Effectiveness of a consultation intervention to promote tobacco control policies in Northwest Indian tribes: Integrating experimental evaluation and service delivery

A quasi-experimental replication of an intervention for promoting tobacco control policies in Northwest Indian tribes is described and the process of intervention including issues of collaboration among research institutions and Indian organizations is discussed. The policy intervention was evaluated using a pretest-posttest design wherein 20 tribes that had served as wait-list controls now received the intervention. The intervention comprised a tribal representative attending a kickoff orientation; follow-up visits to the tribes; distribution of tobacco policy workbooks; and phone call consultations. Policy status and stringency were assessed by means of telephone interviews with two key contacts per tribe, and by a count of enacted policies. There were significant pre-post changes in the primary outcome measure, a composite summary score of tobacco policy stringency, and changes were also reflected in enacted policies. The intervention effects observed were similar to those found in the prior randomized trial and suggest a robust, disseminable intervention. Much of the success achieved was attributed to the role of an Indian organization in planning the project and implementing the intervention and evaluation protocols.     

Letter Dyslexia in a Letter-by-Letter Reader

We describe a letter-by-letter patient who produced misreading errors in both letters in isolation and in words. All errors were visual in nature. We hypothesized an access deficit to the abstract visual representation of letters that prevents letter identification. This deficit could account for the patient's letter-by-letter behavior, since each letter constituted a potential identification problem. An access deficit, moreover, could also explain the patient's letter visual errors. In access processing, in fact, the letters sharing common structural features in their abstract representations were the ones more frequently mismatched.     

USE OF EXTINCTION AND REINFORCEMENT TO INCREASE FOOD CONSUMPTION AND REDUCE EXPULSION

Extinction and reinforcement contingencies were used to treat 2 children with feeding disorders. Positive reinforcement and avoidance extinction effectively increased food acceptance but also increased food expulsion. Reduced expulsion and increased swallowing were achieved by repeated presentation of expelled food, a second extinction component.     

The management of children''s distress in response to painful medical treatment for burn injuries

The purpose of the current study was to develop an initial assessment of the efficacy of astress-management program designed to reduce the behavioral distress of children undergoing highlypainful medical treatments for their burn injuries. The stress-management program was delivered to 4 male patients, ages 5–12 yr and its effects assessed in a combined multiple-baseline and reversal design. Results indicated that the program was moderately effective at reducing behavioral distress during the burntreatment procedures for 3 of the 4 patients and less effective with the fourth. However, the design also revealed that the presence of a therapist to coach the patient in the use of these techniques was essential and that distress levels rose substantially on days when there was no therapist present. Finally, speculations concerning the factors responsible for the effectiveness of the stress-management program as well as its reduced efficacy with 1 S were discussed.     

Asymmetries in the acquisition of polar adjectives: Linguistic or conceptual?

This study was designed to determine whether the asymmetry in children's acquisition of polar adjective pairs is based on linguistic factors related to differences in adult usage and frequency or on an underlying conceptual difference. 24 children, aged 3;7–4;11, took part in a concept-learning task in which nonsense syllables replaced English words for the positive and negative ends of four dimensions: size, height, length, and thickness. The data indicate that the syllables for the negative end of each dimension have a longer learning period and a greater prelearning error rate. These results support the hypothesis that the asymmetry observed in the acquisition of polar adjectives is based on an underlying conceptual asymmetry.     

Use of repetition to facilitate spontaneous language acquisition

The role of repetition as a facilitator of spontaneous language acquisition was examined in a 12-month longitudinal study of three children: John, Mindy, and Ashley. Imitation was first defined in a traditional fashion as the exact repetition of a model utterance, within five utterances, without changing the model except to reduce it. During the single-word utterance period, John entered words into his vocabulary by imitating them and then using them spontaneously, while the two girls did not. He also imitated longer utterances than he produced spontaneously while the two girls did not. At the same time, John showed the most rapid language acquisition of the three children. John did not use imitation, as defined, to enter new syntactic-semantic relations into his speech during the two-word stage. However, when the definition of imitation was broadened to include other kinds of repetitions such as repetitions with expansion, either of the child's own productions or of those of others, it was found that repetitions played a significant role in the acquisition of new vocabulary and new syntactic-semantic relations in two-word utterances.This article is based, in part, on a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Denver, in 1976. Portions of the article were presented at the Wisconsin Education Research Association, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, December 1–2, 1977. The research was undertaken while the author was an NIMH predoctoral fellow, 5F01 MH55918-02 MTHL, and was also supported by a Grant Foundation grant for graduate student research to Dr. Marshall Haith and a Spencer Foundation grant to Dr. Kurt Fischer.     

Specialization of the cerebral hemispheres in scanning for information in short-term memory

Lateral specialization of function in the cerebral hemispheres was investigated in the context of a memory scanning paradigm. The S first memorized a set of letters (the memory set) and then indicated whether or not a subsequent test stimulus, presented in either the right or left visual field, matched any letter in the set. The test stimulus was either a letter or a picture of some common object; for the picture, S’s response was based on the initial letter of the name of that object. Reaction time was recorded and plotted as a function of the number of letters in the memory set. The results support the hypothesis that in a memory scanning task of this type, letter and picture test stimuli are spatially and verbally represented, respectively, and are processed in different cerebral hemispheres.     

Looming Threats and Animacy: Reduced Responsiveness in Youth with Disrupted Behavior Disorders

Theoretical models have implicated amygdala dysfunction in the development of Disruptive Behavior Disorders (DBDs; Conduct Disorder/Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Amygdala dysfunction impacts valence evaluation/response selection and emotion attention in youth with DBDs, particularly in those with elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits. However, amygdala responsiveness during social cognition and the responsiveness of the acute threat circuitry (amygdala/periaqueductal gray) in youth with DBDs have been less well-examined, particularly with reference to CU traits. 31 youth with DBDs and 27 typically developing youth (IQ, age and gender-matched) completed a threat paradigm during fMRI where animate and inanimate, threatening and neutral stimuli appeared to loom towards or recede from participants. Reduced responsiveness to threat variables, including visual threats and encroaching stimuli, was observed within acute threat circuitry and temporal, lateral frontal and parietal cortices in youth with DBDs. This reduced responsiveness, at least with respect to the looming variable, was modulated by CU traits. Reduced responsiveness to animacy information was also observed within temporal, lateral frontal and parietal cortices, but not within amygdala. Reduced responsiveness to animacy information as a function of CU traits was observed in PCC, though not within the amygdala. Reduced threat responsiveness may contribute to risk taking and impulsivity in youth with DBDs, particularly those with high levels of CU traits. Future work will need to examine the degree to which this reduced response to animacy is independent of amygdala dysfunction in youth with DBDs and what role PCC might play in the dysfunctional social cognition observed in youth with high levels of CU traits.