Life review in pastoral counseling: background and efficacy for use with the terminally ill

Research continues to confirm that sharing one's life story through the process of life review enhances psychological well-being and increases life satisfaction. Although researchers have outlined techniques and activities that may be used in life review with older adults, little work has focused on the use of life review methods with terminally ill patients. Additionally, researchers have suggested that life review can take on the form of a spiritual assessment; and that such spiritually oriented life reviews may enhance a sense of meaning and foster reconciliation as one approaches dying. In this article, the authors provide a brief review of the research on and the practice of life review. Further, by merging concepts of life review with systematic theology, they offer a sample instrument--using the example of one faith framework--with which pastoral caregivers can better approach the spiritual needs of patients and facilitate a less traumatic death in the terminally ill.     

The development of explicit memory for basic perceptual features

In three experiments with 164 individuals between 4 and 80 years old, we examined age-related changes in explicit memory for three perceptual features--item identity, color, and location. In Experiments 1-2, feature recognition was assessed in an incidental learning, gamelike task resembling the game Concentration. In Experiment 3, feature recognition was assessed using a pencil-and-paper task after intentional learning instructions. The form of the explicit memory function across the life span varied with the particular perceptual feature tested and the type of task. Item recognition was excellent at all ages but was significantly poorer for older adults than children, color recognition peaked in late childhood on the gamelike task, and location recognition peaked in early adulthood on the pencil-and-paper task. These findings indicate that performance on explicit memory tests is not a consistent inverted U-shaped function of age across various features. Explicit memory performance depends on what is measured and how. Because explicit memory typically reflects a composite of different features, age-related changes in explicit memory will not necessarily correspond to the function for any single one.     

Assessment of Reading and Learning Disabilities A Research-Based Intervention-Oriented Approach

Assessment practices for children with learning disabilities (LD) in reading are driven by the three primary components of the federal definition of LD: discrepancy, heterogeneity, and exclusion. This article reviews the implications of these three components for the assessment of children with reading disabilities and other forms of LD. We propose a rationale and procedures for more efficient approaches to the identification of children as learning disabled in reading or at-risk for these disabilities that are aligned with research on reading disabilities and other forms of LD. This approach emphasizes the assessment of academic skills and their components in an effort to develop intervention plans. Intelligence tests are not necessary for the identification of children as learning disabled and do not contribute to intervention planning.     

Ecocultural bias in culture-specific intelligence tests in an ecologically diverse culture: The Philippines

In an ecologically diverse society (the Philippines), measurement equivalence across ecological settings was investigated with two culture-specific intelligence tests. Comparative reliability and factor analyses indicated that the tests (one for preschoolers, one for adults) were measuring the same ability dimensions equally reliably within each setting. Across settings, however, delta-plot analyses revealed considerable bias at the item level in tests of crystallized abilities, and the preschool tests tended to favor children from the setting where the tests were developed. The results are interpreted in terms of an ecocultural framework in which group differences in intellectual performance can reflect not only actual ability differences but differences in practice with, and exposure to, particular environmental stimuli and/or cognitive skills. The study demonstrates: (a) the need, particularly in ecologically diverse and segmented societies, to inspect tests for item bias; (b) the difficulty of culturally “equating” cognitive measures, even for very similar cultural subgroups who differ primarily in ecological setting.     

Abstract categorization ability as a predictor of learning disability classification

Based on a theoretical analysis of the type of cognitive processing that should be sensitive to population differences, this study evaluated the diagnostic validity of a task measuring abstract categorization ability in six-, seven-, and eight-year-old learning disabled (LD) and non-LD peers. This research is part of a project, the major goal of which is the development of a cognitive-based preschool screening test for the early detection of children who may subsequently fail in school. Diagnostic validity is being evaluated within the context of the research strategy we have adopted. Data are presented that demonstrate that the component of abstract category knowledge that best discriminates LD children from non-LD peers, is knowledge of how members of abstract categories differ from each other. This is consistent with a priori predictions from theory.     

Early information processing among infants with and without spina bifida

This study focuses on the development of early visual information processing among infants with spina bifida (SB) compared to typically developing infants using the habituation–dishabituation paradigm. Analyses were conducted in two stages. First infants were evaluated to determine if 18-month old infants (SB = 47; Control = 40) differed in their ability to shift attention and habituate to two female faces, as well as their responses to composite and novel stimuli. Second, relations between these variables and infant motor and mental functioning were evaluated. The results of the study indicated that difficulties with visual attention skills can be detected as early as 18 months of age among infants with SB. Infants with SB differed significantly from controls on attention getting. Although there were no differences found on habituation and composite tasks, infants with SB differed significantly from controls on their ability to dishabituate. Implications are discussed.     

Matching in an undisturbed natural human environment

Data from the Oregon Youth Study, consisting of the verbal behavior of 210 adolescent boys determined to be at risk for delinquency (targets) and 210 of their friends (peers), were analyzed for their conformance to the complete family of matching theory equations in light of recent findings from the basic science, and using recently developed analytic techniques. Equations of the classic and modern theories of matching were fitted as ensembles to rates and time allocations of the boys' rule-break and normative talk obtained from conversations between pairs of boys. The verbal behavior of each boy in a conversation was presumed to be reinforced by positive social responses from the other boy. Consistent with recent findings from the basic science, the boys' verbal behavior was accurately described by the modern but not the classic theory of matching. These findings also add support to the assertion that basic principles and processes that are known to govern behavior in laboratory experiments also govern human social behavior in undisturbed natural environments.