Reading-disabled hyperactive children: A distinct subgroup of Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity?

Mixed hyperactive/reading-disabled children, selected from a large sample of hyperactive children, were compared to pure hyperactive children on demographic, behavioral, and neuropsychological measures. Children in the Mixed group were reading-disabled relative to age and IQ; those in the Pure group had achievement scores that were average relative to age and IQ. The Mixed group was significantly older than the Pure group; there were no differences in gender, race, or socioeconomic status. Behaviorally, the groups did not differ significantly on teacher ratings or on psychiatric ratings of aggression. The Mixed group had a significantly higher Performance IQ, whereas the Pure group had a significantly higher Verbal IQ and performed better on measures of cognitive impulsivity. Several other measures failed to distinguish the groups. The data give minimal support to the notion that pure hyperactive and mixed hyperative/reading-disabled children constitute distinct subgroups of Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity.This research was supported in part by Mental Health Clinical Research Grant MH-30906 and by U. S. Public Health Service Grant MH-18579.     

Telephone counseling and crisis intervention: A review

The empirical research pertaining to the effectiveness of telephone counseling and referral systems personnel was critically reviewed. The assessment was organized according to several evaluation strategies that researchers have utilized to evaluate effectiveness. These strategies included, for example, client self-reports, client "shows" versus "no-shows" following referral, data pertaining to suicide rates, counselor ratings of personal effectiveness, and phone workers' ability to offer empathy to clients. It was concluded that discussions of effectiveness should be constrained by a careful consideration of the specific index of efficacy chosen by investigators as well as methodological issues associated with current research in this area. There is reason to believe that the availability of telephone crisis services may be related to reduced suicide rates among young white females. Also, there is a significant need to empirically associate counseling technique and indices of effectiveness with substantive measures of client outcome in future research. Additional topics reviewed include the probable differential effectiveness of lay workers with various presenting problems of clients, and the role that training and maturity seem to play in successful interventions. Guidelines for the use of evaluation techniques which coincide with service goals are also offered.     

Stimulus selection in passive avoidance learning and retention: weanling, periadolescent, and young adult rats

Periadolescent rats exhibit a number of behavioral differences in comparison with younger or older animals. For instance, periadolescents tend to show enhanced acquisition of simple active avoidance tasks, but impaired acquisition of more complex appetitive and aversive discriminations. In this experiment, rats were trained on a simple passive avoidance task at one of three ages, as weanlings (25 days), periadolescents (35 days), or young adults (45 days). Training occurred in the presence of both a redundant discriminative stimulus and a specified, redundant contextual stimulus. The periadolescents did not differ from either younger or older rats in rate of learning the passive avoidance task. The retention performance of these animals was then tested following a change in either, neither, or both of the redundant cues. When a measure of performance that controls for baseline activity was used, it was observed that periadolescents were not disrupted by a change in the redundant discriminative stimulus, a cue change that clearly disrupted performance in 25- and 45-day-old animals, and tended to be more disrupted by the contextual change than younger or older rats. It is hypothesized that the alterations in performance exhibited by periadolescents may be related to an ontogenetic alteration in stimulus selection modulated by the catecholaminergic systems.     

The formalin test and the opioid nature of stress-induced analgesia

Exposure to electric shock produces an analgesic reaction (SIA) that is reversed by opiate antagonists ("opioid" SIA) under some conditions but not under other conditions ("nonopioid" SIA). A number of studies using tail-flick to radiant heat as the measure of pain sensitivity have found that a small number of shocks lead to nonopioid SIA, while a large number of shocks produce opioid SIA. In contrast, a small number of shocks have been reported to produce opioid SIA when the Formalin test was used to measure pain reactivity. However, the Formalin test involves administering a chronic pain stimulus (injection of Formalin into the paw) for an extended period before the shocks. Here it is reported that this "preexperimental" stress is sufficient to convert the SIA after a small number of shocks measured by tail-flick to the opioid form.