Negotiating transitions: a supervision model for home-based family therapists

Home-based family-centered treatment programs provide mental health and case management services to families in their own home. Treatment objectives include the prevention of residential or psychiatric placement, strengthening the family unit, and promoting family self-sufficiency. Little has been written, however, regarding the supervision of home-based, family-centered therapists. The purpose of this article is to describe a supervision model to teach novice-level family therapists to think systemically and to do family therapy with multiproblem at-risk families.     

Measuring Child Mental Health Status for Services Research

Epidemiological studies of the prevalence of mental health disorders typically contain multiple measures of mental health, using different instruments and different informants (child, parent, and interviewer). We used the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescents Mental Disorder (MECA) study of U.S. youth to assess the effects of employing a range of these measures in mental health services research. We examined the effect of including various measures of mental health status in regressions of income on mental health service use. The estimated effect of income on service use varied widely, depending on the measure of mental health status used. Some measures of mental health status have little explanatory power in service use regressions. Measures of mental health status based on parental assessment of impairment or need, such as the Columbia Impairment Scale, are less costly to collect and also have good explanatory power, but are more strongly correlated with income. The Non-Clinician Child Global Assessment Scale (NC-CGAS) performs best in terms of explanatory power and correlation with income. Higher income parents appeared to judge behaviors differently from lower income parents, so analyses based on measures derived from parental report may lead to an understatement of the effect of income on service use.     

Nonparticipation in Huntington's Disease Predictive Testing: Reasons for Caution in Interpreting Findings

When given the opportunity to clarify their genetic status, most individuals at risk for Huntington's disease (HD) currently show a preference not to know. Our understanding of the characteristics of those who do not request HD predictive testing, and the factors influencing their decision, lags behind our knowledge of test applicants. In the light of our experience with interviewing a random sample of nonparticipants in an ongoing study, we critically analyze research concerning the differences between participants and nonparticipants in HD predictive testing programs and the interpretive characterization of these two groups. The findings concerning nonparticipants are limited to a small sample of the at-risk population, with the problems of biased samples and low response rates. We discuss this and other aspects of research in this area, notably the context and timing of data collection and the predominantly questionnaire-based methodology, that lead us to interpret the conclusions drawn about these two groups with caution.     

Peripheral stimuli and stereoacuity under water

A variety of attempts were made to improve stereoacuity under water by providing limited additional peripheral stimulation. It was concluded that acuity is most improved when the peripheral stimuli are at the same distance from the o as the target. As the peripheral stimuli are moved closer to the 0 than the target, their beneficial effects are decreased, and beyond a certain point, their presence degrades acuity. This effect seems to be enhanced by increasing turbidity of the water, which decreases the contrast of the distant target relative to that of the nearby peripheral stimuli. These and previous findinp implicate several distinct processes in the degradation of stereoacuity in the water.     

TRAINING FUNCTIONAL EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE: THE ACQUISITION AND GENERALIZATION OF FIVE-ELEMENT SYNTACTIC RESPONSES1

A single-subject multiple-baseline design using within- and across-subject replication was employed to study the acquisition of expanded “agent-action-object” sentences and the spontaneous generation of this form in the natural environment. Three young language-delayed subjects were trained to describe various agent-action-object relationships with a five-element syntactical form. The language training strategy was a synthesis of the developmental-psycholinguistic and behavioral models. Dynamic interactions between familiar persons and objects were the stimulus events that the children mapped. A five-element syntactical form, previously absent from the children's language repertoires, was trained during individual sessions. Concurrent with baseline, training, and followup, each subject's language was monitored in another setting, the classroom during free play. After onset of training, the core elements of the complex syntactic form were spontaneously emitted by the child in its natural environment. The free-play data reflect individual differences in the emergence and frequency of each child's spontaneous use of the agent-action-object form. The acquisition and maintenance of the specific lexicon and syntax trained were tested by posttraining probes and responses to videotape presentations. These probes revealed generalization and maintenance of both the lexical and syntactical forms acquired in treatment. The main purpose of any language-training procedure should be to provide language that is functional for the child in the natural environment. This study, which documented the spontaneous usage of the core agent-action-object syntactical form in the natural environment, effectively trained a functional syntactical rule.     

Wavelength effects on simple reaction time

Simple reaction time was measured to spectral lights matched photometrically in luminance. When these lights were presented on a dimmer achromatic background, reaction time did not vary as a function of wavelength. Moreover, reaction times to white and chromatic lights were the same. When the luminance of the background was the same as that of the chromatic lights, reaction time increased and showed a strong effect of wavelength. Reaction time in this condition appeared to follow a saturation function. The results are described in terms of the operation of achromatic and chromatic processing channels.