The evidence for a temporal processing deficit linked to dyslexia: A review

The existence of a phonemic deficit that is predictive of, and probably causal to, many cases of reading difficulty is well established. Tallal (1984) has suggested that this phonemic deficit is in fact a symptom of an underlying auditory temporal processing deficit. Our purpose in this paper is to evaluate the plausibility of this hypothesis. The various components that might constitute sequential (or temporal) processing are described. Our review of the literature reveals considerable evidence for a deficit in dyslexics in stimulus individuation tasks (e.g., gap detection) and temporal order judgments in both the auditory and visual modalities. The possibility that a general temporal processing deficit is associated with dyslexia, as suggested by Tallal (1984), is explored, and possible etiologies for such a deficit are discussed. The possibility of a causal link between temporal processing deficits and some reading disabilities is demonstrated, and converging evidence from morphological studies is reviewed. It is concluded that a temporal processing deficit does appear to be present in many developmental dyslexics, and strategies are suggested for further research aimed at evaluating the hypothesis that this deficit may be the root cause of a number of cases of dyslexia itself.     

Visual and motor effects in inhibition of return

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to slowed reaction times (RTs) when a target appears in the same rather than a different location as a preceding stimulus. The present study tested the hypothesis that IOR reflects a motor bias rather than a perceptual deficit. Two signals (S1 and S2) were presented on each trial. These signals were peripheral onsets or central arrows. The responses required to S1 and S2 were, respectively, no response-manual, manual-manual, saccadic-manual, no response-saccadic, manual-saccadic, and saccadic-saccadic. Uniting perceptual and motor bias views of IOR, the results demonstrated inhibition for responding to (a) peripheral signals when the eyes remained fixed (slowed visual processing) and (b) both peripheral and central signals when the eyes moved (slowed motor production). However, the results also emphasized that the nature of IOR depends fundamentally on the response modality used to reveal its influence.     

Group comparisons of DSM-IV subtypes of chronic depression: validity of the distinctions, part 2

The nosology of chronic depression in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994) is highly complex and requires clinicians to differentiate among several chronic course subtypes. This study replicates an earlier investigation (J. McCullough et al., 2000; see record 2000-05424-007) that found few differences among Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed. rev.; DSM-III-R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) categories of chronic depression. In the present study, 681 outpatients with chronic major depression, double depression, recurrent major depression without full interepisode recovery, and chronic major depression superimposed on antecedent dysthymia were compared. Few differences were observed on a broad range of demographic, clinical, psychosocial, family history, and treatment response variables. The authors suggest that chronic depression should be viewed as a single, broad condition that can assume a variety of clinical course configurations.     

Oculomotor inhibition of return: Evidence against object-centered representation

ABSTRACT

Intermixing central, directional arrow targets with the peripheral targets typically used in the Posnerian spatial cueing paradigm offers a useful diagnostic for ascertaining the relative contributions of output and input processes to oculomotor inhibition of return (IOR). Here, we use this diagnostic to determine whether object-based oculomotor IOR comprises output and/or input processes. One of two placeholder objects in peripheral vision was cued, then both objects rotated smoothly either 90 or 180 degrees around the circumference of an imaginary circle. After this movement, a saccade was made to the location marked by a peripheral onset target or indicated by the central arrow. In our first three experiments, whereas there was evidence for IOR when measured by central arrow or peripheral onset targets at cued locations, there was little trace of IOR at the cued object. We thereafter precisely replicated the seminal experiment for object-based oculomotor IOR (Abrams, R. A., & Dobkin, R. S. (1994). Inhibition of return: Effects of attentional cuing on eye movement latencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20(3), 467–477; Experiment 4) but again found little evidence of an object-based IOR effect. Finally, we ran a paradigm with only peripheral targets and with motion and stationary trials randomly intermixed. Here we again showed IOR at the cued location but not at the cued object. Together, the findings suggest that object-based representation of oculomotor IOR is much more tenuous than implied by the literature.     

The impact of childbirth settings and maternal medication on infant behaviors

The Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (BNBAS) was administered to 61 full-term, healthy newborns between 7–10 days of age. Three groups of newborns made up the sample: 23 babies were born at planned home births to nonmedicated mothers, 22 were born in the hospital to nonmedicated mothers, and 16 neonates were born in the hospital to mothers who received obsteric medication. Analysis of variance indicated a significant F ratio on the BNBAS cluster for orienting behaviors; comparison of the BNBAS scores of the three groups revealed a significant difference on the BNBAS cluster for orienting behavior between the home-born babies and infants born in the hospital to mothers who received obsteric medication. There was no significant difference between groups for medication or birth setting alone, suggesting these perinatal factors have a complex, perhaps synergistic effect on newborn behavior.     

Comparison of outcome in men and women after treatment in psychiatric security hospitals in Germany

Previous research has shown that forensic psychiatric treatment reduces reoffending, rehospitalization and premature mortality. Treatment outcome varies with diagnosis, but little is known about the influence of sex, psychosocial adjustment and aftercare. To assess these variables, we interviewed male and female patients discharged from three psychiatric security hospitals in Germany in the years 2010–2017. Participants were interviewed at discharge (n = 609) and 1 year later (n = 366) about reoffending, readmissions, substance use and psychosocial adjustment. Among patients with substance use disorder (SUD), 14% reoffended, 20% were re-hospitalized and 60% maintained abstinence. Among patients with severe mental disorder, 5% reoffended and 13% were re-hospitalized. Significant sex differences were found in offenders with SUD. The results suggest that sociodemographic and disorder-related risk factors are associated with treatment success and that female patients with SUD might need a specific treatment approach. Sex-specific aspects, diagnosis and psychosocial adjustment should be considered in forensic psychiatric treatment and risk assessment.     

Evidence for detection of one duration sample and default responding to other duration samples by pigeons may result from an artifact of retention-test ambiguity

S. C. Gaitan and J. T. Wixted (2000) proposed that when pigeons are trained on a conditional discrimination to associate 1 duration sample with 1 comparison and 2 other duration samples with a 2nd comparison, they detect only the single duration, and on trials involving either of the 2 other duration samples, they respond to the other comparison by default. In 2 experiments, the authors show instead that pigeons lend to treat the retention intervals (such as those used by Gaitan and Wixted) as intertrial intervals, and thus, they tend to treat all trials with a delay as 0-s sample trials. The authors tested this hypothesis by showing that divergent retention functions do not appear when the retention interval is discriminably different from the intertrial interval.     

Skills for Social and Academic Success: A School-Based Intervention for Social Anxiety Disorder in Adolescents

This paper describes Skills for Academic and Social Success (SASS), a cognitive–behavioral, school-based intervention for adolescents with social anxiety disorder. Clinic-based treatment studies for socially anxious youth are reviewed, and a strong rationale for transporting empirically-based interventions into schools, such as SASS, is provided. The SASS program consists of 12, 40-min group sessions that emphasize social skills and in-vivo exposure. In addition to group sessions, students are seen individually at least twice and participate in 4 weekend social events with prosocial peers from their high schools. Meetings with teachers provide information about social anxiety and facilitate classroom exposures for socially anxious participants. Parents attend 2 psychoeducational meetings about social anxiety, its treatment, and approaches for managing their childs anxiety. Initial findings regarding the programs effectiveness are presented. We conclude by discussing the challenges involved in implementing treatment protocols in schools and provide suggestions to address these issues.     

Validation of the Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory-IV with the SCID-II

The Wisconsin Personality Disorders Inventory (WISPI-IV; Klein & Benjamin, 1996) is the latest version of a self-report measure of DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs) derived from an interpersonal perspective. When categorical diagnoses derived from the WISPI-IV were compared with independent SCID-II diagnoses, the majority of the kappas were poor (>.40). However, all but one of the effect sizes for the differences in WISPI-IV means between groups with and without SCID-II diagnoses were large (>.80). When SCID-II and WISPI-IV dimensional scores were considered, the average r between profiles was .61 (median = .58) and correlations between corresponding PD scales (mean diagonal r = .48; mean off-diagonal r = .18) indicated good convergent and discriminant validity for five of the WISPI-IV scales. These results add to the cumulating evidence suggesting greater reliability and validity of dimensional over categorical scores for PDs. Researchers and clinicians interested in having an efficient method of assessing PDs may consider using a dimensional approach such as the WISPI-IV as an alternative to diagnostic interview.