An Experimental Analysis of Phoneme Blending and Segmenting Skills

In this 2-experiment study, experimental analyses of phoneme blending and segmenting skills were conducted with four-first grade students. Intraindividual analyses were conducted to identify the effects of classroom-based instruction on blending phonemes in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, the effects of an individualized intervention for the student who failed to improve in the first experiment were examined. Stimulus materials were drawn directly from the classroom curriculum, making it possible to monitor students’ response to classroom instruction and intervention over time. Generalization of responding to unique letter combinations was measured. A multiple-probe across tasks designs was used in both studies. Results indicated that all students improved their phoneme blending skills and are discussed in terms of the need for evaluation methods that are sensitive enough to identify individual differences in responding between students and to detect within-student performance increases in critical early literacy skills.     

Feelings Matter: Depression Severity and Emotion Regulation in HIV/STI Risk-Related Sexual Behaviors

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention models may not address psychological complexities among adolescents with mental illnesses. This study examined contextual factors related to HIV/STI risk among heterosexually active Black adolescents with mental illnesses to inform the development of targeted HIV/STI prevention strategies. Black adolescent males and females (aged 14–17) were recruited from outpatient mental health programs in Philadelphia, PA to complete a computer-assisted personalized interview on sociodemographics, sexual behaviors, and emotion regulation (N?=?53). Two sample t-tests, Wilcoxon Rank Sum tests and regression modeling were used to examine differences in the study measures by gender and relationship status. Reports of sexual partner concurrency were high—both while already in a sexual relationship (67.3%) and multiple sexual partners in the same day (42.3%). Boys reported significantly more risk behaviors than girls. Sadness dysregulation predicted currently being in a relationship, older age at first oral sex, fewer vaginal sexual partners and fewer unprotected oral sexual encounters. Coping difficulties predicted a greater number of vaginal and oral sexual partners, and a lower age at first vaginal sex. Increasing depression severity was related to older age at first vaginal sex, fewer vaginal sexual partners and fewer unprotected oral sexual encounters in the past 3 months. This formative work suggests that coping mechanisms should be addressed in HIV/STI prevention research through the inclusion of activities targeted toward emotion regulation and decreasing sexual risk behaviors. Psycho-education and skills building may mitigate the psychopathology that contributes to HIV/STI risk in the target demographic.     

Executive Functioning Among College Students With and Without History of Childhood Maltreatment

This study utilized performance-based and self-report measures to examine differences in executive functions in college students with and without histories of childhood maltreatment. On the performance-based measures of executive function, all scores fell within the normal range for age. However, participants in the childhood maltreatment group reported more problems with metacognition than those without history of maltreatment. Severity of childhood maltreatment was associated with poorer cognitive inhibition/switching and phonetic fluency. Although significant group differences were found on a laboratory-based task of executive function, performance across the other tasks was generally similar. However, those with a history of maltreatment reported more problems with metacognition, suggesting a potential avenue for brief interventions focused on improving metacognitive skills important for success in the college environment. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

An integral approach to health science and healthcare

Defining disease and delineating its boundaries is a contested area in contemporary philosophy of medicine. The leading naturalistic theory faces a new round of difficulties related to defining a normal environment alongside normal organismic functioning and to delineating a discrete boundary between risk factors and disease. Normative theories face ongoing and seemingly intractable difficulties related to value pluralism and the problematic relation between theory and practice. In this article, I argue for an integral—as opposed to a hybrid—philosophy of health based on Bernard Lonergan’s notion of generalized empirical method that provides a way to settle these difficulties dynamically and comprehensively, both in theory, by orienting functional and statistical investigation toward an explanatory ecological viewpoint, and in practice, by framing critiques in relation to the normativity intrinsic to all human inquiry.     

The generalized sense of power is a psychological resource: Evidence from a disaster response field training exercise

We examined whether the generalized sense of power—the belief that one is able to influence others in one's various social relationships—serves as a psychological resource that enables leadership in high-stakes, unfamiliar group challenges, such as emergencies or crises. We studied current and prospective humanitarian aid professionals (N = 180) during a major field training exercise: a three-day, immersive simulated humanitarian crisis. Individuals who entered the simulated crisis with a greater sense of power in their social relationships experienced lower stress (anxiety), behaved more assertively, and left the simulation with a relatively heightened desire to lead, despite not being deemed better leaders by their teammates. Lacking an initial sense of power was associated with experiences (e.g., feeling timid) that undermined the desire to lead. These results suggest that the psychological sense of power is a key leadership resource, without which one may be at risk of self-selecting out of leadership.     

Fictionalism and the attitudes

This paper distinguishes revolutionary fictionalism from other forms of fictionalism and also from other philosophical views. The paper takes fictionalism about mathematical objects and fictionalism about scientific unobservables as illustrations. The paper evaluates arguments that purport to show that this form of fictionalism is incoherent on the grounds that there is no tenable distinction between believing a sentence and taking the fictionalist's distinctive attitude to that sentence. The argument that fictionalism about mathematics is ‘comically immodest’ is also evaluated. In place of those arguments, an argument against fictionalism about abstract objects of any kind is presented in the last section. This argument takes the form of a trilemma against the fictionalist.

The Declaration of Interdependence! Feminism,Grounding and Enactivism

Human Studies - This paper explores the issue whether feminism needs a metaphysical grounding, and if so, what form that might take to effectively take account of and support the socio-political...     

Marx and Justice

Marx's thought about justice is essentialist and dialectical. It has been interpreted in terms of immoralism. It is rather a synthesis of the traditional natural law, based on the Aristotelian concept of nature as the potential for perfection or ideal fulfilment, radically different from the Hobbesian reductionist concept of nature as atomistic and mechanical; of the tradition of dialectics in its German idealist form; and of Feuerbach's humanism. Marx's explicitly realist idea of science reveals 'veiled wage-slavery'. Concentration on the market exchange, to the exclusion of the subsequent exploitative use of labour power, deceives exclusively analytic observers into the belief that there is some justice in capitalism. Marx characterized the proletariat as the 'universal class', capable of bringing about the fulfilment of the human essence in a family-style mode of production , because it is the victim of total injustice . However, he criticized workers for not rising above such bourgeois selfishness as demanding 'a fair wage', which is not even a coherent concept. Capitalism is not only a moral injustice, but an ontological injustice, a violation of the worker's humanity. It is coercion into alienation, fetishism and idolatry.     

A comparison of two flash-card methods for improving sight-word reading

Flash cards have been shown to be useful for teaching sight-word reading. To date, the most effective flash-card instruction method is incremental rehearsal (IR). This method involves the instructor interspersing unknown stimulus items into the presentation of known stimulus items. In this study, we compared IR to a modified IR procedure-strategic incremental rehearsal (SIR)-to determine whether the effects of IR might be improved by incorporating variables likely to increase word acquisition. These included increased opportunities to respond to unknown stimuli, using learner responding as a basis for changing instructional items, and systematic prompting methods. An A-B-A-B design was used to compare the effects of IR and SIR for increasing sight-word reading with 4 elementary school students. Results indicated that students read more words correctly with SIR than with IR. In addition, similar patterns of responding were seen at a 2-week follow-up.     

Identification of cognitive profiles among women considering BRCA1/2 testing through the utilisation of cluster analytic techniques

Based on the cognitive-social health information processing model, we identified cognitive profiles of women at risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Prior to genetic counselling, participants (N = 171) completed a study questionnaire concerning their cognitive and affective responses to being at genetic risk. Using cluster analysis, four cognitive profiles were generated: (a) high perceived risk/low coping; (b) low value of screening/high expectancy of cancer; (c) moderate perceived risk/moderate efficacy of prevention/low informativeness of test result; and (d) high efficacy of prevention/high coping. The majority of women in Clusters One, Two and Three had no personal history of cancer, whereas Cluster Four consisted almost entirely of women affected with cancer. Women in Cluster One had the highest number of affected relatives and experienced higher levels of distress than women in the other three clusters. These results highlight the need to consider the psychological profile of women undergoing genetic testing when designing counselling interventions and messages.