Children’s use of phonological encoding when reading for meaning

The role of phonological recoding in children’s reading was investigated by means of a task requiring comprehension of sentence meaning: The child’s task was to decide whether a sequence of printed letter strings was a meaningful sentence or not. Meaningless sentences that are meaningful when phonologically recoded (e.g., “He ran threw the street”) produced more incorrect responses than did meaningless sentences that remain meaningless when phonologically recoded (e.g., “He ran sew the street”). The difference in error rates between the two sentence types diminished as a function of age. Control experiments showed that these results were not due to visual similarity effects, nor to imperfect ability to spell homophones. It was concluded that very young readers rely extensively on phonological recoding when reading for meaning; as they grow older, reliance on visual encoding becomes progressively more important.     

A comparison of the reliability and validity of the standard MFF and MFF20 with learning-disabled children

A direct comparison was made of the reliability and validity of the standard Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) to a recent longer version of the task (MFF20). Subjects comprised two samples of learning-disabled children, matched on age, sex, IQ, and SES. The Salkind and Wright (1977) formulation was used to generate continuous data, and IQ was statistically controlled. Internal reliability estimates showed the MFF20 to be more consistent that the standard version on both error and latency scores. Validity was addressed by comparing the two versions of the task in their ability to predict cognitive and behavioral skills of conceptual relevance to impulsivity. Results indicated that the MFF20 is a more sensitive predictor of academic achievement and attention as observed in a natural setting than is the standard version of the task.This study was supported by a contract (300-77-0495) from the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, Office of Education, for the University of Virginia Learning Disabilities Research Institute. The authors would like to express appreciation to the school officials who generously assisted in the present study: Elizabeth Bailey, Thomas Cox, Charles Dempsey, Julian King.     

Augmentation of in vivo exposure treatment for agoraphobia by the formation of neighbourhood self-help groups

The advantages of selecting agoraphobic patients for treatment by group exposure according to their residential geographic neighbourhood were evaluated in terms of facilitation of ‘homework’ practice and increased social contact. Both ‘zoned’ and ‘unzoned’ groups showed gains in ability to perform hierarchy items after 11 sessions of exposure, relative to a no-treatment control group. However only zoned subjects showed significant reductions in experienced anxiety when executing such items. Self-ratings of overall phobic severity also suggested a zoned group was superior to unzoned while assessors' ratings indicated both groups as equally improved. Only zoned subjects showed a significant increase in social range. Improvements were maintained at 3-months follow-up. No effect of treatment was found on either the Zung measure of anxious mood or on social integration.These results suggest that, where practical, zoning might offer the means for desirable continuation of intensive clinic-based group treatment as well as the benefit of extending treatment into the patients' environment as in home-based treatments. Crucial levels of group cohesion might also be increased although therapists should be prepared to negotiate resistance to a socially demanding programme from patients with significant additional social phobias.     

AN ECOBEHAVIORAL EXAMINATION OF A SIMPLE STRATEGY FOR INCREASING MEALTIME LANGUAGE IN RESIDENTIAL FACILITIES

Typically in large residential facilities for retarded persons, meals are served in an institutional style that does not appear to encourage appropriate peer interactions. An ecological program alternative is serving meals in a family style. The present study was designed to examine both the feasibility of serving family style meals and the effects of family style meal service on mealtime language. Five retarded young adult male residents, who had some conversational skills and appropriate table manners, participated in this study. The experimental design involved a multiple baseline analysis across meals (dinner, lunch, and breakfast). Observers coded the youths' mealtime verbalizations according to the type, content, and direction of the verbalizations and they recorded the length of the meals. The analysis of the verbalization data indicated that during family style meals the participants spoke substantially more often than during institutional style meals. Increases in peer-directed conversation about the meals primarily accounted for the verbalization changes. Family style serving also resulted in the youths spending more time with their meals. In addition, social validation measures suggested that the family style procedures were preferred by the consumers (participants, staff, and concerned community members).     

Contextual potentiation of acquired behavior after devaluing direct context-US associations

In two experiments, water-deprived rats were exposed to tone-footshock pairings in a particular conditioning context. In Experiment 1, the training parameters were selected on the basis of parametric pilot data so as not to produce direct associations between the conditioning context and footshock. Despite independent evidence of no appreciable direct association between the conditioning context and footshock, animals tested in the conditioning context exhibited more lick suppression to the tone than other animals tested with the tone outside of the conditioning context. Thus, the conditioning context potentiated suppression to the tone in the absence of appreciable fear of the conditioning context. In Experiment 2, training parameters were used that permitted the formation of direct associations between the conditioning context and footshock; however, for half the animals, these associations to the context were then extinguished. With the tone absent, a comparison of extinguished animals tested either in the conditioning context or outside the conditioning context detected no differences in suppression, demonstrating the effectiveness of the extinction manipulation. However, other animals also subjected to extinction of direct context-footshock associations displayed greater suppression to the tone within the conditioning context than comparable animals tested outside the context. Collectively the data indicate that the superior retention-test performance seen within the training context can arise both from the commonly assumed direct associations between the training context and the unconditioned stimulus and from the potentiation by the training context of the associations between the nominal conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus.     

Rape trauma syndrome

The relationship of rape trauma syndrome to the official diagnostic nomenclature of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the DSM-III is extensively discussed. The theoretical and practical clinical issues involved in rape trauma are reviewed as well as the early court rulings on the admissibility of rape trauma syndrome in criminal and civil cases.     

The effects of hand and direction parameter preknowledge on choice reaction times

The two studies undertaken investigated how reaction times are affected by preknowledge concerning hand and direction parameters, and the order in which these data are disclosed. In the first experiment, preknowledge was manipulated by selecting 2-CRT pairs which had either a common hand or direction component. Reaction signal information content (as defined by the number of unknown response parameters) was controlled, but no parameter differences emerged. When parameter order was manipulated by sequential precuing, the ‘hand then direction’ order conferred a significant advantage. Motor preparation and response selection explanations for this effect are considered. Various difficulties with the paradigms used are discussed, including those of distinguishing between response selection and motor programming contributions, controlling and inferring the strategies adopted by subjects, and defining task difficulty. The prospects for independently fostering either response identification or motor preparation by means of an appropriate selection of precues are also discussed.     

Do Students with Different Characteristics Take Part in Psychology Experiments at Different Times of the Semester?

ABSTRACT In this study we examined 15 personality and demographic differences between psychology students who took part in experiments at different times of the semester and different times of the day. In general, few significant relations were found and those that did emerge were small in magnitude. Females and freshmen signed up for experiments earlier in the semester. Females took part in their first experiment earlier in the semester, as did students who were Protestant and who came from smaller home towns. Students low in self-consciousness also tended to begin participating earlier. Extraverts participated earlier in the day than introverts. Results generally were consistent with previous findings of differences between research volunteers and non-volunteers. However, it was concluded that because of their small magnitude and inconsistency from site to site, with a few precautions experimenters probably need not be concerned that timing effects threaten the external validity of psychological research outcomes.     

Interview with Dr. Peter Rutter,author ofSex in the Forbidden Zone,July 27, 1990

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Interview with Dr. Peter Rutter, author ofSex in the Forbidden Zone, July 27, 1990