SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN THREE SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Controversy exists over the benefits that workers with severe disabilities accrue under different supported employment options. This study focused upon one benefit of supported employment: social integration. Direct observation procedures were used to assess the social interactions of 37 adults with severe disabilities in 18 employment programs representing three different supported employment contexts (individual, enclave, and work crew). Results indicated that workers employed in individual and enclave programs had significantly more contact with nondisabled persons than did members of work crews. No differences were detected in the social contact rate between disabled and nondisabled workers in individual versus enclave sites. Furthermore, few differences in type of interactions across the three different work options were revealed. Results suggest that both individual and enclave models are capable of facilitating social integration. However, characteristics of specific job sites, more so than the employment model per se, may determine whether a particular employment setting is conducive to social integration.     

The Social Adjustment of Newcomers in Secondary School

Each year, a large number of children change residence and school. This paper examines the social experience of being a newcomer at secondary school, with special reference to the process of adjustment. It is based on a detailed longitudinal case study of 45 newcomers. Each was followed for 12 months, with the main source of data being seven in-depth interviews with each student, backed up by unscheduled interviews, school reports, teacher and peer-group comments and observations. Because the data show extensive similarity in newcomers' experiences-all must deal with a different curriculum, new teachers and the social world of other students-it is possible to construct a general three-stage map of the process of adjustment. This map has important implications for the guidance and counselling of such students.     

Invention and discovery among the sciences: a P-technique factor analysis

This paper explores how discoveries and inventions in nine scientific disciplines cluster over time in Western culture. The transhistorical sample consisted of 12,761 major scientific contributions tabulated into 44 time-units (full, half, and quarter centuries) extending from 800 B.C. to 1900 A.D. A factor analysis was executed on the correlations among the nine measures after partialing out third-order polynomial time trends. Three orthogonal factors appeared: concrete (chemistry, physics, and biology), abstract (astronomy and mathematics), and applied (technology, geography, and geology) clusters. Medicine loaded moderately on the concrete and abstract clusters. Three types of explanations were discussed-personological, interpersonal, and sociocultural-with suggestions for how they might be tested.     

Attention decrement,temporal variation,and the primacy effect in impression formation

Three experiments which tested the attention decrement explanation of the primacy effect in impression formation are reported. A memory-crowding interpretation of attention decrement would predict a decrease in primacy as the interval between traits is increased. Mild support was obtained in Experiment I but not in II or III. Overall. the magnitude of the primacy effect was independent of intertrait temporal variation. Decrement in attention is the most attractive theoretical explanation for the commonly obtained primacy effect. However, the results of the present series of studies suggest that this explanation is not tenable and that other theoretical mechanisms will be required to account for primacy effects.     

The generalization of newly acquired behaviors by parents and child across three different settings

The generalization of newly learned behaviors to different settings on the part of an autistic child and his parents was investigated by means of a multiple baseline design. Contingency management techniques were taught to the parents while they interacted with their child in a training apartment equipped with observation facilities. In order to assess whether the parents generalized the use of these techniques, data were gathered at their own home. Data were also gathered in the child's school in order to ascertain whether changes brought about in the child's behavior in the training apartment generalized to the school situation. It was concluded that the child's behavior was responsive to the contingencies of each particular environment. Generalization did not occur until the contingencies and stimulus cues were specifically designed to promote a change in behavior in each setting.     

Establishment and decay of orientation-contingent aftereffects of color

We have used a null method to measure the orientation-contingent aftereffects of color first described by McCollough. After alternately inspecting, for example, a green horizontal line grating and a magenta vertical line grating, the Os report that in achromatic test gratings the horizontal lines appear pinkish and the vertical lines appear greenish. We have used a special color-mixing projector to add variable amounts of green and magenta light to the test gratings until they appear matched and nearly achromatic. The colorimetric purity needed to achieve this null setting is a quantitative measure of the strength of the colored aftereffect. Following inspections of the colored patterns ranging from 15 sec to 150 min, six Os showed aftereffects lasting from a few minutes to 7 or more days. The indices of colorimetric purity increase with inspection time and decline with time after inspection. The decay function is not quite linear either on semilog or on log-log coordinates. The rate of decay is mainly dependent on the magnitude of the effect built up during inspection. We conclude that the buildup and decay of these aftereffects show some of the time characteristics usually associated with central adaptability rather than sensory adaptation.     

Further findings on assaultiveness and alcohol use in interpersonal disputes

In a previous study uniform observational data were collected regarding family disputes managed by police officers; those data contradicted views commonly held by social scientists and by police about the roles of assaultiveness and alcohol use in these events. In the present study police officers employed systematic naturalistic observation during their interventions as third parties in disputes between nonfamily members as well as those between family members. Tentative conclusions about assaultiveness, based on the data of both studies, are that it: does not usually precede the arrival of police in such disputes; is associated with interpersonal closeness of the disputants; is associated with poverty rather than race; and is as likely in a middle-class small city as in a poor inner-city area. Tentative conclusions about the use of alcohol in police-managed interpersonal disputes are: that these disputes are not usually influenced by alcohol use; and that assaultiveness is not related to alcohol use in such disputes.     

Effects of task on the perceptual organization of sentences

Children and college students listened to sentences and responded to a question or a probe word after each sentence. To prevent Ss from using different perceptual strategies in performing the two tasks, question items and probe items were presented in mixed lists. In the probe task, the relationship between sentence structure and correct response latencies resembled the findings of an earlier study with block lists. The results from the question task were less similar to those obtained earlier, perhaps because, with mixed lists, Ss tended to organize all sentences in a manner especially suited to the probe task. A different type of organization might be used in the process of comprehending a sentence solely for the purpose of answering questions.