What is right with “deep” dyslexic patients?

Two aphasic adults with a specific acquired dyslexia were given tests requiring the processing of written words and sentences. Despite the general severity of the patients' deficits, some aspects of such processing appear to be relatively well preserved. The patients have particular difficulty reading aloud function words and abstract words; yet in word/nonword discrimination tests, both patients showed normal recognition of function words and one showed normal performance with abstract words. The patients do have a deficit in comprehension of visually presented words and sentences; yet their performance on comprehension tests was considerable and, moreover, showed meaningful relationships with their ability to read aloud.     

Fact and fantasy: the roles of accuracy and variability in confusing imaginations with perceptual experiences

In Experiment 1, pictures were presented to subjects two, five, or eight times, and subjects were asked to imagine each pciture two, five, or eight times. Subsequently, subjects estimated the number of times each picture had been presented. Their estimates of the frequency of these external events were influenced by imagination trials; this effect was greater for good imagers than for poor imagers. Experiment 2 involved a similar design in which subjects were asked either to imagine the same referent for a word or to imagine a different referent for a word on successive imagination trials. Consistency (same referent) did not increase the influence of imaginations on immediate judgments of external frequency. Thus, the results of Experiment 1 were attributed to the greater accuracy (as opposed to greater consistency) of good imagers' internal generations of the stimuli. Furthermore, variation (imagining different referents), like greater accuracy, increased the effects of imagination trials on immediate but not on delayed judgments of frequency. Possible mechanisms underlying these effects are discussed. In general, the two studies show that qualitative characteristics of completely covert generations influence their impact on estimates of the frequency of external events.     

Durkheim Revisited: “Why Do Women Kill Themselves?”

Durkheim divided suicide into four social types; egoistic, anomic, fatalistic, and altruistic assigning the first two to modern, western society while relegating the last two to pre-industrial social orders. However, contemporary studies of female suicidal behavior and depression show that such women exhibit personality characteristics of low self-esteem, passivity, dependence and living vicariously for others which correspond to the behavioral indices of impersonalism, submissiveness, passivity, and obedience that produce the lack of individuation characteristic of Durkheim's altruistic/fatalistic suicide categories. On this basis, the author suggests that altruistic/fatalistic suicide may even in the modern world be relevant to the explanation of female suicidal behavior, a hypothesis which, if true, would support the contention that "men and women inhibit different social worlds."     

SCOPE: A Comprehensive-Sequential Approach to Career Counseling

SCOPE is a comprehensive career-counseling program presently in operation at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey. It consists of a basic program plus a cluster of supplemental, optional exercises. The basic program has a sequence of four career-planning phases, one of which applies to each undergraduate year. Efforts are made to process students systematically through the entire basic program. An individual checklist kept for each participating student provides an internal mechanism for program evaluation and modification. Early results suggest effectiveness and positive student reactions.     

Detecting Alcoholism in Clients

Alcoholism is a primary, progressive, fatal, and treatable disorder. It often goes undetected because of a lack of understanding of how to tell an alcoholic from someone who drinks heavily. This article presents a systematic approach using the most reliable and valid instruments available. The approach will allow a clinician to quickly and accurately diagnose or rule out the presence of alcoholism in a client. Accurate diagnosis will allow proper treatment of this disorder, which affects about 6.7% of all people.     

Assessment of human obesity: The measurement of body composition

The most common methods of assessing degree of obesity in humans are reviewed. These include anthropometry, somatotyping, bodyweight, skinfold calipering, densitometry, and several nondensitometric procedures. The evidence suggests that bodyweight may often be an unreliable and invalid index of obesity. The parameters influencing its inaccuracy are discussed. These include age, height, sex, muscularity, and degree of obesity or amount of recent weight loss. The most reliable and valid measures of human bodyfat are generally the most complicated and impractical. Compromise assessment procedures involving nonintrusive measurement of subcutaneous fat and selected anthropometric dimensions may offer an incomplete but welcome improvement over sole reliance on bodyweight as an index of obesity.     

A multi-element analysis of the effect of teacher aides in an "open"-style classroom

Open classrooms with few rules, individualized instruction, and informal class organization present new problems for the application of behavior principles. The effects of three types of teacher aides on student achievement and on-task behavior were studied. Each was compared with a standard no-aide condition. Subjects were 54 third graders in two "open"-style classrooms. The three types of aide, helping adult, disciplinary adult, and helping fifth-grade aide, were compared in a multi-element design with a no-aide control. The helping-adult aide significantly affected the academic output of the class, when compared with the no-aide condition. All aide conditions produced more academic work and on-task behavior than did the standard no-aide condition.     

Community applications of instructional technology: teaching writers of instructional packages

A community education program, to develop a variety of performance competencies in large numbers of neighborhood residents, requires a technology for preparing learning units administerable by community members themselves. The effects of a writing manual, designed to teach nonprofessionals to prepare such instructional packages, were analyzed in two experiments. Experiment I employed a multiple-baseline design across three university student trainees. The results showed that appropriate program writing increased by 75% after completion of the manual. The results of Experiment II, with two low-income neighborhood residents serving as trainees, showed that packages produced by trained writers resulted in a greater increase in skill activities than sets of training stimuli produced by untrained writers.     

THE EFFECTS OF A GOOD-BEHAVIOR CONTRACT ON THE CLASSROOM BEHAVIORS OF SIXTH-GRADE STUDENTS1

The effects of a good-behavior contract on the on-task behavior, disruptive behavior, daily assignment completion, and weekly grades of four sixth-grade students were examined in a public school classroom. The contract consisted of presenting the students with a list of good conduct and assignment completion goals and a list of disruptive behaviors coupled with a list of rewards and penalties that could be earned. The rewards and penalties made use of existing facilities and classroom privileges. At the beginning of each morning work period, the teacher negotiated the good-behavior contract with each experimental subject. During the negotiations, the teacher emphasized student self-management and encouraged each student to earn a reward by achieving the good-conduct goals and completing the contract assignments. An isolated work area was provided to allow students the opportunity to remove themselves from their desks for a fixed period of 15 min. At the end of the work period, the teacher determined whether each student earned a choice of reward or penalty dependent on assignment completion and whether the teacher had observed disruptive behaviors. Thus, the contract permitted the student to negotiate the goal behaviors and contingencies with the teacher. Throughout the study, the students were in agreement with the teacher on whether a choice of reward or penalty had been earned. The contract was introduced for different children at different times, constituting a multiple-baseline analysis. On-task behavior and daily assignment completion increased, weekly grades were higher, and disruptive behavior decreased when the contract was in effect. Three contrast subjects were selected from the class as model students who consistently produced acceptable assignments and who did not engage in high rates of disruptive and/or off-task behaviors. When the contract was in effect for the experimental subjects, their performance compared favorably with the contrast subjects, who never received the daily contract. The results demonstrated that the contract was effective within the confines of the facilities and contingencies readily available in a public school classroom setting.