BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT OF DEVIANT SEX-ROLE BEHAVIORS IN A MALE CHILD1

This study demonstrated reinforcement control over pronounced feminine behaviors in a male child who had been psychologically evaluated as manifesting “childhood cross-gender identity”. The clinical history of the subject paralleled the retrospective reports of adult transsexuals, including (a) cross-gender clothing preferences, (b) actual or imaginal use of cosmetic articles, (c) feminine behavior mannerisms, (d) aversion to masculine activities, coupled with preference for girl playmates and feminine activities, (e) preference for female role, (f) feminine voice inflection and predominantly feminine content in speech, and (g) verbal statements about the desire or preference to be a girl. The subject was treated sequentially in the clinic and home environments by his mother, trained to be his therapist. The mother was taught to reinforce masculine behaviors and to extinguish feminine behaviors, by using social reinforcement in the clinic and a token reinforcement procedure in the home. During this treatment, his feminine behaviors sharply decreased and masculine behavior increased. The treatment effects were found to be largely response-specific and stimulus-specific; consequently, it was necessary to strengthen more than one masculine behavior and weaken several feminine behaviors, in both clinic and home settings. A multiple-baseline intrasubject design was used to ensure both replication and identification of relevant treatment variables. Follow-up data three years after the treatment began suggests that the boy's sex-typed behaviors have become normalized. This study suggests a preliminary step toward correcting pathological sex-role development in boys, which may provide a basis for the primary prevention of adult transsexualism or similar adult sex-role deviation.     

The behavioral treatment of a “transsexual” preadolescent boy

Behavioral treatment procedures were developed to suppress feminine sex-typed behaviors and to increase masculine sex-typed behaviors in an 8-year-old boy with “childhood cross-gender identity.” The boy's clinical history paralleled the retrospective reports of adult transsexuals, including (1) feminine voice inflection and predominantly feminine content in speech, (2) verbal self-reference as “sissy” and “fag” and statements about his preference to be a girl, (3) feminine hand and arm gestures and “swishy” gait, (4) an aversion to masculine play activities, (5) a strong preference for girl playmates and taking a feminine role in play and role-playing, and (6) improvised cross-dressing. With a multiple-baseline intrasubject design across stimulus environments and across behaviors, the subject was treated sequentially in the clinic, at home, and in the school. The boy's mother was trained to administer a token economy program in the home, and the school teacher was taught to apply a response-cost procedure in the classroom. The initial treatment effects were found to be largely response specific and stimulus specific, necessitating treatment for a number of behaviors in the three major environments. Followup data 12 months after treatment termination suggest that the boy's sex-typed behaviors have become essentially normalized. This treatment holds promise for correcting pathological gender identity development in boys and for relieving the associated emotional adjustment problems.     

Auditory overselectivity in autistic children

Autistic and normal children were trained to respond to a complex stimulus containing two auditory components. After the discrimination was acquired, the individual components were presented separately, allowing assessment of the extent to which the child's responding was controlled by one or both of the cues. The autistic children, unlike the normal children, provided evidence for stimulus overselectivity in that 6 of 8 autistic subjects responded to only one of the components. These results are consistent with those of previous studies which showed that when autistic children are presented with a complex visual or multiple-modality stimulus, they selectively respond to only one component of the complex. The present results extend the stimulus overselectivity hypothesis to the situation where all of the stimuli occur within the auditory modality. It is suggested that auditory overselectivity may partially account for autistic deficits in speech comprehension.     

Young adults with severe congenital hypothyroidism: cognitive event related potentials (ERPs) and the significance of an early start of thyroxine treatment

Congenital hypothyroidism (CH) has devastating effects upon brain development if left untreated. Despite early start of thyroxine treatment, patients still show subtle cognitive deficits compared to controls. We aimed to study auditory event related potentials (ERPs) in young CH adults (N = 12) to verify previous reports of normal attention functions measured by P3 in CH children. We also include ERP components (P1, N1, P2) allowing assessment of a wider range of auditory processing functions. No significant change in P3 latency or amplitude was found in the CH group, but a more subtle change in amplitude topography. A later start of thyroxine treatment was related to increased P3 latency and reduced amplitude. Group differences were found in early ERP components tapping sensory processing, sensory gating and selective attention. The results suggest persisting abnormalities in auditory processing and selective attention that may have influenced cognitive development.     

Some social contexts of self-destructive behavior

This study investigated the social context of self-injurious behavior in autistic, schizophrenic, and mentally retarded children residing in a state hospital. Social interactions between subjects and staff were recorded along with subjects' self-destructive behavior. The results showed a substantial increase in self-destructive behavior following the staff's presentation of demands, denials, and punishments in 19 of the 20 subjects. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that self-injurious behavior is a social behavior, which is determined by persons in the environment. In addition, the self-destructive behavior of one subject may have been largely self-stimulatory in nature.     

Overselective response to social stimuli by autistic children

Previous studies have shown that when presented with a complex stimulus input, autistic children typically respond to only one of the elements of the complex. This phenomenon was called stimulus overselectivity (or overselective attention). The present investigation sought to determine if this overselectivity might be a possible basis for the deviant social behavior in autistic children. Autistic and normal children were trained to discriminate between clothed girl and boy doll figures. After the children had acquired this discrimination, the individual clothing components and the heads were systematically interchanged between the figures. Thus, it could be determined which component(s) the children had used to make the discrimination. The autistic children demonstrated stimulus overselectivity in that they formed the discrimination between the boy and girl figures on the basis of only one component or of peculiar combinations of components. For example, one child discriminated the figures on the basis of shoes. In contrast, the normal children responded primarily to the figures' heads but could also respond correctly to other parts. These findings are consistent with previous research on stimulus overselectivity and have implications for understanding the difficulty autistic children show in forming meaningful social relationships.This investigation was supported by U.S. Public Health Service Research Grant 11440 from the National Institute of Mental Health.The authors express their appreciation to James Q. Simmons, Associate Chief, Mental Retardation and Child Mental Health Programs, Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California, Los Angeles; and Norbert Rieger, Superintendent of Children's Services, Camarillo State Hospital, Camarillo, California. They are also grateful to Robert Koegel and to Thomas Willis for their valuable suggestions and to Meredith Gibbs for her assistance in data collection.     

PSYCHOPHYSICAL INVARIANTS OF ACHROMATIC COLOURVISION. V

LIE, I. Psychophysical invariants of achromatic colour vision. V. Brightness as a function of inducing field luminance. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 61–64.– Brightness (the dim-bright dimension) of achromatic colour was investigated as a function of surrounding field luminance. It was found that brightness of a test area was relatively independent of luminance level of the surrounding area until the luminance of the latter had passed well beyond that of the test area. With further increase of surrounding luminance, the brightness of the test area increased rapidly.     

The lability of the tactile-kinaesthetic framework

This paper is concerned with the ability to recognize settings of a rod (pivoted at the centre) at various angles of tilt without the use of vision. Five angles of tilt, all within the upper right quadrant, were used and 80 subjects took part in the experiments. It is shown that tactile-kinaesthetic recognition of a given angle of tilt is decidedly poor, subjects commonly reporting that the position of the rod had been changed. The direction of these subjective shifts was found to be in general towards the centre of the quadrant. If, following the recognition experiments, the subjects were required to judge settings of the rod in fact vertical and horizontal, errors made tended to be in a direction opposite to that normally found in making these judgements. It was further found that attempts to reinstate the original settings led to mean judgements equivalent to those given on the recognition tests, but with signs reversed. These various phenomena are ascribed to lability and disorganization of the tactile-kinaesthetic framework. An analogy with the autokinetic phenomenon is adduced.     

A NEUROBIOLOGICAL NON ALTERNATIVE: REJOINDER TO LEWIS,BAUMEISTER, AND MAILMAN

Certain misrepresentations of our theory of self-stimulatory behavior by Lewis, Baumeister, and Mailman (1987) are corrected and several questions raised by the commentators are answered. Their proposed neurobiological alternative is considered briefly and judged to be insufficiently detailed, inadequate in scope, and therefore premature.