Route-finding: A measure of everyday executive functioning in the head-injured adult

This is an ecological test of adaptation in head-injured adults, reporting reliability and validity of the Executive Function Route-finding Task (EFRT; Boyd and Sautter, 1985). A Likert scale was used to rate executive aspects of route-finding such as task formulation, strategy of approach, detection and correction of errors, and dependence on cueing among 31 head-injured young adults within a large rehabilitation facility. The Task has high inter-rater reliability and acceptable concurrent validity with other neuropsychological constructs.     

Family preservation using multisystemic treatment: Long-term follow-up to a clinical trial with serious juvenile offenders

In a randomized clinical trial, multisystemic family preservation was shown to significantly reduce rates of criminal activity and incarceration in a sample of 84 serious juvenile offenders and their multi-need families. In the current study, archival records were searched for re-arrest an average of 2.4 years post-referral. Survival analysis showed that youths who received multisystemic family preservation were less likely to be re-arrested than were youths who had received usual services. Such results represent the first controlled demonstration that family preservation, when delivered via a clearly specified treatment model, has lasting effects with serious juvenile offenders. Implications for family preservation and juvenile justice research are discussed.     

Relevant consequence and empirical inquiry

A criterion of adequacy is proposed for theories of relevant consequence. According to the criterion, scientists whose deductive reasoning is limited to some proposed subset of the standard consequence relation must not thereby suffer a reduction in scientific competence. A simple theory of relevant consequence is introduced and shown to satisfy the criterion with respect to a formally defined paradigm of empirical inquiry.Research support was provided by the Office of Naval Research under contract No. N00014-89-J-1725 to Osherson and Weinstein, Swiss National Science Foundation under contract No. 21-32399.91 and by a Siemens Corporation grant to Osherson.     

INCREASING CALORIE CONSUMPTION IN CHILDREN WITH CYSTIC FIBROSIS: REPLICATION WITH 2-YEAR FOLLOW-UP

Three mildly malnourished children with cystic fibrosis and their parents participated in a behavioral group-treatment program that focused on promoting and maintaining increased calorie consumption. Treatment included nutritional education, gradually increasing calorie goals, contingency management, and relaxation training, and was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across four meals. Children's calorie intake increased across meals, and total calorie intake was 32% to 60% above baseline at posttreatment. Increased calorie consumption was maintained at the 96-week follow-up (2 years posttreatment). The children's growth rates in weight and height were greater during the 2 years following treatment than the year prior to treatment. Increases in pace of eating and calories consumed per minute were also observed 1 year posttreatment. These findings replicated and extended earlier research supporting the efficacy of behavioral intervention in the treatment of malnutrition in children with cystic fibrosis.     

Lesbian,gay, and bisexual youth in community settings: Personal challenges and mental health problems

Studied 194 lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth aged 21 and younger who attended programs in 14 community centers to determine the personal challenges they face due to their sexual orientation and their responses to these stresses. First awareness of sexual orientation typically occurred at age 10, but disclosure to another person did not occur until about age 16. There was much variability in sexual behavior, and many youths reported both same-sex and opposite-sex sexual experiences. Although most had told at least one family member about their sexual orientation, there remained much concern about family reactions. Suicide attempts were acknowledged by 42% of the sample. Attempters significantly differed from nonattempters on several milestones of sexual orientation development, social aspects of sexual orientation, parents' knowledge of sexual orientation, and mental health problems. The following organizations participated in this project and are thanked for their assistance: Affirmations (Detroit), the Atlanta Gay Center, Baltimore Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth, Gay Alternative Youth (Pittsburgh), the Gay and Lesbian Youth Association of Dallas, Gay Youth Alliance — San Diego, the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Los Angeles, Horizons Community Services (Chicago), the Indianapolis Youth Group, the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center of Cleveland, Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (San Francisco), Outright (Denver), and Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (Washington, DC). The following individuals associated with these groups are gratefully thanked for their help: Danny Barutta, Adriene Corbin, Tom Eversole, Chris Gonzalez, Bill Gripp, Rory Lopez, Phil Rector, Jamie Schield, Cheryl Schwartz, Jan Stephenson, Sterling Stowell, Amy Vitro, and Aubrey Wertheim. Gene Thomas is thanked for helping with data collection, as are Michael LaFlam, Patrick McNamara, and Mark Shiner, who processed the surveys. We also thank Rainer Silbereisen for his comments. This project was supported by funds from the Center for the Study of Child and Adolescent Development of the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University.     

When men become “women”: Gender antagonism and the changing sexual geography of work in Newfoundland

In the traditional Newfoundland maritime division of labor, men worked at sea on boats and women worked on the land in their households. Patterns of gender identity, work, and gender relations were characterized by an ethos of complementarity. Present declines in the fishery make it impossible to earn a living at sea and men have become landbound. The resulting infringement by unemployed men into the spaces and prerogatives traditionally allotted to women has come to generate a gender antagonism that permeates, if not dominates, contemporary gender relations in a southwest coast Newfoundland fishing community. Ethnographic analysis incorporates data collected during two periods of anthropological fieldwork: 1977–1978 and 1989–1990. Comparative assessment of economic, psychological, and cultural constructionist theories of gender relations inform the qualitative analysis of ethnographic data.The original period (1977–1978) of anthropological fieldwork was funded by a grant from the United States National Institute of Child and Maternal Health, which was administered through the Population Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The second period (1989–1990) of fieldwork was funded by grants from Memorial University of Newfoundland's Institute of Social and Economic Research, the Canadian Embassy's Canadian Studies Program, and the University of South Dakota's General Research Fund.     

The effects of temporal modulation and spatial location on the perceived spatial frequency of visual patterns

The perceived spatial frequency of a visual pattern can increase when a pattern drifts or is presented at a peripheral visual field location, as compared with a foveally viewed, stationary pattern. We confirmed previously reported effects of motion on foveally viewed patterns and of location on stationary patterns and extended this analysis to the effect of motion on peripherally viewed patterns and the effect of location on drifting patterns. Most central to our investigation was the combined effect of temporal modulation and spatial location on perceived spatial frequency. The group data, as well as the individual sets of data for most observers, are consistent with the mathematical concept of separability for the effects of temporal modulation and spatial location on perceived spatial frequency. Two qualitative psychophysical models suggest explanations for the effects. Both models assume that the receptive-field sizes of a set of underlying psychophysical mechanisms monotonically change as a function of temporal modulation or visual field location, whereas the perceptual labels attached to a set of channels remain invariant. These models predict that drifting or peripheral viewing of a pattern will cause a shift in the perceived spatial frequency of the pattern to a higher apparent spatial frequency.