Psychometric Study of the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale: Prediction of Contact with the Law and Poor School Attendance

The predictive validity of the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS) is investigated using the data set generated by the national evaluation of the demonstration service grants funded by the Center for Mental Health Services. Logistic regressions were performed separately for contact with the law and poor school attendance, which were both assessed at 6 months postintake. Other variables included in the model besides the CAFAS total score at intake were age, gender, and family risk factors. The results show that the CAFAS total score at intake was a positive predictor of the likelihood of contact with the law and poor school attendance, even after controlling for age, gender, and risk factors. Furthermore, the CAFAS total score was predictive even after excluding scores on CAFAS subscales, which may have been influenced by absenteeism or delinquency. These findings are consistent with recent research indicating that the CAFAS predicts recidivism in juvenile delinquents.This research was conducted while the author was a Research Associate at the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI     

The Social Costs of Treatment Programs

The medicalization of deviance refers to the identification as diseases or illnesses of patterns of behavior that were previously considered in moral terms. Herbert Spencer viewed society as analogous to a living organism. A problem or disease in one part of the organism affects the entire organism. Early sociologists built on this idea and arrived at the conclusion that deviant behavior could be thought of as social disease and social pathology. The early social pathologists were concerned with crime, mental illness, drug abuse, and suicide. There is a tendency to treat such ailments in a hospital or clinical setting. The medicalization of deviance removes responsibility from the individual as well as from the society which continues to produce the problem. Treatment programs give the false impression that something worthwhile is being done about society's behavioral problems and turn the individuals treated back into the same social milieu in which the problem was incubated in the first place. The medicalization of deviance creates a vested-interest industry dependent upon the treatment of individuals. It has constructed a system of individualized microlevel treatment programs that can be beneficial on a limited basis for a few individuals and their families, but it tends to treat only the symptoms but not change the society of which they are but emanations.     

The Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Project: lifetime history of axis I psychopathology in individuals at high and low cognitive risk for depression

The authors tested the cognitive vulnerability hypotheses of depression with a retrospective behavioral high-risk design. Individuals without current Axis I diagnoses who exhibited either negative or positive cognitive styles were compared on lifetime prevalence of depressive and other disorders and the clinical parameters of depressive episodes. Consistent with predictions, cognitively high-risk participants had higher lifetime prevalence than low-risk participants of major and hopelessness depression and marginally higher prevalence of minor depression. These group differences were specific to depressive disorders. The high-risk group also had more severe depressions than the low-risk group, but not longer duration or earlier onset depressions. The risk group differences in prevalence of depressive disorders were not mediated by current depressive symptoms.     

Perceiving circular heading in noncanonical flow fields

Five experiments examined circular heading perception with optical flows that departed from the canonical form. Noncanonicity was achieved through nonrigidity of the environment (Experiments 1 and 2), oscillations of the point of observation (Experiment 3), and the bending of light (Experiments 4 and 5). In Experiments 1 and 2, perception was impaired more by nonrigidity of the ground plane than by nonrigidity of the medium. In Experiment 3, perception was unimpaired by noncanonical flows induced by the bounce and sway of observer locomotion. In Experiments 4 and 5, perception was not impaired when light paths were distorted by a spherical projection, but perception was impaired when they were distorted by a sine function. Results are discussed in relation to the hypothesis that the information for perceiving heading is the ordinal pattern of optical flow.     

Low-frequency acoustic modulations generated by the high-frequency portion of the cochlea, noninvasively recorded from the scalp of mice (Mus musculus)

Vocalizations often contain low-frequency modulations of the envelope of a high-frequency sound. The high-frequency portion of the cochlear nerve of mice (Mus musculus) generates a robust phase-locked response to these low-frequency modulations, and it can be easily recorded from the surface of the scalp. The cochlea is most sensitive to envelope modulation frequencies of approximately 500 to 2000 Hz. These responses have detection thresholds that are approximately 10 dB more sensitive than auditory brainstem responses, and they are very sharply tuned. These measurements may provide a nontraumatic means of repeatedly assessing cochlear functions involved in sound localization and perception of vocalizations.     

Modality effects and the development of the word length effect in children

Two experiments investigated the development of the word length effect in children aged 4 to 10 years, comparing auditory and visual stimuli. The question addressed was whether word length effects emerged earlier with auditory presentation or visual presentation, or whether they emerged at the same age regardless of presentation modality. Results provided evidence that word length effects emerge earlier with visual than auditory presentation. The implication of our results is that with visual presentation, 4-year-olds engage in some form of verbalization strategy that involves obtaining phonological representations of picture names and mapping them on to articulatory output plans. This strategy is clearly verbal in nature, but is not necessarily characterised as cumulative verbal rehearsal.     

Factorial structure and MMPI correlates of a fear survey schedule in a clinical population

The Wolpe-Lazarus Fear Survey Schedule was administered in a neurotic population and factor analyzed. The largest factor (Tissue Damage/Medical) was uncorrelated with either the MAS or MMPI scales. However, total Fear Survey scores and Factor II (Interpersonal) showed a similar pattern of significant positive associations with both measures. The clinical relevance of global vs. part fear survey scores is discussed.     

The clergyman's use of mental health resources

Pastoral Psychology -