THE EFFECTS OF CONSUMER CHARACTERISTICS AND TYPE OF EMPLOYMENT MODEL ON INDIVIDUAL OUTCOMES IN SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT

Although recent federal legislation has led to a proliferation of supported employment programs throughout the country, little information is available that documents the success of these programs. In the present study, we examined the effect of different consumer characteristics and alternative supported employment service delivery models on key employment outcomes including hourly wage, hours worked per week, increase in earnings after supported employment participation, and level of integration on the job. The employment outcomes of a sample of 1,550 individuals receiving supported employment services through 96 local programs in eight states were analyzed to determine the effects of the key independent variables of primary disability and type of employment model. Results indicate that all groups of individuals, regardless of their primary disability, benefited significantly from supported employment participation. Further, data indicate that the individual placement model generated employment outcomes superior to those resulting from group employment options, particularly work crews. Implications of the results for future program development activities are discussed.     

Memory load and latency in recognition of pictures

Color photographs of common scenes were used as memory and test items in two memory search experiments. Memory load varied from 2 to 24 items in one experiment and from 4 to 64 in the other. Latency of classification of test items increased with memory load. The increase is verb’ close to linear for loads up to six items, but for the full range of memory loads, it is negatively accelerated and approximately logarithmic. Sternberg’s (1966, 1969) serial theory of memory search, which predicts linear functions, holds for small memory loads of pictures. If serial search takes place for large memory loads, the speed of search must be faster than for small loads. It is also possible that items in memory loads of all sizes are accessed by a single process that generates a negatively accelerated relation between size of load and latency.     

Semantic congruity and expectancy as separate processes

In two experiments, we investigated the role of expectancy in producing congruity effects in comparative judgment. In Experiment 1, instructions to choose the larger or smaller term either preceded pairs for comparative judgment or preceded individual words for lexical decision. If expectancy in interpreting the comparative judgment terms accounts for the congruity effect, the lexical decision task also should show a congruity effect. However, there were large congruity effects in comparative judgment but not in lexical decision. In this experiment, we used an infiniteset design to make sure that semantic information was needed on comparative judgment trials. In Experiment 2, comparative judgment pairs were preceded by a prime word that either was or was not a category label for the terms in the pairs. There were both congruity and priming effects, with no interaction between the two. This result implies that expectancy and the semanticcongruity effect come from separate processes.     

婴儿视觉发展

本文回顾的经验研究表明了在发展研究中的两个普通和有用的观察结果:①刚出生时有一些能力已经成熟,另外一些则还不成熟。②不同的能力以不同的速度得到发展。具体讲,刚出生时的时间分辨力相当好,随后又迅速发展,2个月时就达到成人水平。另一方面,刚出生时空间分辨力和对比感受性很差,发展又相对缓慢,直到6个月时还没有达到成人水平。空间视觉的这种早期缺陷可能造成其它视觉能力的早期缺陷,如调节、辐合和立体视觉的缺陷。     

Warder Clyde Allee and the Chicago School of Animal Behavior

Warder Clyde Allee, (1885-1955) was a pioneer American scientist in the fields of ecology and animal behavior. His contributions to the development of a general animal sociology are discussed, with particular attention to his concept of animal cooperation and his research in the area of dominance hierarchies.     

A Comparison of Written,Vocal, and Video Feedback When Training Teachers

We compared the effectiveness of and preference for different feedback strategies when training six special education teachers during a 5-day summer training program. In Experiment 1, teachers received written or vocal feedback while learning to implement two different types of preference assessments. In Experiment 2, we compared either written or vocal feedback to vocal feedback combined with video replays of performance while training the teachers to implement two variations of discrete-trial training. The different forms of feedback were similarly effective for all of the participants. However, all of the teachers showed a preference for vocal feedback when they could choose which form of feedback they would receive from the experimenter. Results have important implications for the use of feedback when training teachers.