How Distinctive are ADHD and RD? Results of a Double Dissociation Study

The nature of the comorbidity between Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Reading Disability (RD) was examined using a double dissociation design. Children were between 8 and 12 years of age and entered into four groups: ADHD only (n = 24), ADHD+RD (n = 29), RD only (n = 41) and normal controls (n = 26). In total, 120 children participated in the study; 38 girls and 82 boys. Both ADHD and RD were associated with impairments in inhibition and lexical decision, although inhibition and lexical decision were more severely impaired in RD than in ADHD. Visuospatial working memory deficits were specific to children with only ADHD. It is concluded that there was overlap on lexical decision and to a lesser extent on inhibition between ADHD and RD. In ADHD, impairments were dependent on IQ, which suggest that the overlap in lexical decision and inhibition is different in origin for ADHD and RD. The ADHD only group was specifically characterized by deficits in visuospatial working memory. Hence, no double dissociation between ADHD and RD was found on executive functioning and lexical decision.     

The use of aggression in primary school boys' decisions about inclusion in and exclusion from playground football games

Background Sociometric studies have shown that some aggressive boys are popular, perceived as popular or cool, dominant, and central in the peer group ( Estell, Cairns, Farmer, & Cairns, 2002 ; Milich & Landau, 1984 ; Prinstein & Cillessen, 2003 ; Rodkin, Farmer, Pearl, & Van Acker, 2006 ). This is not predicted by social information processing (SIP) models which see aggression as socially incompetent, resulting from distorted understanding of the social world (e.g. Crick & Dodge, 1994 ). However, sociologists of childhood have argued that some aggressive boys are popular because they use aggression to gain status and dominance, to undermine those of lower status, and to achieve hegemonic masculinity ( Adler & Adler, 1998 ; Ferguson, 2000 ; Renold, 2007 ). Aims This study aims to connect psychological and sociological literatures, asking whether social processes of status formation contribute to the link between popularity and aggression identified sociometrically. Sample The paper describes case studies of three boys, aged between 8 and 10 years, attending a London primary school. Methods Sociometric data on liking, disliking, and aggression are combined with ethnographic and interview data for each case study. Results The data show that one way in which aggression aids popularity and dominance is through boys' strategic use of aggression to enforce decisions about inclusion and exclusion in desirable activities. It can be difficult for individual boys to achieve acceptance without resorting to aggression. Conclusions The data provide support for sociological explanations of aggression in terms of status and inclusion, and challenge the SIP claim that aggressive children are socially incompetent and biased.     

More is still not better: testing the perturbation model of temporal reference memory across different modalities and tasks

The ability of the perturbation model (Jones & Wearden, 2003) to account for reference memory function in a visual temporal generalization task and auditory and visual reproduction tasks was examined. In all tasks the number of presentations of the standard was manipulated (1, 3, or 5), and its effect on performance was compared. In visual temporal generalization the number of presentations of the standard did not affect the number of times the standard was correctly identified, nor did it affect the overall temporal generalization gradient. In auditory reproduction there was no effect of the number of times the standard was presented on mean reproductions. In visual reproduction mean reproductions were shorter when the standard was only presented once; however, this effect was reduced when a visual cue was provided before the first presentation of the standard. Whilst the results of all experiments are best accounted for by the perturbation model there appears to be some attentional benefit to multiple presentations of the standard in visual reproduction.     

Anticipatory concern: a study in autism

There has been substantial research on children's empathic responsiveness towards distressed people, and on the limited responsiveness of children with autism. To date, however, there have not been experimental studies to test how far children show concern towards someone who might be expected to feel badly, when that person has not (yet) expressed any negative feelings. We tested matched groups of children with autism and learning disability, and typically developing children of similar verbal mental age (approximately 6 years), with a novel procedure in which participants witnessed one person (E1) tearing the drawing of another (E2). In a comparison condition, a blank card was torn. In the torn‐drawing condition, as predicted, fewer participants with autism orientated towards E2 with an immediate look, and as a group, they were rated as showing less concern for, and fewer concerned looks towards, E2. We discuss possible implications for theoretical perspectives on the early development of empathy in typically as well as atypically developing children.     

The effects of aging and dual task demands on language production

A digital pursuit rotor task was used to measure dual task costs of language production by young and older adults. After training on the pursuit rotor, participants were asked to track the moving target while providing a language sample. When simultaneously engaged, young adults experienced greater dual task costs to tracking, fluency, and grammatical complexity than older adults. Older adults were able to preserve their tracking performance by speaking more slowly. Individual differences in working memory, processing speed, and Stroop interference affected vulnerability to dual task costs. These results demonstrate the utility of using a digital pursuit rotor to study the effects of aging and dual task demands on language production and confirm prior findings that young and older adults use different strategies to accommodate to dual task demands.     

The Relationship of Sexual Values and Emotional Awareness to Sexual Activity in Young Adulthood

A sample of 170 college freshman completed assessments related to emotional awareness, sexual values, and levels of sexual activity. There was a significant relationship between sexual values and sexual activity. Abstinence values appear to be important in the decision to engage in sexual activity.     

Prevalence of dating violence and victimization: regional and gender differences

This report examines (1) the prevalence of dating violence victimization from a national sample of rural adolescents and (2) patterns by gender and region. Analyses are based on 20,274 adolescents who reported violence victimization using the Community Drug and Alcohol Survey. The relationship of dating violence with gender and region was assessed with HLM5 using Bernoulli's logistic regression. Approximately 16% of adolescents reported being a victim of dating violence. Females reported higher incidence of victimization than males. Dating violence is more prevalent in the South. While it is important to address the underlying values in society that may contribute to dating violence, it is equally productive to include regional and cultural values.     

Contriving transitive conditioned establishing operations to establish derived manding skills in adults with severe developmental disabilities

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate derived manding skills in 2 adults with severe developmental disabilities and language deficits by contriving transitive conditioned establishing operations. Specifically, we evaluated whether a history of reinforced conditional discrimination learning would ultimately result in a derived mand repertoire, in which participants manded for items that were needed to complete chained tasks. After mastering the first three phases of the picture exchange communication system (PECS), participants were taught to mand for the needed items by exchanging pictures of the items for the items themselves. They were then taught to conditionally relate the dictated names of the items to the corresponding pictures of the items and to relate the dictated names to the corresponding printed words. We then tested, in the absence of reinforcement, whether participants would mand for the items needed to complete the chained tasks using text rather than pictures. Both participants showed the emergence of derived mands and some derived stimulus relations as a result of this instruction. Some of the derived relations were shown to be intact at 1-month follow-up, and scores on derived mand probes were higher at follow-up than before training. In addition, the 2 participants vocally requested the needed items on maintenance test probes, a skill that was never trained and was not previously in their repertoires. These results suggest that a history of reinforced relational responding may facilitate the expansion of a number of verbal skills and emphasize the possibility of a synthesis of Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior and derived stimulus relations into language-training efforts for persons with significant disabilities.     

Habermas,lifelong learning and citizenship education

Citizenship and its education is again gaining importance in many countries. This paper uses England as its primary example to develop a Habermasian perspective on this issue. The statutory requirements for citizenship education in England imply that significant attention be given to the moral and social development of the learner over time, to the active engagement of the learner in community and to the knowledge skills and understanding necessary for political action. This paper sets out a theoretical framework that offers a perspective on learning suitable for these far-reaching aims. We argue that schools need to shift from the currently dominant discourse of accountability to incorporate a discourse of care in order to make room for an effective and appropriate pedagogy for citizenship. Habermas’s social theory gives us a theoretical framework that properly locates schools within the lifeworld as part of civil society. Schools should therefore attend to hermeneutical and emancipatory concerns, not only to strategic interests. We put these in the context of Habermas’s social theory to paint an alternative vision learning for citizenship education which is based in developing the dispositions, values and attitudes necessary for lifelong learning with a view to developing ongoing communicative action.

Why minority group members resent impostors

An impostor is defined as somebody who publicly lays claim to an identity while simultaneously disguising their failure to fulfill key criteria for group membership. The current study aimed to identify why minority group members feel negatively toward impostors. In two experiments, gay participants evaluated a person who claimed to be either gay or straight. In half of the conditions the target's claims for identity were consistent with their behavior, and in the other half the target's claims for identity were inconsistent with their behavior (impostors). Participants perceived a straight target that claimed to be gay to be doing more damage to the group than a consistent straight target. This effect was mediated by ratings of the extent to which the target was threatening the distinctiveness of gay identity. Furthermore, a gay target who claimed to be straight was seen to be less likeable and was seen to be doing more damage to the group than a consistent gay target, effects that were mediated by the extent to which the target was perceived to feel shame about their group identity. Implications of the results for our understanding of impostorism are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.