Teacher Implementation of Trial-Based Functional Analysis and Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior for Students with Challenging Behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a training package on three middle school special education teachers’ accurate implementation of trial-based functional analysis (TBFA) and differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) with their students with autism spectrum disorders or emotional and behavioral disorders in the classroom setting. We also examined the effects of the DRA on six students’ challenging and replacement behaviors. Using a multiple probe across teacher participants design, we demonstrated that all three teachers implemented TBFA during TBFA training with performance feedback conditions and DRA during DRA training with performance feedback conditions with high procedural fidelity. Further, two of three teachers generalized high procedural fidelity with a new student. Finally, results indicated a reduction in all six students’ challenging behavior and an increase in their replacement behavior after the teachers received training and performance feedback on DRA implementation. Limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Does psychosocial stress exacerbate avoidant responses to cancer information in those who are afraid of cancer? A population-based survey among older adults in England

Objective: Communication of cancer information is an important element of cancer control, but cancer fear may lead to information avoidance, especially when coping is low. We examined the association between cancer fear and cancer information avoidance, and tested whether this was exacerbated by psychosocial stress.

Design: Cross-sectional survey of 1258 population-based adults (58–70 years) in England.

Main outcome measures: Cancer fear (intensity and frequency), perceived psychosocial stress and cancer information avoidance. Control variables were age, gender, ethnicity, marital status and education.

Results: A quarter (24%) of respondents avoided cancer information. Ordinal logistic regression analyses showed main effects of psychosocial stress (OR = 1.17, 95% CI 1.07–1.29) and cancer fear: cancer information avoidance was lowest in those with no cancer fear (13%), followed by those with moderate (24%; OR = 2.15, 95% CI: 1.49–3.12), and high cancer fear (35%; OR = 3.90, 95% CI: 2.65–5.73). In the adjusted model, the interaction between cancer fear and stress was significant (OR = 1.14, 95% CI 1.004–1.29, p < .05): 40% of those with high fear/high stress avoided cancer information compared with 29% with high fear/low stress.

Conclusion: Cancer fear and psychosocial stress interact to produce disengagement with cancer-related information, highlighting the importance of affective processes to cancer control efforts.     

“One Doesn’t Slap a Girl but…” Social Representations and Conditional Logics in Legitimization of Intimate Partner Violence

The present research, which fits into the conceptual framework of social representations, aims to analyze the impact of gender and legitimizing ideologies on the evaluation of intimate partner violence (IPV). Using an inductive mixed methods approach, two studies were conducted in a French context. In Study 1, 24 participants were asked to express their views about a vignette describing an IPV case during semi-structured interviews. In Study 2, 123 participants completed a questionnaire which was based on the results of Study 1. They were asked to evaluate the severity and justification for this same IPV case in relation to several situations identified in interviews. They also completed two scales measuring adherence to ideologies legitimizing male dominance: the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory and the Domestic Violence Myth Acceptance Scale. Results show expressed ambivalence by participants between condemnation of IPV and the use of conditional logics in order to minimize or justify it. The expression of this reasoning was determined by social regulations such as the situations in which the violence occurred and adherence to legitimizing ideologies. Our results are relevant for campaigns raising awareness and educational programs that take into account social representations underlying IPV legitimization.     

Does the Survey Mode Affect the Association Between Subjective Well-being and its Determinants? An Experimental Comparison Between Face-to-Face and Web Mode

Journal of Happiness Studies - Subjective well-being research increasingly uses web surveys to understand how subjective well-being indicators are related to other concepts of interest. Although we...     

Cornerstones: You’d better believe them

Crispin Wright??s ??Unified Strategy?? for addressing some familiar sceptical paradoxes exploits a subtle distinction between two different ways in which we can be related to a proposition: (full-blown) belief and (mere) acceptance. The importance of the distinction for his strategy stems from his conviction that we cannot acquire any kind of evidence, either empirical or a priori, for the ??cornerstones?? of our cognitive projects, i.e., for those basic presuppositions of our inquiries that we must be warranted to endorse if we are to claim warrant for any of the beliefs formed as a result of such inquiries: regarding the idea of a non-evidential warrant to believe a proposition as a kind of ??conceptual solecism??, he doesn??t set himself the task of showing that we are evidentially warranted to believe such presuppositions, but only that of showing that we are non-evidentially warranted to accept them. In the present paper, I argue that such choice involves a fatal departure from a basic principle governing doxastic commitment??a principle that requires that we regard cornerstones propositions as propositions we are rationally committed to believe, not just entitled to accept. I press the point by presenting the Acceptance Argument, a sceptical paradox whose consideration leads to the conclusion that the Unified Strategy is caught between the Scylla of incoherently invoking a rather dubious form of epistemic alchemy and the Charybdis of placing an unexpected and apparently ad hoc restriction on the doxastic commitments we undertake by believing the things we believe. My final suggestion is that the Unified Strategy might be spared this dilemma only by undergoing a rather radical revision??a revision that would require setting aside the distinction between belief and acceptance to re-conceptualise its goal unabashedly in terms of (non-evidentially) warranted belief.     

Self-efficacy and social support as predictors of smoking after a quit attempt

Abstract

The current study examined self-efficacy and social support as predictors of maintenance after an attempt to stop smoking. As in previous studies, self-efficacy at the end of treatment was a significant predictor of reported smoking during the follow-up period. At 3 months after treatment the prediction from self-efficacy was weaker than a prediction from the level of post-treatment smoking. However at 10 months self-efficacy was the strongest predictive variable assessed in the study. In contrast, social support for the quit attempt was not a significant predictor of maintenance at any stage. The results provided qualified support for the contention that self-efficacy can often be a more powerful predictor than previous performance attainments, especially under conditions of greater situational change.     

A Case of Partial Biotinidase Deficiency Associated With Autism

We report the case of a child with partial biotinidase deficiency and autistic developmental disorder. We arrived at the diagnosis of biotinidase deficiency when the child was almost 4 years of age. Consequently, he began cofactor biotin treatment (10 mg daily) which did not resolve his autistic behavior. His younger brother was affected by partial biotinidase deficiency diagnosed at birth through our neonatal screening program. He was precociously treated with cofactor biotin therapy (10 mg daily) and did not show any behavioral abnormality or developmental delay. Since the brain is quite vulnerable to biotin deficiency, delayed biotin therapy could result in neurological damage. Our patient is the first case of partial biotinidase deficiency associated with autism. We hypothesize that the low biotinidase activity could have caused biotin deficiency in his brain and cerebrospinal fluids and consequently serious neurological problems, such as stereotyped and autistic behaviors, which were irreversible in spite of biotin supplementation.     

The cradle of causal reasoning: newborns’ preference for physical causality

Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause–effect relationship between two motion events, appears to be a powerful mechanism in our daily experience. In spite of a growing interest in the earliest causal representations, the role of experience in the origin of this sensitivity is still a matter of dispute. Here, we asked the question about the innate origin of causal perception, never tested before at birth. Three experiments were carried out to investigate sensitivity at birth to some visual spatiotemporal cues present in a launching event. Newborn babies, only a few hours old, showed that they significantly preferred a physical causality event (i.e. Michotte's Launching effect) when matched to a delay event (i.e. a delayed launching; Experiment 1) or to a non‐causal event completely identical to the causal one except for the order of the displacements of the two objects involved which was swapped temporally (Experiment 3). This preference for the launching event, moreover, also depended on the continuity of the trajectory between the objects involved in the event (Experiment 2). These results support the hypothesis that the human system possesses an early available, possibly innate basic mechanism to compute causality, such a mechanism being sensitive to the additive effect of certain well‐defined spatiotemporal cues present in the causal event independently of any prior visual experience.     

Genetic Counseling/Consultation in South-East Asia: A Report from the Workshop at the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Human Genetics

This paper reports on the workshop ‘Genetic Counseling/Consultations in South-East Asia’ at the 10^th Asia Pacific Conference on Human Genetics in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 2012. The workshop brought together professionals and language/communication scholars from South-East Asia, and the UK. The workshop aimed at addressing culture- and context-specific genetic counseling/consultation practices in South-East Asia. As a way of contextualizing genetic counseling/consultation in South-East Asia, we first offer an overview of communication-oriented research generally, drawing attention to consultation and counseling as part of a communicative continuum with distinctive interactional features. We then provide examples of genetic counseling/consultation research in Hong Kong. As other countries in South-East Asia have not yet embarked on communication-oriented empirical research, we report on the current practices of genetic counseling/consultation in these countries in order to identify similarities and differences as well as key obstacles that could be addressed through future research. Three issues emerged as ‘problematic’: language, religion and culture. We suggest that communication-oriented research can provide a starting point for evidence-based reflections on how to incorporate a counseling mentality in genetic consultation. To conclude, we discuss the need for creating a platform for targeted training of genetic counselors based on communication-oriented research findings.