The effects of vocal variation on listener recall

The effects of variations in speaker rate and pitch on listener recall were studied. One hundred and twenty participants listened to an audiotape of one of two individuals speaking in one of four different styles-low variation in both rate and pitch, variation in rate but not in pitch, variation in pitch but not in rate, and variation in both rate and pitch. After hearing the audiotape, listeners were tested on the information in the presentation; they also completed questionnaires rating the speaker's benevolence and competence. Results indicated that the combined effect of pitch and rate variety significantly increased listener recall over no variety or pitch variety or rate variety alone. Additionally, pitch variety and combined pitch and rate variety significantly increased attributions of speaker competence over no variety or rate variety alone, but significantly decreased attributions of speaker benevolence.     

Impact of Childhood Sexual Abuse on Client Spiritual Development: Counseling Implications

The spiritual development of sexually traumatized clients is an important area of concern for counselors. In this paper, spirituality is defined, and its relevance for counselors who work with childhood sexual abuse survivors is discussed. Impact of abuse on client spirituality is described, and several suggestions are given for assessment and intervention approaches that address spiritual issues as part of the counseling process.     

Text Comprehension Training for Disabled Readers: An Evaluation of Reciprocal Teaching and Text Analysis Training Programs

Forty-six reading disabled adolescents were randomly assigned to one of three 25-hr instructional programs. Two programs provided training in expository text comprehension, and a third offered training in academic problem solving and organizational and study skills (an alternative treatment control). One reading comprehension program was designed to remediate a deficient knowledge base, forcing disabled readers to elaborate and further process new text knowledge, focusing on both specific informational content in a text and knowledge of text structure per se. The second program was patterned after the Palincsar and Brown (1984) reciprocal teaching techniques and focused on training four text comprehension strategies used by skilled comprehenders. Both the “knowledge-base” and the “strategy” training approaches were associated with significant improvement in disabled readers' comprehension skills, although training effects did not generalize across all aspects of reading comprehension performance. Strategy-trained readers applied the trained strategies with equal success on instructed and uninstructed text materials, providing strong evidence of transfer of learning. Knowledge-base readers also demonstrated successful transfer of specifically trained procedures (semantic mapping, text analysis) to unfamiliar text. In both programs, the best outcomes were obtained when specific strategies and operations were targeted for training.     

CHRISTIANITY AND EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS: SKETCH TOWARD A RECONCILIATION

Abstract. Evolutionary ethics posits the evolution of dispositions to love self, kin, and friend. Christianity claims that God's ethical demand is to love one's neighbor. I argue that the distance between these two positions can be interpreted theologically as original sin, the disposition to disobey God's command and practice self-love and nepotism rather than neighbor-love. Original sin requires Incarnation and Atonement to unite God and humanity. The ancient doctrine of the Atonement as educative does not invoke the Fall. Its revival may help reconcile Christianity and evolutionary ethics.     

Compassion: An east‐west comparison

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism.     

The argumentative impact of causal relations — An exemplary analysis of the free predicate in the promotional discourse

The semantic relations between and within utterances are marked by the use of connectors and adverbials. One type of semantic relations is causal relations expressed by causal markers such as because, therefore, so, for, etc. Some of these markers cover different types of causal relations such as causality, explanation and justification. In certain types of discourse, causal relations also imply an intentional element. This paper describes the way in which the semantic and pragmatic functions of causal markers can be accounted for in terms of linguistic and rhetorical theories of argumentation.     

Family-centered intensive case management: A step toward understanding individualized care

New York State's initial attempt at individualizing services occurred within the context of an experiment. We randomly assigned children 5–12 years old who were referred for out-of-home placement in treatment foster care to either treatment foster care, Family-Based Treatment (n=15), or to Family-Centered Intensive Case Management (FCICM) (n=27). FCICM used teams of case managers and parent advocates to provide in-home services. Flexible service dollars, respite care, and behavior management skills training were available to assist teams in individualizing care. Preliminary outcomes indicate that children in FCICM are doing as well or better than children assigned to FBT in their functioning and symptom reduction. Parents of children in FCICM have made gains, although not at a statistically significant level, in behavior management skills and family strengths that allow them to provide care for their children at home.     

Matching adolescents with foster mothers and fathers: An evaluation of the role of temperament

We tested the notion that better foster care adjustment would be observed when the temperaments of mothers and fathers were matched with those of adolescent foster children. We hypothesized that families in which foster parents and foster children had high (easy) scores on subscales of the Revised Dimensions of Temperament Scale (DOTS-R) would also report higher family functioning and higher foster care adjustment than parents and children from families in which one or both family members had low (difficult) scores on these scales. The hypotheses were supported when the mothers and fathers family assessments were used but rejected when the observations of the case managers and adolescents were tested. Methodological and substantive explanations for the findings are discussed and recommendation for foster care practice and continuing research are provided.