Academic and clinical education in fluency disorders: an update

This paper presents a survey of the academic and clinical education in fluency disorders provided by American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)-accredited training programs. Respondents were 159 programs (out of 256, return rate = 67.4%) that completed a questionnaire seeking information about the courses and clinical experiences they require, the expertise of their faculty and supervisors, changes following the 1993 modification of training requirements for the ASHA certificate of clinical competence (CCC), and preliminary plans for changes in preparation for the 2005 standards. Results, which supplement findings from an earlier survey distributed in 1997 (Yaruss, 1999), indicated that nearly one-quarter of programs allow students to graduate without coursework in fluency disorders, and nearly two-thirds allow students to graduate without clinical practicum experiences. Findings suggest a trend toward fewer required classes taught by less experienced faculty, fewer clinical hours guided by less experienced supervisors, and a greater likelihood that students will graduate without any academic or clinical education in fluency disorders. Given the repeated finding that many speech-language pathologists are uncomfortable working with people who stutter, as well as ASHA's apparent de-emphasis of fluency disorders within the increasing scope of practice in the field of speech-language pathology, these results are a cause for concern about the future of fluency disorders. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about (1) the coursework and clinical practicum experiences that are currently required for students in ASHA-accredited training programs; (2) trends indicating a reduction in training requirements for fluency disorders; and (3) ways of improving these requirements.     

Sex Under Pressure: Jerks,Boorish Behavior,and Gender Hierarchy

Pressuring someone into having sex would seem to differ in significant ways from pressuring someone into investing in one’s business or buying an expensive bauble. In affirming this claim, I take issue with a recent essay by Sarah Conly (‘Seduction, Rape, and Coercion’, Ethics, October 2004), who thinks that pressuring into sex can be helpfully evaluated by analogy to these other instances of using pressure. Drawing upon work by Alan Wertheimer, the leading theorist of coercion, she argues that so long as pressuring does not amount to coercing someone into having sex, her consent to sex answers the important ethical questions about it. In this essay, I argue that to understand the real significance of pressuring into sex, we need to appeal to background considerations, especially the male-dominant gender hierarchy, which renders sexual pressuring different from its non-sexual analogues. Treating pressure to have sex like any other sort of interpersonal pressure obscures the role such sexual pressure might play in supporting gender hierarchy, and fails to explain why pressure by men against women is more problematic than pressure by women against men. I suggest that men pressuring women to have sex differs from the reverse case because of at least two factors: (1) gendered social institutions which add to the pressures against women, and (2) the greater likelihood that men, not women, will use violence if denied, and the lesser ability of women compared to men to resist such violence without harm. I would like to thank Marcia Baron, Sylvia Berryman, Elizabeth Brake, Dominic McIver Lopes, Jennifer Warriner, Janet Wesselius, two anonymous reviewers for Res Publica and the audiences at the University of British Columbia Feminism and Philosophy Workshop and the Western Canadian Philosophical Association meetings in Winnipeg for helpful discussion and comments.     

A synthetic validity approach to testing differential prediction hypotheses

A new method is presented for conducting differential prediction analyses that makes it possible to test differential prediction hypotheses with adequate statistical power even when the sample size within a job or a job family is very small. This method, called synthetic differential prediction analysis, represents an application of the logic of synthetic validation to differential prediction analyses. The authors explain this new method and describe its application in a selection-system validation study conducted in a large organization.     

Chunking mechanisms in human learning

Pioneering work in the 1940s and 1950s suggested that the concept of 'chunking' might be important in many processes of perception, learning and cognition in humans and animals. We summarize here the major sources of evidence for chunking mechanisms, and consider how such mechanisms have been implemented in computational models of the learning process. We distinguish two forms of chunking: the first deliberate, under strategic control, and goal-oriented; the second automatic, continuous, and linked to perceptual processes. Recent work with discrimination-network computational models of long- and short-term memory (EPAM/CHREST) has produced a diverse range of applications of perceptual chunking. We focus on recent successes in verbal learning, expert memory, language acquisition and learning multiple representations, to illustrate the implementation and use of chunking mechanisms within contemporary models of human learning.     

An Integral Psychology Response to Helminiak's (2001) “Treating Spiritual Issues in Secular Psychotherapy”

This article is a response to D. A. Helminiak's (2001) “Treating Spiritual Issues in Secular Psychotherapy” from the perspective of K. Wilber's integral psychology. The article consists of 3 sections: (a) a selective summary of integral psychology, including the perennial philosophy, 10 levels of development, lines of development, temporary states, types of orientations, the self, and the 4 quadrants; (b) various conceptual issues; and (c) usefulness to mental health practitioners (MHPs). Although D. A. Helminiak's endeavor to formulate a clear and functional definition of spirituality is commended, his claim of novelty is shown to be unwarranted. It is argued that K. Wilber's integral model is more comprehensive, clear, coherent, and helpful to MHPs.     

Ignorance May Be Bliss, But Thought Suppression Promotes Superficial Cognitive Processing

This study examined the impact of thought suppression on the quality of cognitive processing and self-reported mood. While completing a stream-of-consciousness task about two topics sequentially, participants were either instructed to suppress negative thoughts or were given no suppression instructions. Computer-based content analyses indicated that thought suppression led to significantly less causal reasoning and discrepancy seeking. However, the suppression of negative thoughts also resulted in a more positive mood. Results suggest that thought suppression can improve mood but it comes with the cognitive cost of superficial processing.     

Aggregating to the between-person level in idiographic research designs: Personal goal research as an example of the need to distinguish between reliability and homogeneity

In several areas of personality research (e.g., personal networks, interpersonal behaviour, academic effort), the empirical data represent a multilevel structure, in which within-person variables are nested within individuals. Both within-person variation and between-person differences can be related to outcome variables (e.g., emotions, life satisfaction). One major precondition for aggregating within-person data to the between-person level is sufficient reliability of the aggregated data, a point that has received scant attention in previous research. Drawing on the example of personal goal research, we recommend that the two major forms of the intraclass correlation coefficient—the ICC(1) and the ICC(2)—be applied to within-person data in idiographic research designs. These indices allow the homogeneity and reliability of within-person data to be determined separately. Their application is illustrated using data from a study with 4,565 young adults.     

Processing resources in timing and sequencing tasks

Subjects performed timing and sequencing tasks under separate (single-task) and concurrent (dual-task) conditions in two experiments. The timing task required the subjects to generate a series of 5-sec temporal productions. The sequencing task in Experiment 1 involved verifying reasoning statements that described the ordering of a pair of letters. The task in Experiment 2 involved monitoring a familiar event sequence and detecting omissions in that sequence. Comparisons of single-task and dual-task conditions showed a pattern of bidirectional interference. In each experiment, the concurrent sequencing task caused temporal productions to become more variable and longer. The concurrent timing task interfered with sequencing by lengthening response times to the reasoning statements (Experiment 1) and by lengthening response times to sequence omissions and reducing sensitivity at detecting the omissions (Experiment 2). The results suggest that time perception and sequence perception are related cognitive processes that rely on a common set of attentional resources.     

The Conjunction Fallacy: A Derived Stimulus Relations Conceptualization and Demonstration Experiment

The Psychological Record - The conjunction fallacy (CF) comes about when the occurrence of two events is rated as more likely than either in isolation. A typical participant in a CF study is...