Indiscriminate mothering as a contextual factor in aggressive-oppositional child behavior: “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t”

Fifty-two mother-child dyads took part in a parent training program to modify coercive, antisocial child behavior. Prior to intervention, scores on 14 measures of mother-child interaction and on an index of maternal community contacts (known as insularity) were obtained for each dyad. This index was used to divide the sample into two groups (noninsular) n=21; insular n=31). The interactional measures were then compared between the groups. Insular mothers were more aversive and indiscriminate than noninsular mothers in their use of aversive behavior toward their children, while their children were more aversive than noninsular children, especially in response to aversive maternal behavior. It was concluded that research and therapeutic work with deviant families should focus not only on immediate family interactions but also on the extrafamily environment in which these interactions take place.The research data reported in this paper were generated with support of Grant No. R01-1068-58 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Crime and Delinquency Section. The first author conducted the research while supported by a grant from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research.     

How much is an icon worth?

We report a new technique for assessing the amount of information extracted from the icon that follows a briefly presented picture. The problem of how to measure such information was formulated in terms of how much physical exposure of a picture an icon is worth. Consider two types of stimulus presentations, each with a base duration of d ms. The first is a d-ms picture followed by an icon, and the second is a d + a-ms picture not followed by an icon. How large does a have to be so that equivalent amounts of information are extracted in the two cases? To answer this question, we showed people pictures and later tested their memory for the pictures. We found that the physical exposure duration needed to reach a particular level of performance was approximately 100 ms longer when an icon was not permitted versus when the icon was permitted. This value was independent of the base duration and the luminance of the picture. Moreover, the same value was obtained using three different kinds of memory test and four different sets of pictures. We conclude that an icon is worth approximately 100 ms of additional physical exposure duration. A reasonable explanation for this robust equivalence between icon and stimulus is that the same encoding processes are responsible for extracting information from the icon and from the physical stimulus. Therefore, any variable that affects these encoding processes must affect extraction of information from the icon and the physical stimulus in an identical manner. This prediction was confirmed for one such variable, picture luminance.     

Enhancing self-perception through bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy has been used for generations by professionals in medicine, psychology, counseling, social work, and education. A selected review of the literature is provided to show how bibliotherapy was used in the past and how it is currently employed to implement and facilitate self-identification and to enhance self-perception. Researchers concur that the process of providing pupils with carefully monitored literature will result in positive or negative changes in their self-perception.     

Keeping juvenile delinquents in school: a prediction model

The purpose of this study was to test an empirically based prediction model of school dropout on a sample of 137 juvenile delinquents, some who have dropped out and some who have remained in school. The specific factors among the many found in previous research that are salient for predicting whether delinquent youths will drop out or remain in school were determined. An important finding of this study is that it required only four factors to yield a high level of prediction: misbehavior in school, disliking school, the negative influence of peers with respect to dropping out and getting into trouble, and a marginal or weak relationship with parents. The four factors identified create a model that is directly applicable to prevention strategies and is extremely parsimonious.     

Adolescent pregnancy: effects of family support, education, and religion on the decision to carry or terminate among Puerto Rican teenagers

Why do some pregnant teenagers decide to carry to term while others terminate their pregnancy? This study examined the influence of family relationships and support, religion, and education on the decision to carry or to abort. A nonrandom sample of 43 pregnant Puerto Rican teenagers (21 who carried and 22 who aborted) were interviewed in 1982 using a 34-item interview schedule. It was found that girls in the carry group were more significantly influenced and supported by family and friends than were those in the abort group. Fathers were the least influential persons in both carry and abort groups, while mothers were the most influential in the carry group, and sisters in the abort group. Brothers, boyfriends, and best friends were more influential for carry girls than for abort girls. Contrary to expectations, girls in the abort group reported a greater degree of religiosity than did those in the carry group. Further, girls who received strong support from family and friends reported a higher degree of satisfaction with their decision than did those who received less support. Finally, girls in the abort group were more likely to continue their education than were those in the carry group. Overall, the findings of this study have immediate implications for research and counseling services. Practitioners should focus on the girls in conjunction with their families in order to achieve better results in both treatment and preventive services.     

A longitudinal study of the development of spatial conceptual ability

During October and November of 1983, three subsamples were selected from three schools in Mesa, Arizona: 34 students in 6th grade, 34 students in 8th grade, and 34 students in 10th grade. A battery of Piagetian-type tasks were individually and randomly administered to each subject. Seven tasks examined projective spatial conceptual abilities, and three tasks examined Euclidean abilities. The same battery of tasks was again administered to the same subjects during November and December of 1984 when all the subjects were in the next grade, that is, 7th, 9th, and 11th. Because of attrition, the number of students tested during the second year were 33, 30, and 28, respectively. To test for significant differences between grade levels, a chi-square one-sample procedure was used. Out of a possible 50 tasks, significant differences were detected in 36 (72%). Those findings, along with an examination of the percentage of students passing each task, support the notion of sequential development of spatial conceptual abilities.     

SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON “SELF-STIMULATORY” BEHAVIOR: ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT APPLICATION

We tested the hypothesis that the “self-stimulatory” behaviors exhibited by some individuals may be socially mediated. Four developmentally disabled children who exhibited hand flapping and body rocking participated in a series of three experiments conducted to assess the influence of social variables on stereotyped behavior and to develop a treatment based on the assessment. Experiment 1 used an assessment procedure to determine the relative influences of social attention and task demands on stereotyped behavior. For all four children, hand flapping and body rocking increased when difficult academic tasks were introduced. Experiment 2 involved the use of a procedural time-out and demonstrated that removing task demands contingent on stereotyped behavior resulted in increased rates of hand flapping and body rocking. In Experiment 3, these results were used to develop a communication treatment that consisted of teaching the children to request assistance on the difficult tasks. This treatment resulted in significant reductions in self-stimulatory behavior. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that some forms of repetitive stereotyped behavior may come to serve social functions (e.g., escape from aversive situations). Teaching a functionally equivalent communicative alternative to escape-motivated stereotyped behavior can be an effective form of intervention for this problem.     

Unprogrammed effects of training high-status peers to interact with severely handicapped children.

We examined the effects of a peer initiation intervention with high- and low-status nonhandicapped students on the behavior of untrained peers toward handicapped students. In the context of a counterbalanced withdrawal design, high- and low-status nonhandicapped students were taught to direct social initiations to eight severely handicapped students during recess activities. The interactions of the high-status students resulted in higher levels of initiations by untrained peers toward the handicapped students than did the interactions of the low-status students. Social response levels were also differentially affected by the status of the peer initiator.