PROGRAMMING PARTICIPATION IN FAMILY ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM: PARENTS' USE OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ACTIVITY SCHEDULES

The parents of 3 boys with autism were taught to help their children follow photographic activity schedules depicting a variety of home-living tasks. A multiple baseline across participants showed that the home-based intervention produced increases in children's engagement and social initiations and decreases in disruptive behavior, which were maintained for as long as 10 months.     

OPTIMAL TIME OF DAY AND THE MAGNITUDE OF AGE DIFFERENCES IN MEMORY

Abstract— Across two studies comparing younger and older adults, age differences in optimal performance periods were identified (Study 1), and then shown to be an important determinant of memory differences (Study 2). A norming study showed that while most younger adults were Evening or Neutral types, as determined by a standard questionnaire, the vast majority of older adults were Morning types. A second study compared the recognition performance of younger and older adults tested in the morning or in the late afternoon. Substantial age differences were found in the late afternoon, when younger but not older adults were at their optimal times. However, no age differences in memory performance were found in the morning, when older but not younger adults were at their peak period. Thus, synchrony between optimal performance periods and the time at which testing is conducted may well be a critical variable in determining group differences in intellectual performance, particularly between older and younger adults.     

Limits on the limitations of context-conditioned effects in the perception of [b] and [w]

We investigated the conditions under which the [b]-[w] contrast is processed in a contextdependent manner, specifically in relation to syllable duration. In an earlier paper, Miller and Liberman (1979) demonstrated that when listeners use transition duration to differentiate [b] from [w], they treat it in relation to the duration of the syllable: As syllables from a [ba]-[wa] series varying in transition duration become longer, so, too, does the transition duration at the [b]-[w] perceptual boundary. In a subsequent paper, Shinn, Blumstein, and Jongman (1985) questioned the generality of this finding by showing that the effect of syllable duration is eliminated for [ba]-[wa] stimuli that are less schematicthan those used by Miller and Liberman. In the present investigation, we demonstrated that when these “more natural” stimuli are presented in a multitalker babble noise instead of in quiet (as was done by Shinn et al.), the syllable-duration effect emerges. Our findings suggest that the syllable-duration effect in particular, and context effects in general, may play a more important role in speech perception than Shinn et al. suggested.     

Hypnosis and pseudomemories: the effects of prehypnotic expectancies

Contrary to predictions, the pseudomemory rate of subjects who received prehypnotic information that hypnosis increased recall was indistinguishable from the pseudomemory rates of subjects who received information that hypnosis did not increase recall and of subjects who received no specific prehypnotic information. Indeed, by the last recall trial, none of the 47 subjects exhibited pseudomemory. Subjects exhibited faulty memory of events that actually occurred (i.e., pencils spilling), and were as uncertain of events that actually occurred, as they were of suggested events that did not occur during the session (telephone ringing). Subjects were generally consistent in their certainty, or lack of it, across events. Finally, subjects led to believe that hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness were less aware of external events, and had the lowest rate of recall of target suggestions compared with subjects in the comparison groups.     

Epidemiology and preventive interventions: Parental death in childhood as a case example

Illustrates how standard epidemiologic principles form the knowledge base to justify a preventive intervention for an at-risk population. These principles were applied to a sample of 92 from the population of children aged 8 to 15 at alleged risk for mental health disorders because a parent died. Prior work on this alleged risk population is sparse and flawed. Validly determining the population effect of an alleged risk factor requires assessing the influence of sampling bias. The bias found, underrepresentation of deaths of a mother, did not influence the relations among death of a parent and children's depression and conduct disorder, and the modifiable mediators of risk to be changed by the preventive intervention. The epidemiologic measure of effect indicated that death of a parent is a risk factor for major depression but not for conduct disorder among youth. Families recruited for the preventive intervention by epidemiologic methods (ES families) did not differ significantly from the earlier families on whom the knowledge base was formed. Families referred to the intervention by self or others significantly differed from the ES families in two ways that constituted serious biases. The implications of these biases for prevention were discussed.     

Learning sound/symbol correspondences: Transfer effects of pattern detection and phonics instruction

This study tested predictions derived from Gibson and Levin (1975) and Gough and Hillinger (1980) regarding the effects of different forms of reading instruction on a test of ‘far generalization’, where students were asked read nonsense words containing untaught sound/symbol correspondences. Two instructional methods were compared, pattern detection training and a synthetic phonics lesson which taught the specific correspondences used on a first post-test. A control group received no treatment. The transfer effects of pattern detection training were demonstrated on a first post-test and with a measure of correspondence induction at the end of testing. A first and second post-test revealed that specific correspondence training increased decoding scores but did not transfer to novel correspondences. On a second post-test, pattern detection and specific correspondence groups did not differ in decoding score; apparently the induction skill of the pattern detection group was balanced by the knowledge base of the specific correspondence group. It is concluded that pattern detection training more readily fosters those abilities that allow students to independently induce sound/symbol correspondences than the traditional approach of direct teaching of specific correspondences.     

Individual variations in hippocampal dentate degeneration following adrenalectomy

Corticosterone appears to have two markedly different effects on cells of the hippocampus in rats. On one hand, elevated levels of corticosterone contribute to the degeneration of pyramidal cells. On the other hand, elimination of corticosterone by adrenalectomy may cause degeneration of dentate granule cells (Sloviter, Valiquette, Abrams, Ronk, Sollas, Paul, & Neubort, 1989). However, the latter response is variable. Low levels of corticoids from accessory adrenal tissue not consistently detectable by radioimmunoassay may provide sufficient hormone to maintain granule cell viability. We describe simple measures that predict which individual adrenalectomized rats have degeneration of the granule cell layer. Body weight gain after adrenalectomy is positively correlated with granule cell layer area at sacrifice 3 months after surgery. Also, short-term loss of body weight when saline drinking water is replaced with tap water predicts the degree of degeneration of the granule cell layer. These observations may aid further study of this striking effect of adrenal hormones on brain anatomy.     

Sex,wage-earner status,occupational level,and job satisfaction

This study attempted to investigate the relationship between wage-earner status, occupational level, and job satisfaction. It was proposed that wage-earner status was a more important determinant of job satisfaction than sex. However, the findings of this study suggested that sex was a more important determinant of job satisfaction than wage-earner status, and occupational level was a better predictor of job satisfaction than either sex or wage-earner status.     

The effect of social cues on the eating behavior of obese and normal subjects1

Schachter's externality hypothesis suggests that overweight individuals are more likely to be induced to eat by salient external cues than normal weight individuals. While a range of studies have demonstrated the plausibility of this hypothesis in the case of sensory stimuli (e.g., taste cues), there is little evidence that the hypothesis applies to social stimuli. The current study examines this latter proposition by exposing male and female, overweight and normal weight subjects to a same-sex or opposite-sex peer model. Under the guise of engaging in a taste experiment, the subjects were either exposed to a model who tasted experiment, the subjects were either exposed to a model who tasted no crackers (no eat), one cracker (low eat), or twenty crackers (high eat). In addition, control model-absent conditions were also run for purposes of establishing baseline eating rates. If the externality hypotheses were to prevail in social domains, one would expect overweight subjects to be more prone to model the cracker-eating behavior of the peer than normal weight individuals. However, the findings indicate that all subject groups regardless of weight evidence a rather clear modeling effect and all subjects evidence social inhibition effects on their eating behavior as well. Several intriguing interactions among subject sex, model sex, subject weight, and social condition were also found. The discussion explores the relevance of an externality model of overweight eating in social domains, and focuses upon the interesting and somewhat distinct pattern of socially mediated eating exhibited by overweight females.