Frequent Versus Non-frequent Prompts and Task Performance in Persons with Severe Intellectual Disability

Abstract

This study extended the evaluation of frequent vs non-frequent prompts to support task performance with people with severe intellectual disability. Three participants were involved in the study. The data indicated that the frequent prompts strategy promoted higher levels of on-task behaviour and correct responding for 2 participants and on-task behaviour for 1 participant. The relation of these data with previous findings and their implications for daily occupation programmes for persons with severe developmental disabilities are discussed     

What will the future bring? Thoughts of children after missile bombardment

Abstract

We examined how cognitive views of the future relate to degree of exposure to trauma and to posttraumatic stress reactions in children. Following the experience of Scud missile bombardment during the Persian Gulf war, 492 Israeli pupils from grades 5, 7, and 10 from regions actually hit and from regions under threat but not hit, described what they thought life would be like next year for children of their age. Based on recent cognitive theories, it was expected that children who experienced higher levels of stress would also express more pessimistic views of the future. We found that children's dominant perception of the future was positive. However, children who expressed stronger postwar reactions also tended to have more pessimistic future views, especially in areas that were hit by missiles. Discussion focused upon views of the future as a direct consequence of the stress as well as a means of coping with stress.     

The Relation of Parent and Child Gender to Parental Tolerance of Child Disruptive Behaviors

Parental tolerance has been defined as the degree to which a parent tends to be annoyed by his or her child’s disruptive behavior. The purpose of the current study is to examine the relation of both parent and child gender to parental tolerance of child disruptive behaviors. Participants were 150 parents with 3–6 year-old at-risk children (47.5 % girls) who sought help with parenting of their child’s oppositional defiant behaviors. Tolerance was measured by the difference between parent ratings of intensity on 36 disruptive behaviors and whether each behavior was identified as a problem (resulting in a score of either high, expected, or low tolerance). A 2 (child gender) by 2 (parent gender) analysis of variance was conducted on the tolerance score. A significant interaction between child and parent gender emerged: Mothers were equally tolerant of boys’ and girls’ oppositional defiant behavior but fathers were more tolerant of boys’ than girls’ oppositional behavior. Exploratory analyses suggested that this interaction may be qualified by clinical status of the child. Implications and future directions are discussed.     

The Challenge of Christian Schooling in a Secular Society

This article evaluates the position of Christian schooling within a liberal democracy and the rights of Christians within a secular state. I challenge the fundamental liberal tenet of individual autonomy as the supreme goal of education and put the case that Christian schools are a vital part of a diverse, tolerant and inclusive society. Although intended as a theoretical resource, current developments in faith-based education in the United Kingdom are used to exemplify important political and philosophical arguments that will be of value to Christian educators in the United States and elsewhere.     

THE EFFECT OF RESPONSE EFFORT ON COMPLIANCE IN YOUNG CHILDREN

We evaluated the effect of response effort on compliance with three children who exhibited noncompliance when asked to relinquish a preferred toy. Participants were given access to a preferred toy and then asked to place the toy in a toy bin, which was located either 0.3 m (low effort) or 3 m (high effort) away. We used a reversal design to evaluate the effect of the effort manipulation. Compliance by all three participants was sensitive to the effort manipulation. In addition, compliance by two participants maintained as the distance required to comply with instructions was systematically increased. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sociality and optimal functioning

We propose the existence of corporate constructs (specialized techniques and forms of thought). Corporate constructs are not social constructs, and the idea of a corporate construct does not contradict Kelly's requirement that an individual is a site of decision making. We explore the differences between conceptions of personal and social constructs, highlighting some of their limitations. Corporate constructs are suggested as a way of dealing with these limitations.     

A REVIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOLOGY TO STAMMERING THERAPY

In the wake of Fransella's (1972) seminal application of Kellyian ideas to the understanding of stammering, the impact of personal construct psychology (PCP) upon speech and language therapists working in this area has been significant. This article reviews the literature and considers the developments in the management of stammering wrought through the application of PCP. A number of key issues relating to the meshing of traditional speech therapy methods and PCP are discussed and these are illustrated further by a specific personal clinical experience.     

Strengthening encoding via implementation intention formation increases prospective memory commission errors

Prospective memory refers to the ability to remember to execute future intentions (e.g., taking medication with dinner). Although most prior research on prospective memory errors has focused on omission errors (i.e., failures to perform an intention in response to a target cue), there has been a recent surge in research on commission errors, the erroneous performance of a finished intention. Existing studies have examined factors at retrieval that lead to commission errors; the present study extends this research by investigating the impact of encoding strength. We found that relative to standard encoding, implementation intention encoding doubled the risk of commission errors in our laboratory paradigm for both young and older adults. This novel finding demonstrates the impact of encoding strength on commission errors and documents the potential challenges of deactivating the effects of implementation intentions upon completion of a prospective memory task.     

Caring for Carers in the Aftermath of Trauma

The potential impact on psychological well-being of working in the caring professions in the aftermath of trauma and disaster has been recognized for many years, with terms such as burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious traumatization coined to describe stress-related conditions. Although prevalent, these conditions do not affect all workers in the field. Various studies have investigated potential risk and protective factors. It is argued that the outcomes of this research should be used to guide practical interventions in the workplace designed to minimize stress-related problems. A framework that incorporates interventions at the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention levels is outlined, and research investigating the efficacy of interventions at each of these levels is recommended.     

Multisensory self‐motion encoding in parietal cortex

Navigation through the environment requires the brain to process a number of incoming sensory signals, such as visual optical flow on the retina and motion information originating from the vestibular organs. In addition, tactile as well as auditory signals can help to disambiguate the continuous stream of incoming information and determining the signals resulting from one's own set of motion. In this review I will focus on the cortical processing of motion information in one subregion of the posterior parietal cortex, i.e., the ventral intraparietal area (VIP). I will review (1) electrophysiological data from single cell recordings in the awake macaque showing how self‐motion signals across different sensory modalities are represented within this area and (2) data from fMRI recordings in normal human subjects providing evidence for the existence of a functionally equivalent area of macaque area VIP in the human cortex.