Development and evaluation of an inventory to assess adult stutterers'' communication attitudes

The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a procedure to assess adult stutterers' communication attitudes. To this end, the investigation was divided into two phases. In Phase I, an assessment inventory based on a tripartite attitudinal model was developed and administered to 107 adult stutterers. Reliability and validity of these procedures were examined, and the inventory was refined. In Phase II, reliability and validity of the attitude assessment procedures were reassessed, and the attitudes of 26 stutterers and 56 nonstutterers were examined. Assessment procedures involved a self-report inventory, which obtained ratings of items in 13 situational subscales representing different speaking situations. These situations were rated using four response scales reflecting behavioral, affective, and cognitive aspects of attitude. Situational responding, response scale scores, and response scale interrelationships are examined. Findings are discussed in terms of the potential value of the inventory and future investigations.     

What learning-disabled readers fail to retrieve on verbal dichotic tests: A problem of encoding,retrieval, or storage?

Three theoretical models were assessed as a framework for capturing learning-disabled readers' faulty word retrieval. To this end, learning-disabled and skilled readers were compared on verbal dichotic listening tasks for free recall and cued recall of word lists organized by semantic, phonemic, and structural features. The results indicated that disabled readers were comparable on free recall but were inferior to skilled readers on cued recall. No ability group differences were found for categorical and noncategorical recall intrusions during the cued recall phase. Cued recall performance was further analyzed for individual differences in memory trace structure (via the Tulving & Watkins, 1975, reduction method), ear asymmetry, and the allocation of attention to word features prior to cuing. Results indicated that during the cued recall phase, disabled readers' memory traces were inferior in structure to those of skilled readers, even though the two ability groups produced comparable symmetrical recall patterns for the ear presentations. Further, disabled readers had lower selective attention scores for the interhemispheric processing of information prior to cuing than did skilled readers. Taken together, the results suggest that, prior to cued recall, disabled readers suffer from attentional difficulties during interhemispheric processing, which in turn influences the structural formation of their memory trace.This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. Special appreciation is given to Greelley District IV schools for providing subjects, to Missy Reda and Stephanie Contros for the data collection, and to two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments on a draft of this article.     

Students' attitudes toward university health services

This study measured students' attitudes toward a university's student health services (SHS) and identified factors that were related to their attitudes. A questionnaire surveying students' attitudes was administered to a sample of 150 students at the Oxford Campus of the University of Mississippi. Analysis of the data revealed that students' attitudes had a statistically significant correlation with the following variables: perceived medical care cost, amount of health information/education received during medical encounters, time spent in the waiting room of the SHS, sex of the student, and income of the student. There was no significant relationship between attitude and age.     

TEACHING SOCIAL LANGUAGE TO MODERATELY HANDICAPPED STUDENTS

Three students with moderate handicaps were taught to initiate and expand on conversational topics. The teaching procedure used stimuli generated from actual conversations with nonhandicapped peers. Generalization was assessed by audiotaping conversations between the handicapped students and their peers in natural school contexts without adult supervision. Results indicated that training generalized to natural contexts. These results were socially validated by undergraduate special education students, who rated tapes of two of the students' conversations during training phases as more socially competent than during baseline. Results are discussed in terms of the evaluation of complex social behavior as multioperant behaviors.     

Estimation for structural equation models with missing data

A direct method in handling incomplete data in general covariance structural models is investigated. Asymptotic statistical properties of the generalized least squares method are developed. It is shown that this approach has very close relationships with the maximum likelihood approach. Iterative procedures for obtaining the generalized least squares estimates, the maximum likelihood estimates, as well as their standard error estimates are derived. Computer programs for the confirmatory factor analysis model are implemented. A longitudinal type data set is used as an example to illustrate the results.This research was supported in part by Research Grant DAD1070 from the U.S. Public Health Service. The author is indebted to anonymous reviewers for some very valuable suggestions. Computer funding is provided by the Computer Services Centre, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.     

Visual control of step length during running over irregular terrain

Running over uneven ground requires visually regulating step length to secure proper footing. To examine how this is achieved, we studied subjects running on a treadmill on a series of irregularly spaced targets. The movements of their lower limbs and coccyx relative to the targets were monitored opto-electronically by a Selspot system. The results indicated that step length was adjusted to strike the targets primarily by varying the vertical component of impulse applied to the ground during the stance phase. In contrast, horizontal impulse was not varied significantly, and changing the reach forward of the foot on landing contributed little to variation in step length. Changing the vertical impulse simply altered the step time proportionately. Thus the data are consistent with a time-based model in which vertical impulse is modulated by the optic variable delta tau (Lee, 1976) specifying the time gap that has to be bridged by the runner between two targets.     

Type a behavior,field dependence,and hypervigilance: Toward increased Type A specificity

Field dependence and hypervigilance are two modes of sensory information processing that have been related to cardiovascular functioning. Two studies examined the relationship between these variables and Type A behavior. In both studies, Jenkins Activity Survey-defined Type A and B subjects were assessed for field dependence by the Embedded Figures Test (EFT) and then performed a size estimation task—the measure of hypervigilance. Results indicated that field-dependent Type A's were most hypervigilant. The possible contribution that perceptual style might make to the greater predictive specificity of Type A measures was discussed.Portions of this research were presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada, August 1984. The authors express their appreciation to Lois Haggard for the design of materials for Study II, and to Rick Smith and Kathy Connell for assistance in conducting Study II.     

Assessing depression in community samples of children using self-report inventories: Ethical considerations

Although the methodological problems associated with the use of children's self-report depression inventories have previously been discussed in detail, the ethical problems related to the use of these instruments have been largely ignored. The primary purpose of this survey study was to determine how childhood depression researchers have prepared for and responded to children from community (i.e., nonclinic) samples whose nonanonymous scores on self-report depression inventories have indicated that they might be severely depressed or suicidal. Several recommendations, based upon (a) the results of this survey study, (b) the existing literature relevant to the ethical responsibilities of investigators who conduct research with children, and (c) our own experiences with these instruments and populations, are made to assist researchers in their attempts to use these inventories in an ethical manner.The authors would like to thank those childhood depression researchers who were kind enough to return completed surveys.     

Attitudes to new technology in relation to social beliefs and group memberships: A preliminary investigation

Though the term “new technology” is widely used and discussed, there has been very little systematic study of attitudes to technology and their relation to other beliefs and group memberships. This article describes an initial investigation into the nature of attitudes towards new technology (n=534 undergraduates) and demonstrates that, as yet, these attitudes are only weakly structured and are not fully integrated with other social beliefs. General evaluations of the benefits of technological advance appear to be almost unrelated to beliefs about the inevitability of these advances or the desire to acquire training to deal with them. Contrary to popular expectations, evaluations of video games are unrelated to other beliefs about technology while other social beliefs are, as yet, only weakly integrated with these attitudes. This study also identifies gender differences in the assessment of potential benefits and highlights other differences attributable to academic group memberships. These finding are discussed with reference to the literature on sex-role stereotyping and group socialization processes.