An example of rehabilitation of speech by mediation-techniques in aphasia

In a case of severe aphasia it was attempted to use a mediation technique. During several months there was no improvement in speech by using the usual techniques. The patient had to learn several gestures that corresponded to different letters. This technique result in a considerable speech improvement. It is discussed which mechanisms are possibly involved in the rehabilitation process; the practical importance of the mediation technique is suggested.     

Patterns of interactive behavior in a multicultural school context

This paper is an empirical research based on observational methodology. It is an idiographic research with a mixed observational design of low intervention, of the following type: monitoring/nomothetical/multidimensional. We used a tool created in situ for the systematic multidimensional register of the complex occurrence of several types of behavioural events in real time, which combines the format of field investigation with the system of categories. The reliability of the observation tool is obtained through the researcher-observer's agreement with him- or herself. Our aim is to study the social relationships between first-grade peer students in a multicultural context. We present some structures of seeking social closeness, help and cooperation among children of similar and different cultures, which were discovered through the detection and analysis of temporal patterns of the interactive situation of boys and girls who were observed during their academic and leisure activities in the natural context of their school.     

Physical activity, sedentary leisure, short sleeping and childhood overweight

In this study, using the path analysis, the relation between physical activity, non-regulated activity, sedentary leisure, hours of sleeping, and the body mass index (BMI) was analyzed. The sample was made up of 103 students, 59 girls and 44 boys, aged between 9 and 10 1/2 years. An individual interview was performed in which the children were asked about the TV programs they watched each day of the week; the time they played with the console and the computer; the time dedicated to sports, games and other activities. The results showed that sedentary leisure (number of hours of TV, computer and console) maintains a significant and inverse relation with the hours of sleeping, non-regulated activity (games and others activities), and physical sport activity. The difference between the results of this study and the previous one is discussed, taking into account the recruitment procedure of the participants.     

Personality, cognitive appraisal and adjustment in chronic pain patients

This study investigated the relationship between clinical personality patterns and cognitive appraisal as well as their repercussions on adjustment to chronic pain in a sample of 91 patients. It was predicted that clinical personality patterns would be related to adjustment and cognitive appraisal processes, whereas cognitive appraisals would be related to anxiety, depression and levels of perceived pain. The instruments used were as follows: the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory, the Cognitive Appraisal Questionnaire, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and the McGill Pain Questionnaire. Multiple regression analyses, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and the Mann Whitney U-test were used to analyse the data obtained. The results show that certain clinical personality patterns were associated with poor adjustment to chronic pain. The use of cognitive appraisal of harm predicted higher anxiety levels and greater perceived pain in chronic pain patients. The use of cognitive appraisals of challenge predicted lower depression levels.     

CREATING SINGLE‐SUBJECT DESIGN GRAPHS IN MICROSOFT EXCEL™ 2007

Over 10 years have passed since the publication of Carr and Burkholder's (1998) technical article on how to construct single‐subject graphs using Microsoft Excel. Over the course of the past decade, the Excel program has undergone a series of revisions that make the Carr and Burkholder paper somewhat difficult to follow with newer versions. The present article provides task analyses for constructing various types of commonly used single‐subject design graphs in Microsoft Excel 2007. The task analyses were evaluated using a between‐subjects design that compared the graphing skills of 22 behavior‐analytic graduate students using Excel 2007 and either the Carr and Burkholder or newly developed task analyses. Results indicate that the new task analyses yielded more accurate and faster graph construction than the Carr and Burkholder instructions.     

Traits, personal strivings and well-being

Traits and motivational units are two elements of widely acknowledged relevance in personality psychology. In fact, some multi-level models have stressed the differences between traits, which are the most generic and decontextualized units of analysis, and middle-level units, which are more closely related to motivational processes and more contextualized in time, space or specific roles. Personal strivings, which are defined as what people typically intend to do, hold a prominent place among middle-level units. Nevertheless, surprisingly little is still known about the relationship between traits and striving dimensions; likewise, little is known about the inter-relationships between traits, strivings and well-being. In this study, we used the NEO-PI-R, Personal Striving Assessment Packet (PSAP) and various well-being measures (viz., positive affect, negative affect, satisfaction with life and purpose in life) on a sample of 405 adults. We found Neuroticism and Extraversion to be related to perceived efficacy in the struggle for strivings; Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness to relate to striving intensity dimensions, and a variety of striving dimensions to be significantly related to well-being. A joint analysis of traits, strivings and well-being revealed that traits may indirectly affect well-being via specific striving dimensions, although the mediational effects are slight and both traits and strivings appear to make separate significant contributions to the prediction of well-being. Broadly speaking, the results suggest that units of analysis originating from rather disparate traditions should be integrated in order to develop a consilient view of personality levels.     

Selecting measures for the neurodevelopmental assessment of children in low- and middle-income countries

Diseases affecting millions of children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), such as malnutrition, micronutrient deficiency, malaria, and HIV, can lead to adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Thus, a key health outcome in children is neurodevelopmental status. In this paper, the neurodevelopmental screening and testing measures most commonly utilized in LMICs are reviewed, and a matrix is presented to help researchers and clinicians determine which measures may be most useful for various LMIC inquiries. The matrix is based on an Internet literature review of 114 publications for the period January 1998 to February 2016, reporting the psychometric properties of instruments tested in LMIC children. The measures are classified as screening tests or more detailed tests that include both comprehensive batteries of general development and tests of specific domains. For completeness, two experts have reviewed this paper, as well as the authors. An overview of the tests used to date is presented, including the benefits and drawbacks of each test, in order to provide researchers and developmental clinicians with a way to decide which tests may be best suited to their developmental assessment goals. Remarkable progress has been made in neurodevelopmental testing in children in LMICs over the past two decades but there remains a need for additional research in this area to develop new tests, better evaluate and adapt current tests, and assess test validity and reliability across cultures.     

Can low-cost motion-tracking systems substitute a Polhemus system when researching social motor coordination in children?

Functionally stable and robust interpersonal motor coordination has been found to play an integral role in the effectiveness of social interactions. However, the motion-tracking equipment required to record and objectively measure the dynamic limb and body movements during social interaction has been very costly, cumbersome, and impractical within a non-clinical or non-laboratory setting. Here we examined whether three low-cost motion-tracking options (Microsoft Kinect skeletal tracking of either one limb or whole body and a video-based pixel change method) can be employed to investigate social motor coordination. Of particular interest was the degree to which these low-cost methods of motion tracking could be used to capture and index the coordination dynamics that occurred between a child and an experimenter for three simple social motor coordination tasks in comparison to a more expensive, laboratory-grade motion-tracking system (i.e., a Polhemus Latus system). Overall, the results demonstrated that these low-cost systems cannot substitute the Polhemus system in some tasks. However, the lower-cost Microsoft Kinect skeletal tracking and video pixel change methods were successfully able to index differences in social motor coordination in tasks that involved larger-scale, naturalistic whole body movements, which can be cumbersome and expensive to record with a Polhemus. However, we found the Kinect to be particularly vulnerable to occlusion and the pixel change method to movements that cross the video frame midline. Therefore, particular care needs to be taken in choosing the motion-tracking system that is best suited for the particular research.