The training of telephone crisis intervention volunteers

Telephone crisis intervention services are growing at a very rapid rate. A review of the literature reveals that there are very few references to this new phenomenon and even fewer that deal with evaluating the effectiveness of telephone crisis training. Herein 7 articles are reviewed which deal with volunteer selection and training. These articles demonstrate that no consistent rationale for volunteer selection or training exists. Selection of volunteers typically consists of a gross screening to eliminate any obviously unsuitable persons, with training serving as a further sorting procedure where volunteers who are uncomfortable with the role of a crisis interventionist can be encouraged to drop out. The authors suggest that a training model be built around crisis intervention theory using principles of social learning as the methodology for training.     

A developmental study of semantic effects on recognition memory

Three experiments evaluated color specificity knowledge and related semantic effects on recognition memory. Experiment I provided the necessary baseline data to show that preschool and college students know the appropriate color of objects. Experiment II revealed semantic effects on recognition of children but not adults. In Experiment III a delay was introduced and adults showed semantic effects as well. The chroma of color-specific and non-color-specific items was remembered relatively well, although chroma recognition for these item types was somewhat different. The semantic effects on very young children's memory suggest deep level interpretive processing in children younger than those generally showing deliberate deployment of memory strategies.     

Establishing stimulus equivalences among retarded adolescents.

Two separate sets of stimuli were established as stimulus classes in a match-to-sample task by using each stimulus as both a sample and choice stimulus for every other member within that set. After classes were established, the subjects were taught to select one member of each class when an associated auditory stimulus was presented. After this training, three of six subjects were able to select the remaining members of each stimulus class in response to the appropriate auditory stimuli without direct training. The other three subjects also demonstrated transfer after additional members of each stimulus class were brought under the control of the auditory stimuli through direct training.     

Toilet training,cueing, praise,and self-cleaning in the treatment of classroom encopresis: A case study

This study was designed to ameliorate encopresis in a 6-year-old male child in the school setting. The procedure consisted of toilet training, cueing, praise, and self-cleaning. Prior to intervention, encopresis was a daily event at home and school. The intervention was successful in reducing the soiling to near zero at school, with no reported changes at home. Implications discussed for school psychologists were: (a) handling the intervention through a consultation model, (b) using the simplest approach before attempting more powerful procedures, and (c) attempting treatment in spite of the fact that other treatment attempts at home had been unsuccessful.     

Optimal choice of rater teams II: Applications

In a previous paper [Elashoff 1969], we derived optimal rater teams for a particular formulation of the dichotomous rater problem. Here, we describe a computer-based procedure for selecting good rater teams in practice; we apply the procedure to the selection of items for a psychological inventory. This research was supported in part by the author's predoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health and by National Science Foundation Grant GS-341, and National Institutes of Health Grants FR-3 and FR-122.     

Changes in the visual threshold as a function of subception

In a previous paper (Dixon, 1958b) one of the authors reported an experiment which suggested that apparent changes in the threshold for one eye occur as a function of the emotionality of stimulus material presented below threshold to the other eye. The following experiment describes an attempt to investigate further the validity of this conclusion. The results are consistent with those from the previous research.     

MULTIPLE TREATMENT INTERFERENCE IN THE ALTERNATING TREATMENTS DESIGN AS A FUNCTION OF THE INTERCOMPONENT INTERVAL LENGTH

In experimental designs requiring the administration of more than one treatment to the same subject(s), the effect of one treatment may be influenced by the effect of another treatment (Campbell & Stanley, 1963), a phenomenon known as multiple treatment interference. We conducted two studies in which multiple treatment interference in an alternating treatments design was shown to be a function of the length of the intercomponent interval (ICI) separating treatment conditions. In the first study, we evaluated the effects of four different treatments on the mouthing of a severely retarded boy. Under a 1-min ICI no consistent differential responding to treatment was obtained. Differential responding emerged when the ICI was increased from 1 min to 120 min, thus suggesting multiple treatment interference in the lack of differential responding under a 1-min changeover interval. Functional control of the nondifferential and differential responding as a function of the ICI length was replicated in a reversal phase. In the second study, we compared two treatment procedures for the disruptive noncompliant behavior of a moderately retarded boy. Multiple treatment interference (i.e., the lack of differential responding) occurred with the 1-min intercomponent interval. An increase to a 120-min ICI again resulted in differential responding. A replication of multiple treatment interference by a reversal to a short interval phase was not achieved in the second subject. Results of this study support much of the basic literature on discrimination and multiple treatment interference. Major findings of this study are twofold: Multiple treatment interference can depend on the length of the changeover interval between treatments and multiple treatment interference can take the form of a lack of differential responding to various treatments. Implications for future research are discussed.