Shyness and sociability: a dangerous combination for illicit substance use in adolescent males?

Researchers have hypothesized that behavioral problems are accentuated when a shy person wants to be with other people. This need to be with others--sociability--is a related but separate construct from shyness. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of shyness and sociability to illicit substance use in a sample of 654 male high school students. It was found that, in general, shy male adolescents were significantly more likely to use illicit substances when compared to those who were not shy. Those who were shy and highly sociable were significantly more likely to use hallucinogenic substances than were those who were shy and low to moderate in sociability as well as those who were not shy. Although not significant, there was a trend toward more cocaine and marijuana use among those who were shy and highly sociable. The implications of these findings for those who work with adolescents are discussed.     

TEACHING THE HANDICAPPED TO EAT IN PUBLIC PLACES: ACQUISITION,GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE OF RESTAURANT SKILLS

This study examined classroom-based instruction in restauranting skills for handicapped persons. Three male students were taught each of four skill components in sequential order: locating, ordering, paying, and eating and exiting. Training was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects and consisted of modeling and role playing in conjunction with photo slide sequences and a simulated ordering counter. The use of a menu containing general item classes and a finger matching procedure for identifying errors in the delivery of change greatly reduced the reading and math skills necessary to enter and complete the program. Periodic probes were conducted in a McDonald's restaurant prior to, during, and up to one-year following the termination of training. In addition, two probes (overt and covert observation) were conducted in a Burger King restaurant to assess further generalization to a location different from the one depicted throughout training. Results showed that students' performance on restaurant probes improved as a result of training, generalized to novel settings, maintained over an extended period of time, and was comparable to that of a normative sample of nonretarded persons.     

TEACHING PEDESTRIAN SKILLS TO RETARDED PERSONS: GENERALIZATION FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT1

Little attention has been given to teaching adaptive community skills to retarded persons. In this study, five retarded male students were taught basic pedestrian skills in a classroom. Training was conducted on a model built to simulate city traffic conditions. Each subject was taught five specific skills involved in street crossing in sequence, viz. intersection recognition, pedestrian-light skills, traffic-light skills, and skills for two different stop-sign conditions. Before, during, and after training, subjects were tested on generalization probes on the model and under actual city traffic conditions. Results of a multiple-baseline design across both subjects and behaviors indicated that after receiving classroom training on the skills, each subject exhibited appropriate pedestrian skills under city traffic conditions. In addition, training in some skills appeared to facilitate performance in skills not yet trained.     

Synapses,Schizophrenia, and Civilization: What Made Homo Sapient?

Progress in technology has allowed dynamic research on the development of the human brain that has revolutionized concepts. Particularly, the notions of plasticity, neuronal selection, and the effects of afferent stimuli have entered into thinking about brain development. Here I focus on development from the age of four years to early adulthood, during which a 30 percent reduction in some brain synapses occurs that is out of proportion to changes in neuronal numbers. This corresponds temporally with changes in normal child behavior from the loose‐associative, almost schizoid, thinking and art of the four‐year‐old to the more trained, or disciplined, or acculturated—and restrained—personality of the young adult. I propose that the synaptic changes can best be thought of as a winnowing process likely subject to environmental influences. Acquisition of language and the ability to link linguistic cognition to the plastic development of the brain provide a potentially powerful means of explaining the evolutionally explosive development of human cognition and culture. Schizophrenia, a disease that can be envisioned as representing a derangement of synaptic maturation, may provide an entry into the search for genes controlling the processes mediating the unprecedented development of Homo sapiens over the past 40,000 to 70,000 years. The recently completed mapping of the genome of the chimpanzee provides a new frame of reference that may speed the search.     

Are high school students accurate or clueless in estimating substance use among peers?

The purpose of this study was to assess adolescents' estimations of the prevalence of alcohol and other drug use and to examine the consistency between these estimations and reported use. A survey was administered to 223 students in three northwestern U.S. high schools. Results showed that students in each of the three high schools grossly overestimated the prevalence of substance use when compared to self-reports of use. Still, students were not entirely clueless about the relative normativeness of substance use when comparing estimates and rates of use among the three schools. The school with the highest estimated prevalence of a particular substance use behavior generally also had the highest self-reported use of that same substance. These findings imply the need for high school personnel to provide students with accurate information about the actual prevalence of substance use within each school.     

Mental and physical practice schedules in acquisition and retention of novel timing skills

Research has indicated that random physical practice of a motor skill enhances effects of long-term learning more than blocked practice. Moreover, the use of mental rehearsal coupled with physical practice has been shown to accelerate motor skill acquisition in many different contexts and is better than no practice at all. Others have found that some mental rehearsal strategies are better than others for maximizing performance. This study examined how combinations of mental and physical practice schedules affected the learning of a coincidence timing task. 30 college students were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups involving combinations of imagery and physical practice. Three tasks were utilized, each involving a particular speed (slow, medium, fast) on the Bassin Anticipation Timer. Conclusions were based on a three-way analysis of variance, using type of mental practice, type of physical practice, and sex as between-group factors, conducted separately for acquisition and retention trials. Type of physical practice was significantly related to performance. On the acquisition trials, random practice was associated with larger mean errors than blocked practice; however, the reverse was true for retention trials. There was no significant effect of type of mental practice in either the acquisition or retention phase. Sex was significantly related to performance for the retention trials only, where the 15 men made smaller errors than the 15 women.     

Learning and production of movement sequences: behavioral, neurophysiological, and modeling perspectives

A wave of recent behavioral studies has generated a new wealth of parametric observations about serial order behavior. What was a trickle of neurophysiological studies has grown to a steady stream of probes of neural sites and mechanisms underlying sequential behavior. Moreover, simulation models of serial behavior generation have begun to open a channel to link cellular dynamics with cognitive and behavioral dynamics. Here we review major results from prominent sequence learning and performance tasks, namely immediate serial recall, typing, 2 x N, discrete sequence production, and serial reaction time. These tasks populate a continuum from higher to lower degrees of internal control of sequential organization and probe important contemporary issues such as the nature of working-memory representations for sequential behavior, and the development and role of chunks in hierarchical control. The main movement classes reviewed are speech and keypressing, both involving small amplitude movements amenable to parametric study. A synopsis of serial order models, vis-a-vis major empirical findings leads to a focus on competitive queuing (CQ) models. Recently, the many behavioral predictive successes of CQ models have been complemented by successful prediction of distinctively patterned electrophysiological recordings. In lateral prefrontal cortex, parallel activation dynamics of multiple neural ensembles strikingly matches the parallel dynamics predicted by CQ theory. An extended CQ simulation model--the N-STREAMS neural network model--exemplifies ongoing attempts to accommodate a broad range of both behavioral and neurobiological data within a CQ-consistent theory.     

Analysis of precurrent skills in solving mathematics story problems

We conducted an analysis of precurrent skills (responses that increase the effectiveness of a subsequent or "current" behavior in obtaining a reinforcer) to facilitate the solution of arithmetic word (story) problems. Two students with developmental disabilities were taught four precurrent responses (identifying the initial value, change value, operation, and resulting value) in a sequential manner. Results of a multiple baseline design across behaviors showed that the teaching procedures were effective in increasing correct performance of each of the precurrent behaviors with untaught problems during probes and that once the precurrent behaviors were established, the number of correct problem solutions increased.     

Improving staff nutritional practices in community-based group homes: evaluation, training, and management.

We evaluated the effectiveness of a staff training and management package on nutritional practices in two community-based group homes serving adults with developmental disabilities. Food storage, menu development, and meal preparation were trained in a multiple baseline format, followed by supervisor feedback. All staff behaviors increased after training and were maintained for up to 1 year. Biological indices reflected collateral improvements in the health of consumers, and surveys of staff and parents established social validity.