Teaching conversational speech to children with autism spectrum disorder using text‐message prompting

The present study was designed to teach conversational speech using text‐message prompts to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in home play settings with siblings and peers. A multiple baseline design across children was used. Children learned conversational speech through the text‐message prompts, and the behavior generalized across peers and settings. Maintenance of treatment gains was seen at 1‐month follow‐up probes. Social validity measures indicated that parents of typically developing children viewed the participants' conversational speech as much improved after the intervention. Results are discussed in terms of the efficacy of text‐message prompts as a promising way to improve conversational speech for children with ASD.     

Cattle discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics by using only head visual cues

Faces have features characteristic of the identity, age and sex of an individual. In the context of social communication and social recognition in various animal species, facial information is relevant for discriminating between familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Here, we present two experiments aimed at testing the ability of cattle (Bos taurus) to visually discriminate between heads (including face views) of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics represented as 2D images. In the first experiment, we observed the spontaneous behaviour of heifers when images of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics were simultaneously presented. Our results show that heifers were more attracted towards the image of a familiar conspecific (i.e., it was chosen first, explored more, and given more attention) than towards the image of an unfamiliar one. In the second experiment, the ability to discriminate between images of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics was tested using a food-rewarded instrumental conditioning procedure. Eight out of the nine heifers succeeded in discriminating between images of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics and in generalizing on the first trial to a new pair of images of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics, suggesting a categorization process of familiar versus unfamiliar conspecifics in cattle. Results of the first experiment and the observation of ear postures during the learning process, which was used as an index of the emotional state, provided information on picture processing in cattle and lead us to conclude that images of conspecifics were treated as representations of real individuals.     

Transitive inference in adults with autism spectrum disorders

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) exhibit intact rote learning with impaired generalization. A transitive inference paradigm, involving training on four sequentially presented stimulus pairs containing overlapping items, with subsequent testing on two novel pairs, was used to investigate this pattern of learning in 27 young adults with ASDs and 31 matched neurotypical individuals (TYPs). On the basis of findings about memory and neuropathology, we hypothesized that individuals with ASDs would use a relational flexibility/conjunctive strategy reliant on an intact hippocampus, versus an associative strength/value transfer strategy requiring intact interactions between the prefrontal cortex and the striatum. Hypotheses were largely confirmed. ASDs demonstrated reduced interference from intervening pairs in early training; only TYPs formed a serial position curve by test; and ASDs exhibited impairments on the novel test pair consisting of end items with intact performance on the inner test pair. However, comparable serial position curves formed for both groups by the end of the first block.     

Stability of Early Identified Aggressive Victim Status in Elementary School and Associations with Later Mental Health Problems and Functional Impairments

Aggressive victims—children who are both perpetrators and victims of peer aggression—experience greater concurrent mental health problems and impairments than children who are only aggressive or only victimized. The stability of early identified aggressive victim status has not been evaluated due to the fact that most studies of aggressor/victim subgroups have focused on preadolescents and/or adolescents. Further, whether children who exhibit early and persistent patterns of aggression and victimization continue to experience greater mental health problems and functional impairments through the transition to adolescence is not known. This study followed 344 children (180 girls) previously identified as socially adjusted, victims, aggressors, or aggressive victims at Grade 1 (Burk et al. 2008) to investigate their involvement in peer bullying through Grade 5. The children, their mothers, and teachers reported on children’s involvement in peer aggression and victimization at Grades 1, 3, and 5; and reported on internalizing symptoms, externalizing symptoms, inattention and impulsivity, as well as academic functioning, physical health, and service use at Grades 5, 7, and 9. Most children categorized as aggressive victims in Grade 1 continued to be significantly involved in peer bullying across elementary school. Children with recurrent aggressive victim status exhibited higher levels of some mental health problems and greater school impairments across the adolescent transition when compared to other longitudinal peer status groups. This study suggests screening for aggressive victim status at Grade 1 is potentially beneficial. Further early interventions may need to be carefully tailored to prevent and/or attenuate later psychological, academic, and physical health problems.     

The appeal of vague financial forecasts

Prior findings suggest managers often choose ranges to communicate uncertainty in future earnings. We analyzed earnings forecasts over 11 years and find higher earnings uncertainty firms are more likely to choose range estimates. We study investors’ attitudes to forecast precision and argue investors’ evaluations of forecasts can be explained by a sequential non-compensatory two-stage process – First, investors determine whether a point or a range estimate is more appropriate for a particular domain based on the congruence principle. Then, they seek the most precise reasonable range to maximize informativeness. Results from three experiments indicate the preference for (im)precision is non-monotonic – it peaks for low levels of imprecision and diminishes when the range gets wider, and is consistent with participants’ desire for congruent and informative estimates, and supports the claim that investors favor forecasts that are as precise as warranted by the information available, but not more precise.     

The role of production abilities in the perception of consonant category in infants

The influence of motor knowledge on speech perception is well established, but the functional role of the motor system is still poorly understood. The present study explores the hypothesis that speech production abilities may help infants discover phonetic categories in the speech stream, in spite of coarticulation effects. To this aim, we examined the influence of babbling abilities on consonant categorization in 6‐ and 9‐month‐old infants. Using an intersensory matching procedure, we investigated the infants’ capacity to associate auditory information about a consonant in various vowel contexts with visual information about the same consonant, and to map auditory and visual information onto a common phoneme representation. Moreover, a parental questionnaire evaluated the infants’ consonantal repertoire. In a first experiment using /b/–/d/ consonants, we found that infants who displayed babbling abilities and produced the /b/ and/or the /d/ consonants in repetitive sequences were able to correctly perform intersensory matching, while non‐babblers were not. In a second experiment using the /v/–/z/ pair, which is as visually contrasted as the /b/–/d/ pair but which is usually not produced at the tested ages, no significant matching was observed, for any group of infants, babbling or not. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that the emergence of babbling could play a role in the extraction of vowel‐independent representations for consonant place of articulation. They have important implications for speech perception theories, as they highlight the role of sensorimotor interactions in the development of phoneme representations during the first year of life.     

Schizophrenia,psychoeducation and group psychoanalysis: Contributions and limitations

Schizophrenia involves difficulties with aspects of relating that make traditional psychotherapeutic practices more difficult. Drawing on the observation of a psychoeducation group comprising 10 patients with schizophrenia (primarily paranoid schizophrenia) we highlight group processes that help show how the conduct of psychoeducational groups can benefit from a group therapy approach. In the research example discussed, we review a psychoeducation group which took place over a period of one year at a day hospital, facilitated by professionals trained in psychoanalytic group psychotherapy.     

Predictors of Religiosity Among Youth Aged 17–22: A Longitudinal Study of the National Survey of Children

Predictors of youth religiosity were developed from eight domains: childhood training, religious schooling, cognitive ability, psychodynamic need, parenting style, role models, family life cycle, and background demographics. Data are from the National Survey of Children (NSC). Predictors were assessed when participants were 7–11 and 11–16 years of age. Religiosity was assessed when participants were 17–22 years (N = 1,046). After identifying the best predictors within a domain, an across-domain regression analysis was conducted to determine the predictors' relative contributions. The best predictors of youth religiosity were ethnicity and peers' church attendance during high school. Other predictors were, in order of decreasing magnitude: residence in the south, gender, religious schooling during childhood, maternal religiosity, church attendance during childhood, the importance mothers placed on childhood religious training, and an interaction variable identifying religious mothers who were very supportive. These analyses attest to the primacy of religious role models in the development of youth religiosity.     

Assessing Perceptions of Sexual Harassment Behaviors in a Manufacturing Environment

This pilot study, conducted in a manufacturing plant, investigated employee perceptions of the behaviors of supervisors and co-workers that constitute quid pro quo and hostile work environment sexual harassment. Responses indicated that the majority of employees can accurately identify behaviors that are frequently associated with quid pro quo harassment, but cannot identify behaviors that are used to establish evidence of a hostile work environment. Comparisons of employees' scores demonstrated that male workers, relative to female workers, were more frequently accurate in identifying behaviors of both supervisors and co-workers that constitute sexual harassment. Perceptions of harassment varied according to job classification. Women in white-collar jobs were significantly more knowledgeable about what behaviors constitute sexual harassment than women in blue-collar jobs.     

Preschoolers' inhibition in their home: relation to temperament

Researchers assessed 58 preschoolers' reactions to an unfamiliar person and unfamiliar objects in their familiar home environment. Children participated in a 30-min procedure designed to elicit behavioral inhibition, including (a) a free-play period with a stranger present, (b) a structured interaction with the stranger, and (c) uncertainty-eliciting tasks. Behaviors representing the child's reactions toward the mother, stranger, and novel objects were coded. Mothers completed a temperament scale. Preschoolers exhibited behaviors indicative of inhibition toward unfamiliar social and nonsocial stimuli; behaviors remained stable across increasingly intrusive episodes. The approach/withdrawal component of temperament was related to behavioral inhibition. Individual differences in mood did not appear to be related to differences in inhibition. Parent reported temperament was related to researcher-observed behaviors.