Directed Rehearsal and Preservice Teachers' Performance of Instructional Behaviors

This investigation evaluated the use of directed rehearsal to improve the teaching behaviors of four preservice elementary physical education teachers during a teaching practicum. Directed rehearsal consisted of two phases: (a) initial feedback following baseline, review of teaching behaviors, and rehearsal; and (b) rehearsal contingent upon errors made during each lesson. Three teaching behaviors were assessed using a multiple baseline design across behaviors for each teacher. Social validity in the form of the acceptability of directed rehearsal as a teacher training intervention also was assessed using a questionnaire. Results indicate that directed rehearsal was effective in improving the teaching behaviors of the four teachers in this study to 100% correct implementation. In addition, the intervention was acceptable to the teachers and the class instructor.     

Relationship of Parental Alcoholism to Family-of-Origin Functioning and Current Marital Satisfaction

This study examined the relationship between parental alcoholism, family-of-origin functioning, and current marital satisfaction. Results indicated family-of-origin functioning is positively related to marital satisfaction. In addition, individuals with alcoholic parents reported lower family-of-origin functioning, and an interaction between gender and parental alcoholism was found for marital satisfaction.     

When Respect Means to Obey: Immigrant Mexican Mothers' Values for Their Children

We describe Mexican immigrant mothers' values for their children and their understanding of how children acquire those values. Fifteen mothers were given a Q-Sort task of parental values and interviewed at length using a semi-structured format. Analysis of the mothers' transcribed narratives revealed salient features of a cultural model of child development that constrasts sharply with current professional models. The emergent portrait of children was one of inactive learners whose ability to understand dictated social behavior, developed very slowly over the years, and was dependent on parental direction and instruction.     

The Client Cultural Competence Inventory: An Instrument for Assessing Cultural Competence in Behavioral Managed Care Organizations

The rapid growth in Behavioral Managed Care Organizations has led to increasing concern about the future availability of culturally competent mental health services for ethnic minorities. Prior efforts to assess cultural competence of mental health services have focused exclusively on agency providers and individual mental health professionals rather than on clients' perceptions of care. We introduce the Client Cultural Competence Inventory, which has several advantages over other cultural competence measures including its (a) lower susceptibility to social desirability bias, (b) ability to assess attitudes concerning a broader range of therapists, providers and plans, and (c) focus on clients rather than the psychiatric community as the central force in determining cultural competence. Preliminary psychometric analyses of the inventory are presented from data gathered in a group of parents with children who are severely emotionally disturbed.     

Object-centered attention in 8-month-old infants

We examined the extent to which visual orienting in 8-month-old infants shows evidence of being guided by object-based representations. Infants’ preferences to look at conspicuous targets presented on one of two stationary objects were measured following an event (cue) which directed their covert attention to one of the objects. The results indicate that by 8 months of age a cue presented on one part of an object directs attention to the whole object (object-centered attention). This then affects responses to targets that appear elsewhere on the cued object.     

False memories and confabulation

Memory distortions range from the benign (thinking you mailed a check that you only thought about mailing), to the serious (confusing what you heard after a crime with what you actually saw), to the fantastic (claiming you piloted a spaceship). We review theoretical ideas and empirical evidence about the source monitoring processes underlying both true and false memories. Neuropsychological studies show that certain forms of brain damage (such as combined frontal and medial-temporal lesions) might result in profound source confusions, called confabulations. Neuroimaging techniques provide new evidence regarding more specific links between underlying brain mechanisms and the normal cognitive processes involved in evaluating memories. One hypothesis is that the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves heuristic judgments based on easily assessed qualities (such as familiarity or perceptual detail) and the left PFC (or the right and left PFC together) subserves more systematic judgments requiring more careful analysis of memorial qualities or retrieval and evaluation of additional supporting or disconfirming information. Such heuristic and systematic processes can be disrupted not only by brain damage but also, for example, by hypnosis, social demands and motivational factors, suggesting caution in the methods used by `memory exploring' professions (therapists, police officers, lawyers, etc.) in order to avoid inducing false memories.     

Psychoeducation and managed care: Clinical issues for the 1990s

Managed care has challenged mental health professionals to develop more efficient ways of addressing patient care needs. Psychoeducational programs, for patients and their families, have emerged as a medium by which relevant education and mutual support can be provided to participants. A review of the literature, a comprehensive model of psychoeducation, and the advantages of such models within the managed care program are offered. Also addressed are issues and import, treatment and research considerations.     

A model theory of induction

Theories of induction in psychology and artificial intelligence assume that the process leads from observation and knowledge to the formulation of linguistic conjectures. This paper proposes instead that the process yields mental models of phenomena. It uses this hypothesis to distinguish between deduction, induction, and creative forms of thought. It shows how models could underlie inductions about specific matters. In the domain of linguistic conjectures, there are many possible inductive generalizations of a conjecture. In the domain of models, however, generalization calls for only a single operation: the addition of information to a model. If the information to be added is inconsistent with the model, then it eliminates the model as false: this operation suffices for all generalizations in a Boolean domain. Otherwise, the information that is added may have effects equivalent (a) to the replacement of an existential quantifier by a universal quantifier, or (b) to the promotion of an existential quantifier from inside to outside the scope of a universal quantifier. The latter operation is novel, and does not seem to have been used in any linguistic theory of induction. Finally, the paper describes a set of constraints on human induction, and outlines the evidence in favor of a model theory of induction.     

Family management of childhood diabetes

This paper reviews the available literature on family management of childhood diabetes and highlights gaps in the current knowledge base. Four aspects of family management of childhood diabetes are discussed: coping (how the family adjusts to living with a child who has diabetes), compliance (how the family manages the child's diabetes on a daily basis), communication (how the family learns from interactions with the health provider), and context (how the family environment sets the stage for managing diabetes).     

The role of three-dimensional depth cues in infants' perception of partly occluded objects

Newborn infants were familiarized to a three dimensional display consisting of a rod which moved behind a central occluder, so that only the top and bottom of the rod were visible. The infants' eyes were 38 cm from the rod and the occluder was 15 cm in front of the rod, a separation intended to ensure that the gap between the two was detected by the infants. On subsequent test trials the infants looked longer at a complete rod than at two rod pieces, suggesting that the hidden unity, or completeness of the rod had not been perceived. In a study by Johnson and Náñez (in press), using computer. generated stimuli, 4 month olds perceived the hidden unity of a similar display presented on a VDU in the complete absence of three. dimensional depth cues. Taken together, these findings suggest that, for these displays, perception of three. dimensional depth cues is not necessary for the detection of the unity of partially hidden objects. It is suggested that age changes in early infancy in the perception of occluded objects may result either from the emergence of abilities to perceive objects from kinematic information or from the emergence of sensitivity to that information itself.