Tests that discriminate between dyslexic and other learning-disabled boys

Dyslexic and nondyslexic boys within a single community's learning-disabled class were given a set of tests; performance on each of these tests has been reported to be significantly impaired in other dyslexic children compared to learning-disabled and normal groups. Linear discriminant function analysis revealed that error types rather than levels of performance best separated the carefully matched learning-disabled groups. Slow naming and high percentage of “dysphasic” errors characterized dyslexic boys. Visual temporal-spatial matching and “configuration-deficient” perceptual errors characterized the adequate readers who have other learning disabilities.     

How “Regular” Is Sentence Comprehension in Broca's Aphasia? It Depends on How You Select the Patients

Grodzinsky, Piñango, Zurif, and Drai (1999) argue that a statistical analysis of pooled sentence comprehension data from published studies of Broca's aphasic patients supports the dominance of a differential pattern of performance on active and passive voice structures. They argue that these results counter a previous study in which individual patient data from published studies were analyzed. However, Grodzinsky et al. have not carried out a true test of their hypothesis, but have biased the outcome by selecting samples for analysis that support their claims.     

Mothers,daughters, and the socialization of political women

Using biographical data from what we call a focused sample of 36 elite women, the conjugal power structure of their parental families is examined to assess its impact upon the development of political women. The results revealed that the mothers of elite political women scored higher on indices of independence both within the family structure and outside the home than did the mothers of elite nonpolitical women. The fathers of the elite political women tended to show more respect and love for their wives than did the fathers of the elite nonpolitical women. The fathers of elite political women also tended to view their work as interesting and fun rather than as just a job. The elite political women were also less likely to have brothers, particularly older brothers, than the nonpolitical women. This finding suggests that female involvement in politics is not necessarily derived from cross-sex-role preferences. The study suggests that in terms of political socialization, the father's behavior and achievements are not as critical for his daughter as they are for his son. Their importance for the daughter must be filtered through the effect the father and his behavior have on the mother and the sex-role ideology held by the family.     

Bridging the Gap Between Prevention Research and Practice: The Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation

If we keep on doing what we have been doing, we are going to keep on getting what we have been getting. Concerns about the gap between science and practice are longstanding. There is a need for new approaches to supplement the existing approaches of research to practice models and the evolving community-centered models for bridging this gap. In this article, we present the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation (ISF) that uses aspects of research to practice models and of community-centered models. The framework presents three systems: the Prevention Synthesis and Translation System (which distills information about innovations and translates it into user-friendly formats); the Prevention Support System (which provides training, technical assistance or other support to users in the field); and the Prevention Delivery System (which implements innovations in the world of practice). The framework is intended to be used by different types of stakeholders (e.g., funders, practitioners, researchers) who can use it to see prevention not only through the lens of their own needs and perspectives, but also as a way to better understand the needs of other stakeholders and systems. It provides a heuristic for understanding the needs, barriers, and resources of the different systems, as well as a structure for summarizing existing research and for illuminating priority areas for new research and action. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.     

Reexamining personal, social, and cultural influences on compliance behavior in the United States, Poland, and Hong Kong

Researchers have extended the literature on strategies of gaining compliance with a request to incorporate cultural variations into the analytic framework. In the present investigation, the authors sought to go beyond previous studies of the factors increasing compliance rates by reexamining how researchers conceptualize and measure personal, social, and cultural influences on compliance behavior in the United States, Poland, and Hong Kong. The authors found that different levels of compliance were affected by culture, principles of influence, and the individual's personal orientation of idiocentrism/allocentrism (I/A). In the present study, the authors extended previous cross-cultural work by decomposing the I/A into 2 separate individual difference variables: normative perceptions and evaluative perceptions. The interaction of person and situation on compliance showed the power of situational demands and the strength of different aspects of personal collectivism. Different patterns of compliance at the culture level revealed the importance of culture in shaping this behavioral tendency. Thus, the authors' integration of personal, social, and cultural influences provided an interactive model to help researchers explain compliance more comprehensively.     

Frontal lobe dementia and subcortical vascular dementia: a neuropsychological comparison

We compared the performance of 40 patients with frontal lobe dementia to that of 40 patients with subcortical vascular dementia (80 patients including, 46 men and 34 women) in a set of tasks assessing attentional, executive, and behavioural tasks. The frontal lobe dementia represents an important cause for degenerative disruption and is increasingly recognised as an important form (up to 25%) of degenerative dementia among individuals of late-middle-age. The main involvement is the frontal-subcortical pathway, which is the final target of impairment even in subcortical vascular dementia. A wider involvement of the cortical (decisional) layers in frontal dementia, in contrast with the prominent and widespread involvement of the subcortical pathways (refinement and corrections programs) creates the different profiles of the two groups. Frontal patients have more difficulties in abstract reasoning, focusing attention, and implementing strategies to solve problems. They exhibit more profound behavioural alterations in personality and social conduct and show only moderate depression, and a total lack of insight concerning their dinical condition. In contrast, the patients with subcortical vascular dementia have poor general cognitive functions, high insight, and important depression and apathy as the principal and most salient characteristic of their behavioral conduct.     

Toward a New Model of the Hindu Pantheon A Report on Twenty-some Years of Feminist Reflection

This article argues that the familiar triadic model of the Hindu pantheon obscures the significance of goddesses in Hinduism by incorrectly locating the major division within the Hindu pantheon along gender lines. Instead, it will be argued that the familiar ‘moksha-dharma’ tension and synthesis be used to organise the deities into a pantheon, with both female and male deities patronising both moksha and dharma.     

How infant appearance informs: Child care providers' responses to babies varying in appearance of age and attractiveness

Research suggests that an infant's attractiveness influences adult's judgments of its developmental competence, such that less attractive infants are considered to look older than more attractive infants. To assess the effects of knowledge of age on these attractiveness-based attributions, 90 staff members of licensed child care centers judged specific developmental skills and rated the global developmental competence of 6-month-olds, based on the infants' facial appearance. Knowing an infant's actual age modified relations between attractiveness and expectations of maturity. Caregivers who knew the infants' ages estimated that unattractive infants were capable of relatively few specific skills in some areas of development, but they nevertheless rated those infants to be relatively competent in their development. Without information about age, caregivers often rated less attractive infants to be lower in competence, although they judged these babies to be older, with a larger number of specific skills. Training implications for improving caregivers' judgments are discussed.     

The relationship among the transtheoretical model of behavioral change,psychological distress,and diet attitudes in obesity: Implications for primary care intervention

Obesity is prevalent but undertreated in primary care. Family practice volunteer outpatients (N=454) were administered the Stage of Change for Weight (URICA), the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and the Diet Readiness Test (DRT) to assess the relationship between these variables and obesity. The body mass index (BMI) was used to classify obesity revealing 197 patients with elevated BMI's. There was no significant difference between the obese and the nonobese on any of the psychological measures. The obese reported significantly more difficulty setting diet goals and less control over their eating, ate more to emotional situations, and exercised less than the nonobese. The obese sample (46.7%) reported being in the Action stage of change for weight management. Implications for intervention in primary care include targeting attitudes (DRT) and dispelling physician attitudes that obese individuals have increased levels of psychological distress. Addressing Stage of Change for weight management can facilitate tailoring the appropriate intervention when used in concert with the DRT variables.