Assessing and treating vocal stereotypy in children with autism

Previous research implies that stereotypic behavior tends to be maintained by the sensory consequences produced by engaging in the response. Few investigations, however, have focused on vocal stereotypy. The current study examined the noncommunicative vocalizations of 4 children with an autism spectrum disorder. First, functional analyses were conducted in an attempt to identify the function of each child's behavior. For each of the participants, it was found that vocal stereotypy was likely not maintained by the social consequences. Following assessment, response interruption and redirection (RIRD) was implemented in an ABAB design to determine whether vocal stereotypy could be successfully redirected. RIRD involved a teacher issuing a series of vocal demands the child readily complied with during regular academic programming. Vocal demands were presented contingent on the occurrence of vocal stereotypy and were continuously presented until the child complied with three consecutively issued demands without emitting vocal stereotypy. For each child, RIRD produced levels of vocal stereotypy substantially lower than those observed in baseline. For 3 of the children, an increase in appropriate communication was also observed. The children's teachers were trained to implement RIRD. Brief follow-up probes and anecdotal information implied that the treatment had a positive impact in the natural environment.     

Evaluating the factor structure of the Psychological Performance Inventory

This study assesses the construct validity of a measure of mental toughness, Loehr's Psychological Performance Inventory. Performers (N = 408, 303 men, 105 women, M age = 24.0 yr., SD = 6.7) drawn from eight sports (artistic rollerskating, basketball, canoeing, golf, rugby league, rugby union, soccer, swimming), and competing at either international, national, county and provincial, or club and regional standards. They completed the 42-item Psychological Performance Inventory during training camps. Principal components analysis provided minimal support for the factor structure. Instead, the exploratory analysis yielded a 4-factor 14-item model (PPI-A). A single factor underlying mental toughness (G(MT)) was identified with higher-order exploratory factor analysis using the Schmid-Leiman procedure. Psychometric analysis of the model, using confirmatory analysis techniques, fitted the data well. Collectively satisfying absolute and incremental fit index benchmarks, the inventory possesses satisfactory psychometric properties, with adequate reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. The results lend preliminary support to the factorial validity and reliability of the model; however, further investigation of its stability is required before recommending practitioners use changes in scores as an index for evaluating effects of training in psychological skills.     

Assessment and Decision-Making in Early Childhood Education and Intervention

Assessment within the fields of early childhood education and early childhood intervention is guided by the deductive-psychometric model, which is a framework for legitimizing constructs that arise from theories. An alternative approach, termed the inductive-experimental model, places significantly more restrictions on what constitutes a legitimate construct. In this paper, the utility of these two assessment models, one more generative and one more restrictive, are evaluated within the context of a Head Start setting. Given the pragmatic goal of informing instruction, we argue for the superiority of the more restrictive approach. Implications for early childhood intervention are also discussed.     

Rats depend on habit memory for discrimination learning and retention

We explored the circumstances in which rats engage either declarative memory (and the hippocampus) or habit memory (and the dorsal striatum). Rats with damage to the hippocampus or dorsal striatum were given three different two-choice discrimination tasks (odor, object, and pattern). These tasks differed in the number of trials required for learning (~10, 60, and 220 trials). Dorsal striatum lesions impaired discrimination performance to a greater extent than hippocampal lesions. Strikingly, performance on the task learned most rapidly (the odor discrimination) was severely impaired by dorsal striatum lesions and entirely spared by hippocampal lesions. These findings suggest that discrimination learning in the rat is primarily supported by the dorsal striatum (and habit memory) and that rats engage a habit-based memory system even for a task that takes only a few trials to acquire. Considered together with related studies of humans and nonhuman primates, the findings suggest that different species will approach the same task in different ways.     

Society Against Societies: The Possibility of Transcultural Criticism

This paper argues against particularism about social criticism of the form presented by Walzer. I contend that while limitation of the scope of criticism depends on the existence of our shared meanings, which are not shared by them, shared meaning itself depends on society. So, an account of society showing that societies are not discrete and mutually inaccessible refutes particularism. I argue for such an account. I deal with the objection that the focus of particularism is culture, not society, and conclude that the conditions of possibility of shared meaning have anti-particularist consequences. This paper draws on Samuel Clark, Living Without Domination: The Possibility of an Anarchist Utopia (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming 2007), chapter 2. I would like to thank Gideon Calder, and two anonymous referees for Res Publica, for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.     

Temporal order of strokes primes letter recognition

Does the perception of objects that are the result of human actions reflect the underlying temporal structure of the actions that gave rise to them? We tested whether the temporal order of letter strokes influences letter recognition. In three experiments, participants were asked to identify letters that temporally unfolded as an additive sequence of letter strokes, either consistent or inconsistent with common writing action. Participants were significantly faster to identify letters from consistent temporal sequences, indicating that the initial part of the sequence contained sufficient information to prime letter recognition. We suggest that letter perception reflects the temporal structure of letter production; in other words, Simon sees as Simon does.     

THE EFFECTS OF RESPONSE INTERRUPTION AND REDIRECTION AND SERTRALINE ON VOCAL STEREOTYPY

Although response interruption and redirection (RIRD) has been shown to be successful in reducing vocal stereotypy, recent reports have suggested that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may also reduce these behaviors. The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the effects of RIRD with and without sertraline on automatically maintained vocal stereotypy of a 4‐year‐old boy with autism. Results suggested that vocal stereotypy decreased when RIRD was implemented and that sertraline did not affect the participant's vocal stereotypy.     

Dietary patterns and intelligence in early and middle childhood

The association between intelligence and diet at 3.5 and 7 years was examined in 591 children of European descent. Approximately half of the children were born small-for-gestational age (birth weight ≤ 10th percentile). The relationship between IQ and diet (measured by food frequency) was investigated using multiple regression analyses. Eating margarine at least daily was associated with significantly lower IQ scores at 3.5 years in the total sample and at 7 years in SGA children. For all children, eating the recommended daily number of breads and cereals was associated with significantly higher IQ scores at 3.5 years, and those who ate fish at least weekly had significantly higher IQ scores at 7 years than those who did not. The consumption of fish, breads and cereals commeasurable with nutritional guidelines may be beneficial to children's cognitive development. In contrast, consuming margarine daily was associated with poorer cognitive functioning. Further research is needed to identify the nutrients that may underlie this association.     

Scene-Based Psychodramatic Family Therapy With Troubled Adolescents and Parents: A Pilot Study

Scene-Based Psychodramatic Family Therapy (SB-PFT) is an innovative treatment used with troubled adolescents and their parents to improve family relationships and reduce adolescents’ problematic behavior. It integrates the principles of family therapy, psychodrama, and multiple-family group methodology. This research is a pilot study to obtain empirical evidence on the SB-PFT therapeutic process by gauging the perception of change of troubled adolescents and their parents, and assess the perceived helpfulness of its methodology and techniques. Ten multiple-family intervention groups were drawn up, with 110 participants (63 adolescents and 47 parents), and we adopted a qualitative methodology with focus groups, using an inductive analysis of 290 active constructions of participant narratives. Concerning perception of change, the adolescents reported mainly gaining in social support, prosocial attitudes, keys to problem solving, and expression of emotions due to the treatment. The parents perceived improvement in social support, keys for educational practices, emotional well-being, and expression of emotions due to the treatment. Regarding the perceived helpfulness of methodology and techniques, both adolescents and parents highlighted the usefulness of the group methodology for gaining social support, relativizing the problem, and expressing emotions. Additionally, participants referred to role-playing and mirror techniques as the most useful techniques. In conclusion, this first study on SB-PFT presents and describes its treatment for troubled adolescents and their parents. The participants’ positive perception of their personal and relational change after treatment should serve to promote further studies with quantitative methodology in order to verify the effectiveness of SB-PFT treatment.     

Cerebellar Contributions to Proactive and Reactive Control in the Stop Signal Task: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies

Neuropsychology Review - The cerebellum facilitates and modulates cognitive functions using forward and inverse internal models to predict and control behavior, respectively. Despite neuroimaging...