An ethical dilemma: Information control in cancer care

Cancer is a group of diseases that are complicated by various treatment choices available. Information exchange between a patient and physician is critical in helping people to understand what is happening to them and what options for therapy are recommended and available. When information is not exchanged, information control by one or both of the participants occurs. Information needs to be taken into account by both health care professional and patients in making decisions during the crucial phases of care. The phases of care presented are a diagnosis, treatment, the decision, and a recurrence. Factors that influence effective information exchange among patient-provider systems are discussed.     

Sensitivity of 5- and 7-month-old infants to pictorial depth information

An Ames (1951, Psychological Monographs, 65(1, Whole No. 324)) static trapezoidal window, under monocular view, was used to test young infants' responsiveness to pictorial depth. When adults view this display monocularly with the smaller side of the window rotated toward them, they report that the orientation of the display becomes ambiguous: When the head is moved, the window may appear to be in the fronto-parallel plane or either side may appear closer. The 7-month-olds we tested appeared to experience a similar ambiguity; they reached to the near side of the rotated trapezoidal window with significantly less consistency or directedness than infants in a control group tested with a rotated object that lacked pictorial depth information. When 5-month-olds were tested, however, they reached with equal consistency to the closer side of the trapezoidal window and of the control display, apparently uninfluenced by the pictorial depth information available in the trapezoidal window. Thus, sensitivity to the pictorial information for depth that is present in the trapezoidal window appears to develop after the age of 22 weeks.     

The lexicon and sentence generation in aphasia

The experiment tested a prediction, derived from the lexicalist model of grammar (J. Bresnan 1978, in M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. A. Miller (Eds.), Linguistic theory and psychological reality, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 1–59), that difficulty in accessing a verb from the lexicon should impair the generation of the associated to-complement clause while not significantly affecting the generation of word-independent constructions such as questions. Four aphasic subjects with word-finding difficulties but relatively high BDAE ratings on grammatical ability were examined. A modified story completion paradigm was used to elicit the favored constructions. Consistent with the hypothesis, all subjects showed greater difficulty in generating to-complements.     

Personality Factors Related to Black Teenage Pregnancy and Abortion

Forty-eight pregnant adolescents who applied for therapeutic abortions (TAs) were compared with 55 adolescents who planned to have their babies (Terms) and 67 adolescents who were not pregnant (Controls) on the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). All the subjects were single, Black, and aged 15 or 16. CPI results point to psychological differences with the Controls being most socialized, followed by the TAs, and then the Terms. Term girls seem to be experiencing a void and appear to be trying to fill it and assume an adult role by having a baby; the TAs do not seem to have these same needs. In addition, girls who became pregnant and described the relationship with the putative father as casual, appear on the CPI to have more daily problems, lack socialization, be less clear thinking, and have poor self-control. Pregnant girls who have good communication with their mothers showed no differences on the CPI from girls with poor communication with their mothers.     

Differential effects of identification with family and peers on coping with developmental tasks in adolescence

Adolescents from three Italian cities responded to a questionnaire concerning the particular peer-group with which they were associated and identification with their family, aspects of the process of coping with seven developmental tasks, and demographic characteristics. The participants were 1600 male and female teenagers, with a mean age of 16.28 years, who were approached at schools and various meeting places in three Italian cities. The study shows that effective coping with developmental tasks depends largely on the degree of identification with both family and peer-group. Those who identify with both social groupings show advantages in various critical situations. Adolescents only identifying with either family or peers get emotional and instrumental support from that group but not from the other, thus, they are supported in some critical situations but not in others. Adolescents who are unwilling or unable to identify with their family and/or their peers are less successful in managing the transition to adulthood than others who are close to their parents and peers. Consistent with the findings of previous studies, the type of group adolescents join, be it a formal group or an informal street group, has no significant effect on their coping strategies.     

Early lexical development in children with focal brain injury

Early lexical development in 27 children with focal brain injury was studied cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Data were obtained from children between 12 and 35 months of age who acquired their lesion prenatally or within the first 6 months of life. Results for the group as a whole provide clear evidence for delays in lexical comprehension and production, and for a larger number of comprehension/production dissociations than would be expected by chance. In addition, a significant number of children were observed having unusual difficulty mastering predication and/or using an atypically high proportion of closed class words (suggesting reliance on holistic/formulaic speech). Analyses by lesion type revealed no effect of lesion size. Analyses according to side of lesion revealed that children with right-hemisphere damage produced a higher proportion of closed class words, suggesting heavy reliance on well-practiced but under-analyzed speech formulae. Children with left-hemisphere damage were slightly better in comprehension than children with right-hemisphere damage. In addition, left posterior lesions were associated with greater delays in expressive language, and delays were more protracted in children with left posterior damage. No differential effects of left posterior damage were found for lexical comprehension.     

A combined therapeutic approach in a family setting

Combined treatment approaches, co-therapy and family work are three concepts which are under much discussion in psychiatry. This paper describes the systematic use of an integrated treatment approach used by co-therapists working with families in which a child was the referred patient. The rationale behind this approach together with its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The authors conclude that the approach is sufficiently promising to merit formal evaluation.