Prosody instruction intervention as a means to improved reading comprehension

The relationship between prosody and comprehension, previously demonstrated in K–12 students, was examined in university students enrolled in first‐year writing classes. Students completed the Gray Oral Reading Test‐5 both before and after an expressive reading intervention (ER) or no oral reading instruction (NI). Throughout the semester, the ER students marked an excerpt of text for prosodic signals and read it aloud with a partner. Training and practice in expressive reading led to a significant improvement in the normed Oral Reading Index score. Specifically, ER participants demonstrated improved accuracy, fluency, and reading comprehension in comparison with NI participants. The significant relationship between accuracy and comprehension in the ER condition suggests that expressive reading instruction strengthened student ability to read words accurately and, in turn, comprehend the material better than students in the NI condition. Expressive reading practices are recommended to engage students more deeply with the text.     

AGGRESSIVE ENACTMENTS: CONTAINING THE “NO” IN CLINICAL WORK WITH SURVIVORS OF ABUSE

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - Identity development depends on the ability to say ‘no.’ Setting limits enables a relationship between two separate individuals to develop....     

Adolescent Readiness for Change and the Working Alliance in Counseling

The authors examined the relationship between readiness for change and the quality of the working alliance of adolescents (ages 14–18 years) and their counselors. As predicted, clients who were more ready for change had more positive alliances, particularly with respect to goal and task collaboration. There was also a trend toward the association of the maintenance or postchange stage with a weakened bond.     

Aging and working memory inside and outside the focus of attention: dissociations of availability and accessibility

Two experiments used the N-Back task to test for age differences in working memory inside and outside the focus of attention. Manipulations of the difficulty of item-context binding (Experiment 1) and of stimulus feature binding (Experiment 2) were used to create conditions that varied in their demand on working memory, with the expectation that greater demand might increase age differences in focus-switching costs and the search rate outside the focus of attention. Results showed, however, that although age differences were evident in measures of overall speed and accuracy, and the manipulations significantly affected response times and accuracy in the expected direction, the experimental manipulations had no impact on age differences. Findings instead pointed to age-related reductions in accuracy but not speed of focus-switching and search outside the focus of attention. Thus, age-related deficits appear to involve the availability of representations in working memory, but not their accessibility.     

The manifestation of transference during early psychotherapy sessions

Despite the clinical use of therapeutic transference across various schools of psychotherapy, there have been relatively few empirical studies of this phenomenon, none of which has examined transference with a non‐pathological population. In this study, the core conflictual relationship theme (CCRT) method was used to examine the manifestation of therapeutic transference in the first three sessions of 22 counselling contracts with high‐functioning individuals. Factor analyses of the wish (W) and response of other (RO) components of the CCRT indicate a complementary pattern of relating in which the therapist is idealised and others are devalued. Within the response of self (RS) component, clients exhibited a concordant relational transfer whereby they had a negative response to both the therapist and others. Additionally, control issues emerged in the W component for significant others and in the RS component for the therapist.     

Newborn temperament and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A comparison of victims and their cotwins

Temperament assessed in the newborn period was compared for four twin infants who subsequently died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and their surviving cotwins. The assessment focused on irritability, resistance to soothing, reactivity, reinforcement value, activity while awake, and activity during sleep. No differences were observed between cotwins on a combined irritability rating. SIDS victims, however, were less irritable than their siblings in response to aversive stimuli. When irritable, the SIDS infants were more difficult to soothe than their cotwins. While awake, SIDS infants were less active than their cotwins, but during sleep, no activity differences were observed. The SIDS infants were more reactive to orienting stimuli, and neither group was found to be more or less rewarding to the examiner. It was concluded that this study has helped to define behavioral variables that might be characteristic of infants whose subsequent deaths are attributed to SIDS.     

BODY, MOTHER, MIND: ANOREXIA, FEMININITY AND THE INTRUSIVE OBJECT

This paper takes as its starting point the preponderance of female to male patients who suffer from anorexia. The author suggests that there may be something specific about certain experiences of femaleness which predispose towards anxieties of intrusion. Two contemporary theories of the aetiology of anorexia are outlined. Both of these suggest that the problem has its origins in intrusion or invasion of different sorts. The author suggests that many women who suffer from anorexia have an intrusive object instated in their minds, which may not necessarily be the result of actual intrusions in external reality. In the final part of the paper, the author examines the intrusiveness of anorexic patients in the transference and suggests that such patients very often harbour profound phantasies of intruding between the parents, with a wish to regain their special place with mother, untroubled by the presence of father. It is further suggested that the psychopathology underlying certain cases of anorexia leads to a failure in symbolisation. This failure in turn complicates the clinical picture, making such patients particularly difficult to think with about their difficulties.     

Therapeutic Practices and Ethical Beliefs of Professionals Working With Adolescents in Residential Treatment

The authors investigated dual relationships between 2 groups of staff (direct care and professional) and adolescent clients in 2 residential treatment programs. Staff were surveyed on their behavior and corresponding ethical beliefs regarding interactions they believed to be acceptable with minor clients specifically at termination of the treatment program. Direct care staff were more likely than were professional staff to have inconsistencies in behaviors and ethical beliefs. The American Counseling Association's (1995) Code of Ethics would prohibit some of the staff beliefs regarding acceptable behavior. Both groups were uncertain about the ethical appropriateness of certain interactions with adolescent clients. Implications are discussed.     

'She Herself was the Ultimate Rule': Arabic biographies of missionary teachers and their pupils

Arabic biographies of missionary teachers and their pupils found in magazines published in Cairo and Beirut voice an indigenous perspective on missionary activity by educated women and men. The feelings of the missionaries' target population reveal a tension between local histories and foreign incursions as well as between female domesticity and professional aspirations. This larger imperial discourse informed worldwide missionary agendas for women at the turn of the twentieth century; however, the individual biographies cited within the paper demonstrate the personal interaction and effects on both foreign missionary and local women within their specific context through insightful Arab sources.     

The Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter scale: Reliability, known groups validity, and negativity of elementary school-age children's attitudes

Psychometric properties of the Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter (PATCS) scale (Langevin, M., & Hagler, P. (2004). Development of a scale to measure peer attitudes toward children who stutter. In A.K. Bothe (Ed.), Evidence-based treatment of stuttering: empirical bases and clinical applications (pp. 139–171). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.) and the extent to which peer attitudes are negative were re-examined. Results show that internal consistency was .97 and test–retest reliability was .85. In a known groups analysis participants who had contact with someone who stutters had statistically significant higher mean scores (more positive attitudes) than those who had not had contact. Nonsignificant findings for gender and grade call into question the usefulness of these variables as discriminators in future tests of known groups validity of peer attitudes toward children who stutter. Approximately one-fifth of participants had PATCS scores that were somewhat to very negative. These findings support calls for school-based education about stuttering.

Educational objectives

The reader will be able to: (1) summarize the social impacts of stuttering on school-age children who stutter, (2) describe the known groups method to test construct validity, (3) evaluate the psychometric properties of the Peer Attitudes Toward Children who Stutter scale, and (4) provide information about the proportion of students who appear to hold negative attitudes toward children who stutter.