On the Bradley hypothesis concerning agrammatism: the nonword-interference effect

In 1980, D. C. Bradley, M. F. Garrett, and E. B. Zurif (in D. Caplan (Ed.), Biological studies of mental processes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) have proposed a lexical hypothesis on agrammatism. The theoretical background of this hypothesis is described. Then two experiments are reported with normal speakers on the so-called nonword-interference effect that has been one of the two major sources of experimental evidence for this hypothesis. The first experiment replicates the original finding that the interference effect is found when the nonword starts with a content word but not when it starts with a function word. In the second experiment, it is shown that this contrast is due to an artifact of the composition of the word list. When this list contains both content and function words, rather than only content words--as in Bradley's experiments and our Experiment I--both content and function nonwords show an equally sized interference effect. The consequences for the lexical hypothesis are discussed.     

Clinician attitudes toward stuttering: A decade of change (1973–1983)

The attitudes of 674 speech-language pathologists toward stuttering, stutterers, stuttering therapy, parents of stutterers, and related issues were studied during the years 1973–1983. During that period, clinician attitudes were found to shift away from support of the John-sonian concepts, which suggest parental causality and dangers in early intervention. In addition, clinicians became less likely to perceive stutterers as possessing psychologic disorders and misperceptions of their problem and of their interpersonal relationships. However, a significant number of clinician's were found to continue to hold unsubstantiated beliefs regarding the personality of stutterers, their parents, and the efficacy of early intervention with very young stutterers. The results of the study were interpreted as suggesting the need to educate fluency specialists.     

Creativity and self-trust: a field study

Motivation and human achievement remain something of a mystery to the psychologist because the participating factors are varied and complex. This research project attempts to separate out an entity defined as self-trust from more social components of self-function (self-esteem and social appropriateness). The strong indication is that self-trust seems to be the product of a relationship with the secondary caretaker (father) while the broader, more generalized sense of trust and interactive reliability appear to be tied to a close association with mother. The question of who the individual seeks to please is a consideration in this research since closeness may not be restricted to affective alliance. Self-trust, as a concept, can be differentiated from self-esteem or interpersonal trust which offers some appreciation for the creative drive within individuals who pursue original solutions in their push to please.     

Young adults' contraceptive practices: an investigation of influences

This study investigated young adults' contraceptive behaviors and attitudes through application of a comprehensive, theoretical framework. Specifically, a social-psychological approach to understanding preventive behaviors (e.g., contraceptive practices), was developed, incorporating the Health Belief Model and other factors, which offered a means for evaluating the extent to which contraceptive behaviors were influenced by individual and group characteristics. The study group consisted of 283 unmarried students at several schools who were, on average, 19 years of age. Results suggested that effective contraceptive behavior associated most strongly with respondents' perceiving relatively few barriers to their use of contraception, their maintenance of extensive interpersonal skills, and their regarding peer norms as consistent with effective contraceptive behavior. Findings also underlined a need for continuing education about sexuality and contraception. Dangerous misinformation prevailed regarding respondents' knowledge of areas that include anatomy, physiology, and appropriate use of effective contraceptive methods. Finally, results implied a need to consider broad behavioral, social, and interpersonal issues as they relate to young adults' effective contraceptive behavior. Future studies of contraceptive risk taking are encouraged to examine both individual and social factors affecting sexual and contraceptive practices if unplanned pregnancy is to be minimized, if not eliminated.     

Validity and reliability of the EOM-EIS for early adolescents

The Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS) was examined for reliability and validity among early/middle adolescent subjects. The EOM-EIS represents a combination of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status and a structured interview of identity status. The instrument was designed to measure ego identity with regard to occupational, religious, political, philosophical, and social contexts along ideological and interpersonal dimensions. A total of 467 students aged 12 to 18 (median = 15.73) responded to the instrument. In general the results from the analyses of reliability, validity, demographic characteristics, and psychosocial maturity yielded results which parallel the theoretical framework and the results from college-aged subjects.     

Effects of head restraint on signal detectability in simultaneous and successive vigilance tasks

Dittmar, Warm, and Dember (1985) suggested that visual parallax may lead to declines in perceptual sensitivity over time in spatial vigilance tasks involving comparative judgments. The present study tested this possibility by restraining subjects' head movements during a 1-hr vigil in which comparative (simultaneous task) or absolute (successive task) judgments of line length were necessary for signal detection. Under free-viewing conditions, perceptual sensitivity declined over time with both types of tasks. Head restraint eliminated the sensitivity decrement in both cases. The results highlight signal quality as a crucial determinant of perceptual decrements in sustained attention.     

Family reconciliation as a response to adolescent crises

Concern for adolescents who act in dangerous, life-threatening ways has heightened dramatically in recent years. Many of these adolescents appear to come from nuclear families isolated from their kinship systems. Without the mediating effects of kin, the adolescent transition can become a major crisis. Kinship systems remain cohesive when members can reconcile their beliefs about essential aspects of family functioning with the demands for adaptation during major life transitions. Reconciliation is lost when members believe that kin can no longer be trusted to insure their well-being. Kinship fragmentation ensues as family members leave the field or are excluded. Isolated nuclear families then rapidly lose the resilience to respond to life transitions without resorting to extreme, maladaptive solutions. The Systemic Crisis Intervention Program (SCIP) uses the opportunity of the crisis precipitated by the adolescent's life-threatening behavior to alter family myths that have led to network fragmentation. Crisis teams mobilize and meet with kin in four-hour gatherings to foster reconciliation and kinship system reintegration.     

Chronic Illness and the Life Cycle:A Conceptual Framework

This article provides a conceptual framework for thinking about the system created at the interface of chronic illness with the family life cycle. First, a psychosocial typology and time phases of illness schema is described as a necessary, preliminary step to create a common language that bridges the worlds of illness, individual, and family development. This schema organizes similarities and differences between diseases in a manner useful to psychosocial-developmental rather than biomedical inquiry. Then, drawing on several major life-cycle theories in the literature, key concepts (periods of transition, life-structure building and maintaining, centripetality, and centrifugality) are used in a complementary fashion to link these three lines of development. Equipped with these psychosocial languages, consideration is given to transgenerational aspects of illness, loss, and crisis, and the interwoven threads of illness, family, and individual development. Clinical vignettes are provided to highlight this conceptual framework.