Treatment acceptability among mexican american parents

There is a void in the literature with regard to Hispanic parents' views about common interventions for children with behavior problems. The purpose of this study was to examine the treatment acceptability of child management techniques in a Mexican American sample. Parents' acculturation was also examined to determine if it would account for differences in treatment acceptability. Mexican American parents found response cost, a punishment-based technique, more acceptable than positive reinforcement-based techniques (e.g., differential attention). Results suggest that Mexican American parents' acculturation has little impact on acceptability of child management interventions. No association was found between mothers' acculturation and treatment acceptability. However, more acculturated Mexican American fathers viewed token economy as more acceptable than less acculturated fathers. Results are discussed in the context of clinical work and research with Mexican Americans.     

The evidence missing from evidence-based practice

Comments on the report by the APA Presidential Task Force on Evidence-Based Practice entitled Evidence-based practice in psychology. Regrettably, the task force report was largely silent on three critical issues. As a consequence, it omitted much of the evidence necessary for a complete picture of evidence-based practice. First, the task force report did not operationalize "evidence." Second, the task force report did not address the crucial problem of iatrogenic treatments. Third, the task force report said little about the necessity for ongoing objective evaluation of clinical cases, which is critical to ethically responsible services. Current debate centers on how research findings should be factored into interventions, not on whether it is necessary to do so. Rather than waiting for the resolution of competing views on the matter, psychologists bear an ethical obligation to offer evidence-informed services. Three critical steps that were largely neglected by the task force report can go far toward helping psychologists honor that commitment: (a) providing a clearer operationalization of scientific evidence, (b) using current research to rule out the use of potentially harmful methods, and (c) using objective criteria to evaluate all of their cases on an ongoing basis. These steps, in turn, clarify the menu of options available to therapists, help protect clients from harm, and offer the advantage of allowing clinicians to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about what does and does not work in psychotherapy.     

Little Hans and Freud's self-analysis: a biographical view of clinical theory in the making

For nearly a century, Freud's "Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy" has been read mainly--if often critically--with Freud's conscious aim in mind: providing evidence for the central importance of oedipal conflict. Material recently released by the Freud Archives casts new light on Freud's treatment of Hans's mother, Olga Graf (nee H?nig)--which began at the height of his self-analysis in 1897--and of Hans himself. Read in the enriched context of new information from Eissler's interviews with Max Graf and Herbert Graf, two texts--Freud's 1897 letters to Fliess and the 1909 case history--illuminate possible personal motives for Freud's insistence on the primacy of oedipal conflict.     

The flash-lag effect during illusory chopstick rotation

In the 'flash-lag' effect, a static object that is briefly flashed next to a moving object appears to lag behind the moving object. A flash was put up next to an intersection that appeared to be moving clockwise along a circular path but was actually moving counterclockwise [the chopstick illusion; Anstis, 1990, in AI and the Eye Eds A Blake, T Troscianko (London: John Wiley) pp 105 117; 2003, in Levels of Perception Eds L Harris, M Jenkin (New York: Springer) pp 90 93]. As a result, the flash appeared displaced clockwise. This was appropriate to the physical, not the subjective, direction of rotation, and it suggests that the flash-lag illusion occurs early in the visual system, before motion signals are parsed into moving objects.     

Afterimages and the breathing light illusion

Gori and Stubbs (2006 Perception 35 1573-1577) have published some visual illusions elicited in observers who fixate very blurred disks while they move their head towards and away from them. We interpret these illusions as afterimages. We support this with examples of eccentric, colored, and striped afterimages.     

Processing strategies in a phoneme deletion task

The present study explores the factors underlying competence in a difficult consonant deletion task, using a sample of nine-year-old children whose development had been followed from the age of four. In particular it examines the factors governing use of phonological and orthographic strategies in the deletion task, and the relations between strategy use, current reading and spelling ability, and earlier phonological awareness skills. Processes in consonant deletion are then mapped on to current dual-route models of reading and spelling.