The effects of multi-component,assessment-based curricular modifications on the classroom behavior of children with emotional and behavioral disorders

In this study, academic task assignments were modified in an effort to improve the conduct and task performance of three students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Functional assessments, including interviews and direct observations, were conducted to identify variables that affected the performance of each student during problematic assignments. The assessments implicated several variables for each student. These variables were then used as guides to modify the problematic tasks. The modifications resulted in reduced levels of problem behaviors and increased rates of task engagement, work productivity and accuracy for each of the students. The effects were demonstrated within ongoing academic activities and replicated through the use of reversal designs. The findings are discussed in relation to the practical process of functional assessment and the relevance of curricular and instructional arrangements to the occurrence of disruptive behavior.     

Why a feminist approach to bioethics?

Many have asked how and why feminist theory makes a distinctive contribution to bioethics. In this essay, I outline two ways in which feminist reflection can enrich bioethical studies. First, feminist theory may expose certain themes of androcentric reasoning that can affect, in sometimes crude but often subtle ways, the substantive analysis of topics in bioethics; second, it can unearth the gendered nature of certain basic philosohical concepts that form the working tools of ethical theory.     

Requiem for “schizophrenia”

In this article a brief overview of the treatment of chronic psychosis for the last two centuries is covered, with particular emphasis on many scientifically demonstrated causes of chronic organic psychosis and their medically successful treatment, including recent neurotransmitter manipulations. With respect for the important contributions of Bleuler, the term “schizophrenic” is considered as an unscientific and unprovable nosological construct, which has hampered the successful resolution of chronic psychosis and has outlived its usefulness in the lexicon of modern psychiatry.