Stuttering severity and educational attainment

Purpose

This study investigated the relationship between self-reported stuttering severity ratings and educational attainment.

Method

Participants were 147 adults seeking treatment for stuttering. At pretreatment assessment, each participant reported the highest educational level they had attained and rated their typical and worst stuttering severity on a 9-point scale for a range of speaking situations. These included: (1) talking with a family member, (2) talking with a familiar person, not a family member, (3) talking in a group of people, (4) talking with a stranger, (5) talking with an authority figure such as a work manager or teacher, (6) talking on the telephone, (7) ordering food or drink, and (8) giving their name and address.

Results

There was a significant negative relationship between highest educational achievement and mean self-reported stuttering severity rating for the eight situations.

Conclusions

Future research is needed to investigate how this result should be addressed in educational institutions.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) describe the negative effects of stuttering through childhood to adulthood; (2) identify some of the negative consequences associated with stuttering on peer and teacher relationships, and academic performance at school; and (3) summarise the relationship between stuttering severity and educational attainment.     

Cue interactions in flavor preference learning: a configural analysis

Four experiments showed that the preference normally established to a neutral flavor cue that was paired with maltodextrin was attenuated when that cue was conditioned in compound with another flavor--overshadowing. Furthermore, two experiments showed that the preference for a neutral flavor conditioned as part of a compound was further attenuated if the other element in that compound was separately paired with the reinforcer--blocking. These results stand in contrast to a number of previous compound flavor preference conditioning experiments, which have not revealed reliable cue competition effects. These discrepant findings are discussed in terms of the effects of within-compound associations and a configural perspective on potentiation. Modeling of this configural perspective predicts that a compound of two separately trained cues will elicit a similar response to the individual cues themselves--absence of summation. Two experiments confirmed this prediction.     

A model-based cluster analysis of social experiences in clinically anxious youth: links to emotional functioning

Social difficulties are commonly associated with anxiety disorders in youth, yet are not well specified in the literature. The aim of this study was to identify patterns of social experiences in clinically anxious children and examine the associations with indices of emotional functioning. A model-based cluster analysis was conducted on parent-, teacher-, and child-reports of social experiences with 64 children, ages 7–12 years (M = 8.86 years, SD = 1.59 years; 60.3% boys; 85.7% Caucasian) with a primary diagnosis of separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, and/or generalized anxiety disorder. Follow-up analyses examined cluster differences on indices of emotional functioning. Findings yielded three clusters of social experiences that were unrelated to diagnosis: (1) Unaware Children (elevated scores on parent- and teacher-reports of social difficulties but relatively low scores on child-reports, n = 12), (2) Average Functioning (relatively average scores across all informants, n = 44), and (3) Victimized and Lonely (elevated child-reports of overt and relational victimization and loneliness and relatively low scores on parent- and teacher-reports of social difficulties, n = 8). Youth in the Unaware Children cluster were rated as more emotionally dysregulated by teachers and had a greater number of diagnoses than youth in the Average Functioning group. In contrast, the Victimized and Lonely group self-reported greater frequency of negative affect and reluctance to share emotional experiences than the Average Functioning cluster. Overall, this study demonstrates that social maladjustment in clinically anxious children can manifest in a variety of ways and assessment should include multiple informants and methods.     

Narrative vignettes and online enquiry in researching therapist accounts of practice with children in schools: An analysis of the methodology

Aims: This article reviews a research methodology that uses an Internet mediated qualitative, narrative approach to provide in‐depth analysis of vignettes. The research sought to investigate the ways in which dramatherapists, based in different countries, understood the nature of therapeutic change in their work with children. Method: The article describes a qualitative approach to the generation of data by a combination of therapist‐authored vignettes, live, synchronous Internet mediated communication (aMSN Messenger) and email. Participants kept a diary of their response to the research and the article draws on this data within its analysis of the methodology. Findings: Samples of the data are used to analyse how such innovative, online methodology can develop effective access and relationships with geographically dispersed participants and as an effective way of investigating therapist practitioners' understanding of their practice.     

Black Parenting Couples’ Ethnic-Racial Socialization Profiles: Associations with Sociodemographic and Race-Related Correlates

Journal of Child and Family Studies - In light of the continued racism and oppression experienced by Black Americans in the United States, ethnic-racial socialization—explicit and implicit...     

Stress in telephone helpline nurses is associated with failures of concentration,attention and memory,and with more conservative referral decisions

Nurses working for telephone‐based medical helplines must maintain attentional focus while quickly and accurately processing information given by callers to make safe and appropriate treatment decisions. In this study, both higher levels of general occupational stress and elevated stress levels on particular shifts were associated with more frequent failures of attention, memory, and concentration in telephone nurses. Exposure to a stressful shift was also associated with a measurable increase in objectively assessed information‐processing errors. Nurses who experienced more frequent cognitive failures at work made more conservative decisions, tending to refer patients on to other health professionals more often than other nurses. As stress is associated with cognitive performance decrements in telephone nursing, stress‐reduction interventions could improve the quality and safety of care that callers to medical helplines receive.     

Generational differences in workplace behavior

Popular stereotypes suggest that generational differences among workers present challenges for workplace managers. However, existing empirical research provides mixed evidence for generational differences in important values and attitudes. The current study extends generational effects research by examining differences in actual workplace behaviors. Drawing from commonly held generational stereotypes, the authors hypothesized that Baby Boomers would exhibit (Hypothesis 1) fewer job mobility behaviors and (Hypothesis 2) more instances of compliance‐related behaviors in comparison with both GenXers and Millennials, while (Hypothesis 3) GenXers would be less likely to work overtime in comparison with Baby Boomers and Millennials. A sample of 8,040 applicants at two organizations was used to test these predictions. Results provided support for Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 3 and partial support for Hypothesis 2, but the effect sizes for these relationships were small. It appears the effects of generational membership on workplace behavior are not as strong as suggested by commonly held stereotypes. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Hyperintensional metaphysics

In the last few decades of the twentieth century there was a revolution in metaphysics: the intensional revolution. Many metaphysicians rejected the doctrine, associated with Quine and Davidson, that extensional analyses and theoretical resources were the only acceptable ones. Metaphysicians embraced tools like modal and counterfactual analyses, claims of modal and counterfactual dependence, and entities such as possible worlds and intensionally individuated properties and relations. The twenty-first century is seeing a hypterintensional revolution. Theoretical tools in common use carve more finely than by necessary equivalence: two pieces of language can apply to the same entities across all possible worlds but not be equivalent; thoughts can be necessarily equivalent in truth value but not synonymous. This paper argues that hyperintensional resources are valuable in metaphysics outside theories of representation, and discusses some promising areas of hyperintensional metaphysics.     

From early markers to neuro-developmental mechanisms of autism

A fast growing field, the study of infants at risk because of having an older sibling with autism (i.e. infant sibs) aims to identify the earliest signs of this disorder, which would allow for earlier diagnosis and intervention. More importantly, we argue, these studies offer the opportunity to validate existing neuro-developmental models of autism against experimental evidence. Although autism is mainly seen as a disorder of social interaction and communication, emerging early markers do not exclusively reflect impairments of the “social brain”. Evidence for atypical development of sensory and attentional systems highlight the need to move away from localized deficits to models suggesting brain-wide involvement in autism pathology. We discuss the implications infant sibs findings have for future work into the biology of autism and the development of interventions.