Brief report: Building choice opportunities within a robot-assisted occupational program: A case study

Choice opportunities were built within an existing robot-assisted occupational program. The new version of the program (with choice opportunities) was then employed with a low-functioning, multiply handicapped man who had previously been trained in the old version of the same program (the one with no choice opportunities). The results have shown that the man responded “purposefully” to choice situations and maintained highly accurate activity engagement. The importance of providing choice opportunities to people with severe and multiple handicaps and the cost and benefits of the program used in this study are discussed.     

Indoor travel and simple tasks as physical exercise for people with profound multiple disabilities

2 to 4 30-min. periods of indoor travel and simple tasks were arranged daily as physical exercise for two women with profound mental retardation, deafness, and profound visual impairment. The questions were whether (a) the women could manage this fairly extensive exercise regimen (over about 9 and 4.5 mo.) with support technology and only minimal staff supervision and (b) the exercise could affect aspects of the women's physical condition. Data indicated that both women could successfully manage the exercise regimen with support technology, and the exercise seemed to have some beneficial effects on physical aspects such as bone metabolism and step width.     

On the unidentifiability of a certain class of skill multi map based probabilistic knowledge structures

In the process of fitting a probabilistic knowledge structure to data, standard goodness-of-fit statistics only partially describe the correctness of the fitted model. Irrespectively of how good the fit is, a too-high value of the error rates (careless error and lucky guess probabilities) might be a symptom of a misspecification of the model. In this situation, it could be critical to interpret those values as error rates. A more reasonable solution would be to hypothesize that some modifications have to be introduced in the model. In this paper, we show that in specific cases, these modifications yield basic local independence model parameterizations that are not identifiable. The applicative consequences of the theoretical results are displayed by means of an example carried out on a set of clinical data collected through the Maudsley Obsessional-Compulsive Questionnaire.     

Integration of Cognitive and Emotional Processing Predicts Poor and Good Outcomes of Psychotherapy

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy - With the aim of investigating analogies and differences between psychotherapeutic processes, ten good-outcome and ten poor-outcome cases were selected from a...     

Philosophy and Science Dialogue: Consciousness

This is a dialogue between a philosopher and a scientist about the scientific explanation of consciousness. What is consciousness? Does it admit of scientific explanation? If so, what must a scientific theory of consciousness be like in order to provide us with a satisfying explanation of its explanandum? And what types of entities might such a theory acknowledge as being conscious? Philosopher Owen Flanagan and scientist Giulio Tononi weigh in on these issues during an exchange about the nature and scientific explanation of consciousness.     

A Preliminary Investigation of the Assessment and Treatment of Tantrums With Two Post-Institutionalized Romanian Adoptees

A functional analysis of tantrums was carried out with 2 children who were adopted from state-run Romanian orphanages. Tantrums included such behaviours as screaming, property destruction, self-injury and aggression. The functional analysis was conducted in an outpatient treatment unit and consisted of exposing the child and mother to a number of specific social contexts that were designed to identify social consequences maintaining tantrums. These social contexts were alternated rapidly in a multi-element design fashion during the outpatient assessment to demonstrate experimental control. Results indicated that tantrums were maintained by attention from the mother when the mother's attention was diverted away from the child (i.e. when the mother was interacting with another person). A treatment plan, which consisted of the mother delivering frequent but brief attention statements to the child during diverted attention contexts eliminated tantrums during the assessment. Follow-up evaluations for up to 6 months indicated that parents used the treatment plan and that tantrums were no longer a difficulty with these children.     

Vibratory Versus Auditory Feedback for Reducing Excessive Vocal Loudness: A Case Study

This study compared vibratory and auditory feedback for reducing excessive vocal loudness in a woman with moderate intellectual disability. The 2 forms of feedback were delivered through small portable devices equipped with a vibratory box at the woman's wrist and an earpiece, respectively. The use of feedback was combined with reinforcement. Data showed that both forms of feedback (plus reinforcement) were successful. Yet, auditory feedback appeared somewhat more effective. The differences in effectiveness are discussed in relation to differences in practicality.     

Promoting Mild Physical Exercise in a Person with Profound Multiple Disabilities

Prompt/orientation cues delivered through an automatic system were combined with one or two reinforcement events in order to promote mild physical exercise independent of staff in a man with profound multiple disabilities. The exercise sessions were gradually extended to 60 minutes. Data indicated that the man achieved high levels of exercise engagement. There were minimal differences in terms of engagement between sessions with one reinforcement event and those with two reinforcement events. Yet, in the latter sessions, the man had higher levels of positive mood. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Helping a child with multiple disabilities endure a demanding physical posture through self-managed access to preferred stimuli

This study assessed whether a child with multiple disabilities would endure a difficult (standing) position more easily if allowed to access preferred stimuli while in that position. The study included an ABAB sequence with 2- and 3-mo. postintervention checks. Data showed that self-managed access to preferred stimuli during the B phases of the study and the postintervention checks reduced the child's indices of unhappiness, frowning and crying, while increasing his object contact and smiles as indices of happiness.