Inducing cognitive development and learning: A review of short-term training experiments I. The organismic developmental approach

The author reviewed and interpreted the literature of experimental studies whose purposes were to determine rules of generation that transform a child's cognitive organization at one stage of development into that of the next, more advanced stage. The categories of the research methodology were consistent with the organismic-developmental approach, and the findings of the studies tended to support most of the hypotheses generated from this approach. Some unresolved theoretical and methodological issues were presented, and research strategies to shed light on these issues were proposed.     

Visual searh through word lists as a function of grade level,reading ability,and target repetition

Second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade students of high or low reading ability and college students carried out a visual-search task in which they scanned a list of 10 words, looking for a target word which was changed every trial or remained constant during an entire session. Search time increased linearly with serial position, consistent with a serial self-terminating model of visual search. The search rate increased from 3.3 words/sec in the second grade to 8.4 words/sec in college. Reading ability was not a significant factor in any comparisons. These results on the development of visual-search ability agree with others in showing that with increasing age there is a marked increase in search speed. However, retarded readers are as competent as their age peers on this task, suggesting that reading dysfunction must be traced to other deficiencies.     

From pilot fish to analyst: Finding a path between symbiotic and autistic defences

This paper presents the clinical case of a patient with autistic features. One of the main difficulties in his treatment was the particular rapid rhythm of his projections, introjections and re‐projections that constrained the analyst's capacity for reverie and hindered the use of effective projective identification processes. These alternating defensive constellations lead either to an expelling autistic barrier or to an engulfing symbiotic fusion. Their combination can be seen as the expression of a defence against an unintegrated and undifferentiated early experience of self that was in this way kept at bay to prevent it from invading his whole personality. Maintaining the symbiotic link, in which I kept included by staying partially fused to what was being projected and using my analytic function in a reduced way, helped to relate to what was in the patient's inside. Leaving this symbiotic link let my interpretations appear to ‘force’ their way through the autistic barrier. Yet as the process developed they allowed to show the patient how he ejected me and what was happening in his inside, behind his autistic barrier. So I found myself on the one hand accepting the symbiotic immobilization and on the other hand interpreting in a way that seemed forced to the patient, because it implied a breaking of the symbiotic position. The inordinate speed of projections and introjections could thus be interrupted, creating a space for awareness, reflection and transformation, and allowed the emergence of a connection between the patient's inside and outside. In the course of treatment I realized that this kind of dual defence system has been described by the late Argentinian analyst José Bleger. He assumes the existence of an early “agglutinated nucleus” that is held together by a psychic structure he calls the “glischro‐caric” position, in which projective identification cannot take place because there is no self/object differentiation. I have considered the rapid and fugitive use of projection and re‐introjection I met in my patient to be a manifestation of the dual defence system Bleger describes. Although he does not specifically mention this particular vicissitude of operative defences he does give hints about a rhythm in the patients’ projections and introjections.     

Advanced training in child psychology: Key elements in offering a Doctor of Psychology (DPsych) programme in South Africa

The aim of this article is to propose some benchmarks for a Doctor of Psychology (DPsych) in advanced training in Child Psychology in South Africa, and to highlight key elements in offering such a programme. In doing so, we use as case illustration an existing DPsych programme currently being offered at the University of the Free State, South Africa. We consider advanced child psychology training to registered psychologists in the clinical, counselling and educational categories. The DPsych option encompasses clinical practice, research, training, selection, and student outcomes in the context of theory as well as evidence-based practices. A wider adoption of a DPsych, focusing on child psychology, would add value to the integration of the best available research and clinical expertise in child mental health care in South Africa.     

Relations Between the Development of Teaching and Theory of Mind in Early Childhood

The relations among children’s theory of mind (ToM), their understanding of the intentionality of teaching, and their own peer teaching strategies were tested. Seventy-five 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds completed 11 ToM and understanding-of-teaching tasks. Subsequently, 30 of the children were randomly chosen to teach a peer how to play a board game, and their teaching strategies and levels of contingent teaching were recorded. There were developmental changes in the children’s understanding of teaching as an intentional activity. When teaching their peers, 3-year-olds used demonstration, whereas 4- and 5-year-olds added verbal explanations and began to adapt contingently to the learners’ changing knowledge level. Relations among ToM, understanding of teaching, and teaching level were found. The results suggest that the development of children’s teaching strategies and their contingency are closely tied to the development of ToM.     

Quantification of swim patterns in the morris water maze

Spatial learning and memory in rodents is most often assessed in the Morris water maze. Neurobiologists have to distinguish behavioral patterns to unravel underlying neuronal systems. We analyzed swim patterns of mice videotaped before and after training with a multitrial procedure in the water maze. In addition to traditional parameters, the animals’ position in relation to trained and other possible platform locations was estimated five times per second by an image analysis system. This parameter,cumulative distance to platform, was correlated with time spent in the platform quadrant but not with latency to and crossings of the platform location. We detected a subgroup of animals with concentric patterns within the group of spatial/persistent patterns. Random patterns were classified as well. Swim patterns before training were not predictive for the one after training. In summary, image analysis systems have made it very convenient to quantify behavior. Using their capacity, we have further improved the analysis of swim patterns, revealing animals’ different approaches to solve a problem.