this investigation showed that, as a group, the preschool and kindergarten children who stuttered had significantly more in the way of a negative attitude toward their speech than was found among their nonstuttering peers of the same age and gender. This finding is not consistent with the classically held position that the reactive aspects of stuttering do not generally develop until well after its onset. It suggests the need to measure, by standardized means, the speech-associated attitude of incipient stutterers and, when appropriate, to make the assessment and treatment of negative attitude toward speech a meaningful aspect of therapy.

Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) describe the difference in the speech-associated attitude of preschoolers and kindergartners who do and do not stutter; (2) summarize what we currently know about self-report tests used to assess speech-related attitude among children as young as 3; and (3) evaluate the usefulness of assessing the belief system of children whose fluency is considered problematic.     

Commentary: Moral growth in medical students

Knight has shown how the moral growth of medical students involves a spiritual journey. He may, however, present too sanguine a portrayal of the extent to which the medical education environment promotes this moral and spiritual growth. Medical school may indeed be more abusive than supportive. Admitting more women to medical school and teaching more humanities courses, while worthwhile, will not necessarily promote the goals that Knight appropriately advocates.     

Antihypertensive treatment,compliance, and quality of life: Review of a little-understood relation

If patients notoriously violate treatment regimens known to effectively control hypertension, then there must be some subjective costs associated with adherence to these regimens. Generally speaking, there must be some reduction in quality of life associated with antihypertensive medication. Unfortunately the concept of quality of life, due to its lack of specificity, is of little help in further investigating the nature of these subjective costs. We developed a simple neuropsychophysiological model based on fundamental psychological and physiological processes: corticoinhibitory effects of phasic blood pressure elevation reduce the aversive or painful qualities of many stressors. This negative reinforcement increases the rate of the reinforced physiological behavior, i.e., phasic analgesic blood pressure increases. Such negatively reinforced operant behavior is known to be extremely resistant to extinction. Counter actions such as taking antihypertensive medication not only lead to reduced quality of life due to their cancellation of the analgesic effect of conditioned blood pressure increase, but also lead to some form of reluctance to comply with treatment. The model not only provides an innovative etiological path to the emergence of neurogenic essential hypertension, but also yields a highly specific and lean concept of quality of life. Furthermore, it supplies the health care community with a concise explanation for the well-known low compliance of patients with their antihypertensive regimens. In addition to its parsimony, the model fits well with various experimental findings and has been operationalized and tested empirically. Specific therapeutic implications can be derived.     

Predicting interpersonal competence in young adulthood: The roles of family,self, and peer systems during adolescence

The present investigation examines the impact of family, self, and peer systems, evaluated during early adolescence, on the development of interpersonal competence in young adulthood. The participants were 110 Caucasian individuals, their mothers, and one of their teachers. At the first assessment, the participants ranged in age from 11.5 to 15.1 years old. Approximately six years later, the participants completed a second evaluation involving assessment of interpersonal competence. Increased interparental conflict and parental divorce predicted decreased self-esteem. Decreased self-esteem predicted poorer peer-adolescent relationships, which, in turn, forecasted poorer adult interpersonal competence. The results suggest that living in a distressed family leads to diminished self-esteem which can influence the quality of peer relationships and place an adolescent on a trejectory toward difficulties in interpersonal competence during adulthood.     

Role of maternal functioning and parenting skills in adolescent functioning following parental divorce

While divorce has been associated with impaired child functioning, the mechanisms within the divorce process leading to such an outcome have rarely been examined. The following hypothesis was examined: Divorce is associated with poor parental adjustment or disrupts parenting behavior, or both, which leads to poor adolescent functioning. Subjects were 121 and 93 young adolescents from intact and recently divorced families, respectively, and their mothers and teachers. Mothers completed measures assessing parental conflict and depression, observers coded parenting skills during a mother-adolescent interaction, and teachers completed measures assessing adolescent functioning. Although the magnitude of differences was not large, analyses of variance indicated that the divorced sample was functioning poorer than the married sample on all measures except interparental conflict. Path analysis suggested that parental functioning and parenting skills play a role in adolescent functioning following divorce.