Text manipulations influence children's understanding of class inclusion hierarchies.

Second, fourth, and sixth grade children were presented with a passage which could be represented as a four-level class inclusion hierarchy. Top-down or bottom-up presentation of material and repetition or no repetition of category labels were manipulated in a 2 x 2 design. Children were requested to construct an external representation for the passage and to respond to questions requiring them to reason about its contents. Quality of representation and performance on the question task were related to grade level and to the text manipulations. Implications of the results, particularly as related to education, are discussed.     

Use of the Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) with Adolescents

This study examined the utility of the Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) by comparing results obtained with a sample of 217 normal adolescents (M = 16.2 years) to the findings obtained in Cull and Gill's (1988 ) standardization effort. The present sample scored significantly higher than Cull and Gill's normative sample in SPS item, subscale, and total scores. In addition, the SPS generally failed to discriminate between the present, adolescent sample and Cull and Gill's inpatient psychiatric sample. Moreover, item-subscale correlations obtained for the present sample often differed from those reported by Cull and Gill, and factor analysis of SPS item scores failed to replicate Cull and Gill's four-factor solution. Findings suggest the need for caution when using the SPS to assess adolescent suicide potential and underscore the need for additional research regarding the instrument's efficacy in distinguishing between normal and suicidal adolescents.