USE OF A SELF-RECORDING AND SUPERVISION PROGRAM TO CHANGE INSTITUTIONAL STAFF BEHAVIOR

The use of a self-recording and supervision program to increase interactions between direct care staff and profoundly retarded persons in a state residential facility was investigated. Following baseline, staff were provided with instructions regarding what to self-record, criteria for how many interactions to record, and a prepared card on which to make the recordings. Throughout the study, the staff supervisor monitored intermittently staff-client interactions. Observations indicated that when the staff recorded their interactions with clients in a loosely structured dayroom setting, the rate of interactions increased noticeably for each staff person. Behavioral ecology measures indicated that other staff responsibilities, such as maintaining the cleanliness of residents and the physical area, were not affected detrimentally when social interactions increased and actually showed small improvements. Additionally, small decreases in resident self-stimulatory and disruptive/aggressive behaviors occurred when the rate of social interactions from staff persons increased. Follow-up measures indicated that the rate of staff self-recording was variable, but when staff did self-record, the increased rate of staff-client interactions maintained.     

Structural and strategic approaches to psychosomatic families.

Patterns of relatedness characteristic of psychosomatic families are discussed. A step-wise intervention procedure based on structural and strategic approaches is presented. The goals of the procedure are to establish symptomatic relief and modify concurrently the patterns of relatedness. The procedure is applied to a sample of families in which a child presents with psychogenic abdominal pain. This paper is intended as a detailed and practical guide to working with such families; a degree of generalization is possible, as well.     

Increasing Career Center Accessibility for the Blind

To improve career planning services for visually impaired persons, the career center at Florida State University developed a self-directed program. This article describes strategies for making career information materials and resources more accessible to the blind.     

Probabilities of homomorphic mappings from multiple graphs

Each partition of a population defines a homomorphic mapping of sociometric graphs onto a corresponding set of image graphs. For sets of images selected by substantive importance, the expected number of mappings is calculated when the array of sociometric graphs is drawn at random with equal probabilities. Upper and lower bounds are computed for the probability of finding at least one mapping from an array to the given images, and for the expected number of mappings given that there is at least one. Results of small Monte Carlo trials are reported.     

Independent effects of achievement motivation and overt attribution on achievement behavior

The cognitive attribution theory of achievement motivation was examined in a series of three studies. The persistence of performance under failure feedback was investigated, with improvement over trials on a digit-symbol substitution task constituting the measure of persistence. Although evidence was obtained relating overt causal attributions of failure to persistence, partial correlation statistics indicated that this relationship was independent of achievement motivation. Partial correlation statistics also revealed that the relationship between achievement motivation and persistence was independent of attributional variables. In addition, greater persistence was exhibited by high- than by low-achievement subjects in the absence of attribution differences between these groups. Additional evidence was collected suggesting that the act of overt attribution was an ego-involving operation that led to these achievement differences in improvement. In general, achievement classification and overt causal attributions had separate effects on persistence, precluding the interpretation of achievement-related behavior in terms of attribution theory. Overt causal attributions were found to be, in part, a function of the ego-involving character of the task instructions, as was improvement.Portions of this research were conducted while L. A. White was supported by a Purdue University David Ross Research Fellowship; Kay Deaux, principal investigator.     

Variations of Bender-Gestalt constriction and depression in adult psychiatric patients.

The present study explored variations of Bender-Gestalt constriction and their relation to depression. 20 Ss showing constriction of drawings on the upper half-page and 20 Ss showing constriction of drawings on the left half-page were compared with regard to MMPI Depression scores. No significant difference was found between these groups. However, when the constricted groups were combined and then compared with 40 Ss who did not show constriction of Bender drawings, the constricted group had significantly higher (p less than .05) MMPI Depression scores. Thus, variations in Bender constriction are not differently related to depression, but presence of constriction is an indicator. However, its rate of occurrence is so infrequent, appearing in only 5% of the records examined, that its clinical usefulness in the detection of depression is quite limited.     

Improving Delivery Behaviors During Exposure for Pediatric OCD: A Multiple Baseline Training Trial With Community Therapists

This study tested whether a new training tool, the Exposure Guide (EG), improved in-session therapist behaviors (i.e., indicators of quality) that have been associated with youth outcomes in prior clinical trials of exposure therapy. Six therapists at a community mental health agency (CMHA) provided exposure therapy for 8 youth with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design with random assignment to baseline lengths of 6 to 16 weeks, therapists received gold-standard exposure therapy training with weekly consultation (baseline phase) followed by addition of EG training and feedback (intervention phase). The primary outcome was therapist behavior during in-session exposures, observed weekly using a validated coding system. Therapist behavior was evaluated in relation to a priori benchmarks derived from clinical trials. Additional outcomes included training feasibility/acceptability, therapist response to case vignettes and beliefs about exposure, and independent evaluator-rated clinical outcomes. Three therapists reached behavior benchmarks only during the EG (intervention) phase. Two therapists met benchmarks during the baseline phase; one of these subsequently moved away from benchmarks but met them again after starting the EG phase. Across all therapists, the percentage of weeks meeting benchmarks was significantly higher during the EG phase (86.4%) vs. the baseline phase (53.2%). Youth participants experienced significant improvement in OCD symptoms and global illness severity from pre- to posttreatment. Results provide initial evidence that adding the EG to gold-standard training can change in-session therapist behaviors in a CMHA setting.