Deep dyslexia in childhood?

Deep dyslexia is an acquired reading disorder in which semantic substitutions (e.g., city read as town) are made in reading single isolated words. In this paper, evidence for deep dyslexic-type errors is presented from the word-recognition responses of six children, aged 7 years and 0 month to 8 years and 9 months, with severe reading disorders. These semantic substitutions occur in the absence of phonological skills. Therefore, it appears that there exists a small subset of developmental dyslexics who at the beginning of acquisition of reading skills are able to engage in semantic processing, but who show severe impairment of phonological processing. The existence of these reading errors indicate that the use of a phonological code is not necessary to extract meaning from the printed word.     

On the Bradley hypothesis concerning agrammatism: the nonword-interference effect

In 1980, D. C. Bradley, M. F. Garrett, and E. B. Zurif (in D. Caplan (Ed.), Biological studies of mental processes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) have proposed a lexical hypothesis on agrammatism. The theoretical background of this hypothesis is described. Then two experiments are reported with normal speakers on the so-called nonword-interference effect that has been one of the two major sources of experimental evidence for this hypothesis. The first experiment replicates the original finding that the interference effect is found when the nonword starts with a content word but not when it starts with a function word. In the second experiment, it is shown that this contrast is due to an artifact of the composition of the word list. When this list contains both content and function words, rather than only content words--as in Bradley's experiments and our Experiment I--both content and function nonwords show an equally sized interference effect. The consequences for the lexical hypothesis are discussed.     

Vowel duration in stutterers participating in precision fluency shaping

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which stutters manipulate vowel duration to achieve fluency after participating in Precision Fluency Shaping. Nine stutterers who read an all-voiced sentence fluently before and after therapy were selected for study. Wide-band spectrograms were made of the initial phrase of the sentences, and vowel durations were computed. Results indicated that extended vowel durations were characteristic of the fluency of stutterers posttherapy. The subject that had the highest rate of disfluency after therapy also had the shortest vowel durations. Clinical implications concerning the importance of speech rate during carryover practice are made.     

Group differences in intelligence and speed of information-processing

Three samples of different levels of mental ability, but each of average or above- average intelligence, were administered a battery of reaction time test which measure the speed with which persons can execute various elementary cognitive processes. Discriminant analyses revealed significant differences between the groups in reaction times and intraindividual standard deviations, and univariate analyses indicated that higher ability groups tended to obtain significantly faster mean reaction times and to show significantly less intraindividual variability than lower ability groups. Groups which differed the most in mental ability differed to the greatest extent on the more complex reaction time tests but this pattern was reversed for groups which were relatively close in mean IQ. Generally, the results support the hypothesis that speed- of-processing is an important factor unferlying intelligence, but a number of puzzling findings indicate the need for continued research in this area.     

Early adolescent egocentrism: a review of six articles

This paper reviews six articles which appear to be representative of the past fifteen years during which researchers have focused on early adolescent egocentrism. Each article is described in chronological order and compared to research findings suggested by the other articles. Although the researchers have suggested some interesting associations, there is a lack of consistency among their findings. The author indicates methodological problems and questions for further research which arise from the reviewed articles.     

Creativity and self-trust: a field study

Motivation and human achievement remain something of a mystery to the psychologist because the participating factors are varied and complex. This research project attempts to separate out an entity defined as self-trust from more social components of self-function (self-esteem and social appropriateness). The strong indication is that self-trust seems to be the product of a relationship with the secondary caretaker (father) while the broader, more generalized sense of trust and interactive reliability appear to be tied to a close association with mother. The question of who the individual seeks to please is a consideration in this research since closeness may not be restricted to affective alliance. Self-trust, as a concept, can be differentiated from self-esteem or interpersonal trust which offers some appreciation for the creative drive within individuals who pursue original solutions in their push to please.     

Validity and reliability of the EOM-EIS for early adolescents

The Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) was examined for reliability and validity among early/middle adolescent subjects. The EOM-EIS represents a combination of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status and a structured interview of identity status. The instrument was designed to measure ego identity with regard to occupational, religious, political, philosophical, and social contexts along ideological and interpersonal dimensions. A total of 467 students aged 12 to 18 (median = 15.73) responded to the instrument. In general the results from the analyses of reliability, validity, demographic characteristics, and psychosocial maturity yielded results which parallel the theoretical framework and the results from college-aged subjects.     

Visual information processing speed in hypnotized and nonhypnotized subjects

Using a backward-masking paradigm with a bias-free and ceiling-free psychophysical task, we tested hypnotized and control subjects for speed of visual information processing. Approximately half of each group received visual imagery suggestions in an attempt to influence attention. Imagery produced no significant differential effect. Although an absence of a hypnotizability-performance relationship was in keeping with findings of a previous study, those subjects in the present study who performed under hypnosis were, as a group, significantly superior to the other subjects in speed of information processing.