The development of school psychology in the state of Washington: A personal perspective

The history of school psychology in the State of Washington is examined with respect to growth of the profession, changing roles, training programs, and professional activism. During the past 30 years growth has been influenced by increased demand for special education programs and funding from both the state and national level. Starting out as clinical psychology in the schools, the role has changed to link together assessment, consultation, and remediation. With the growth of the profession has come several training programs based on the masters degree model but requiring two or more years of academic work. This model led to a split within psychology in this State with the school psychologists forming their own organization. The present funding crisis in education leaves the future of school psychology uncertain. However, the author believes that the profession can continue to thrive through positive actions and that by the end of this decade the numbers retiring from and entering the profession will be in equilibrium.     

Social support, stress, and depressive symptoms among the elderly: test of a process model.

Effects of social support, negative life events, and daily hassles on depressive symptoms were assessed in 301 adults aged 65 or older, in person 3 times at 6-month intervals and by mail questionnaires every month over a 12-month period. Initial social support predicted severity of depressive symptoms 12 months later. Social support and initial levels of depressive symptomatology predicted number of daily hassles but not number of major life events. Effects of social support, depression, and major life events on the incidence of daily hassles remained significant without the inclusion of hassles reflecting depressive symptomatology or problems in relationships or whose content overlapped with major life events. Daily hassles mediated the effects of major life events on subsequent depression. Results did not differ for men and women. Implications for models of the relations among social support, stress, and depression are discussed.     

Relationships between judgements of the complexity,pleasingness and interestingness of music

Forty unfamiliar, one-minute samples of modern jazz were rated by 132 undergraduates for judged complexity, pleasingness and interestingness, in a between-subjects design. Pleasingness and interestingness were positively correlated and both were decreasing linear functions of complexity, although the correlation between interestingness and complexity was low and only marginally significant. It appears that pleasingness acts as a suppressor on the interestingness/complexity correlation: with pleasingness partialled out the correlation was positive and highly significant. Partialling had only small effects on the other correlations. Results suggest that techniques used previously to study non-musical stimuli may also be applicable to music.     

Electrophysiological and behavioral indicants of selective attention to multifeature gratings

The mechanisms underlying selective attention to gratings consisting of a particular conjunction of spatial frequency and orientation were investigated by means of both visual evoked potential (VEP) and behavioral measures. The effects of selective attention upon the VEP indicated two general types of selection processes: one which is specific to the features contained in the relevant gratings and is most pronounced approximately 225 msec post-stimulation, and another which is specific to the conjunction of features defining the relevant grating and is most pronounced 250–375 msec following the presentation of the stimulus. The behavioral responses primarily reflected this latter, or grating-specific, attentional process. The results are discussed in terms of the role of sensory feature channels in mediating selective attention to visual stimuli and are related to various information processing models of visual pattern selection.     

Generalized and specific expectancies: Sequential mediators of interpersonal behavior1

Two experiments confirmed sequential mediation of social interaction by investigating the effects of generalized expectancies on specific expectancies and the effects of specific expectancies on performance. Both experiments used a simulated tutoring task in which the subject took the role of tutor while a confederate took the role of student. In Experiment 1 subjects combined generalized expectancies about the effectiveness of certain tutoring responses with specific situational information to produce specific expectancies about the results of the tutoring responses under the experimental circumstances. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and showed that specific expectancies of the relative effectiveness of different responses influenced which response was performed more. Results were discussed in terms of cognitive motivation theory and social learning theory.     

Behaviorally-based decision-making training for children

A seven-step, behaviorally based, decision-making process was taught to 17 children, age 9–10 years. Each child's decision-making ability was measured before and after training, using two audiotaped stories that described problem situations typically encountered in the school or home. The children were asked to identify the problem, generate alternative solutions, think of positive and negative consequences for each solution, and offer a personal value supporting their decision. As compared to a no-treatment control group, the children receiving the decision-making training obtained significantly greater scores on four of five dependent measures. Implications for teaching decision-making as a self-management skill are offered.