THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A CONSTANT TIME-DELAY PROCEDURE TO TEACH CHAINED RESPONSES TO ADOLESCENTS WITH MENTAL RETARDATION

The effectiveness of a 5-s constant time-delay procedure to teach three chained food preparation behaviors to four moderately retarded adolescent students was evaluated within a multiple probe design across behaviors. Results indicate that the procedure was effective in teaching all four students to make a sandwich, boil a boil-in-bag item, and bake canned biscuits. The skills maintained with at least 85% accuracy over a 3-month period. Training generalized from the school to the home setting for the 2 subjects that completed generalization probe sessions. The percentage of errors across all skills and students was less than 9%.     

Stimulus effects on concurrent performance in transition

Six experimentally naive pigeons were exposed to concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules in a three-key procedure in which food reinforcement followed pecks on the side keys and pecks on the center key served as changeover responses. In Phase 1, 3 birds were exposed to 20 combinations of five variable-interval values, with each variable-interval value consistently associated with a different color on the side keys. Another 3 pigeons were exposed to the same 20 conditions, but with a more standard procedure that used a nondifferential discriminative stimulus on the two side keys throughout all conditions. In Phase 2, the differential and nondifferential stimulus conditions were reversed for each pigeon. Each condition lasted for one 5-hr session and one subsequent 1-hr session. In the last 14 conditions of each phase, the presence of differential discriminative stimuli decreased the time necessary for differential responding to develop and increased the sensitivity of behavior to reinforcement distribution in the 1st hr of training; during the last hours of training in each condition, however, the effects of the differential discriminative stimuli could not be distinguished from the effects of reinforcement distribution per se. These results show the importance of studying transitions in behavior as well as final performance. They may also be relevant to discrepancies in the results of previous experiments that have used nonhuman and human subjects.     

Contributions of a supportive work environment to parents' well-being and orientation to work

Examined the joint and unique contributions of informal social support in the workplace and formal, family-responsive benefits and policies provided by employers to the job-related attitudes and personal well-being of employed parents with a young child. Eighty married men, 169 married women, and 72 single women with a preschool child completed a survey concerning social support from co-workers and supervisor, utilization of family-responsive benefits and policies, readiness to leave the employer for additional benefits, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, role strain, and health symptoms. Among the findings: (a) Fathers and mothers expressed equal levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but mothers reported more role strain and health symptoms; (b) nearly 48% of married women's organizational commitment was accounted for by measures of support in the workplace; (c) informal social support at work was significantly more important to men's well-being than that of women; and (d) formal, family-responsive policies appeared more consequential for the prediction of women's role strain, perhaps because of women's greater responsibility for adjusting work life to meet the demands of family roles.     

“Snips and snails and puppy dog tails”: Gender of agent,recipient, and observer as determinants of perceptions of discipline

This study examined the role of gender of observer, parent, and child on judgments of the severity, appropriateness, and consequences of various forms of discipline. Young adults read stories describing a disciplinary encounter between parent and child and made required judgments. Consistent gender differences emerged. Females judged the discipline more harshly than males, rating it as more severe, more abusive, less appropriate, and more likely to result in emotional harm. Discipline of daughters was judged to be harsher than identical treatment of sons, particularly when the discipline was administered by the father. The implications of differential judgments are discussed.     

Recent stressful life events and young children's school adjustment

A group of 211 first-to fourth-grade children who had experienced one or more recent stressful life events were compared to a demographically matched sample of 211 children who had not experienced such events on measures of school adjustment problems and competencies. Stressful life events were found to be associated with the presence of more serious school adjustment problems and fewer competencies. Those associations were strongest for children who had experienced multiple recent stressful events. The importance of preventive interventions for this at-risk group was emphasized and future research steps in the area were considered.     

Moral judgment and attitudes toward authority of political resisters

In an exploration of the personal basis of resistance to authority, moral judgment and attitudes toward authority were examined in 183 men and women political resisters, including antinuclear, draft registration, and tax resisters, and anarchists, and compared to 34 liberal and 29 conservative activists. The measures used were the Defining Issues Test and a specially designed attitude survey. As predicted, the differences between resisters and nonresisters were in the realm of cognitive beliefs and values. Strong rejection of political and social authority, a belief that individual conscience is a better guide to conduct than the law, a professed unwillingness to be in positions of authority over others, and a lack of conventional religious affiliation significantly differentiated the resisters from the nonresisters. The resisters also measured high in level of moral judgment but were significantly different only from the conservatives.     

Subcortical aphasia with deep dyslexia: A case study of a Japanese patient

The reading performance of a Japanese Broca-type aphasic patient on a single-word reading test was investigated. The result indicated that the subject fits the symptom complex of deep dyslexia in more than one aspect. Unique characteristics of this subject included (1) the isolated subcortical site of the lesion, which apparently produced deep dyslexia, and (2) double dissociations between kanji and kana processing and between oral reading and reading comprehension. The performance of this subject was compared with that of another Japanese deep dyslexic subject in S. Sasanuma (1980, In M. Coltheart, K. Patterson, & J. C. Marshall (Eds.), Deep dyslexia, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). A theoretical implication was attempted based on a dual coding process scheme by S. Sasanuma and O. Fujimura (1978, Cortex, 7, 1-18).     

Teacher ratings of children's problem and competence behaviors: Normative and parametric characteristics

Teacher-rated adjustment differences among young elementary school children from (a) a recent sample and a 1974 cohort, and (b) urban/suburban, male/female, and grade-level subgroups were examined. A problem behavior checklist (Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale) and a school competence measure (Health Resources Inventory) for 974 children from 5 urban and 5 suburban schools were completed by 101 first- to fourth-grade teachers. Children from the more current cohort were rated as significantly more maladjusted than those from the earlier sample on 8 of 10 adjustment variables. In the recent sample, girls and suburban children evidenced a greater number of school competencies and fewer problem behaviors than boys and urban children, respectively. The implications of these findings for the future use of the teacher rating scales are discussed.     

Reaction time, race, and racism

The claim (Jensen, 1975) that blacks are slower than whites in choice (but not simple) reaction time is examined. It is false. The claim (Jensen, 1985) that Muhammad Ali was shown to have a “very average” reaction time is examined. It is false. The claim (Vernon & Jensen, 1984) that an unpublished technical report showed blacks to be inferior to whites on a relatively content-free mental processing task is examined. It is false. Suggestions are made concerning relevant questions that might be addressed by students of race differences in intelligence.