Self-reported assessment practices of school psychologists: Implications for training and practice

This study reports the results of an investigation of the assessment views and practices of school psychologists in the United States. Results of the investigation indicated that respondents are predominantly behavioral and cognitive behavioral in orientation; spend most of their professional time in the public schools; and engage in a great deal of assessment. Behavioral assessment and projective testing occupies the greatest amount of their social-emotional assessment time. Behavioral interviewing is the most used behavioral technique, followed by behavioral observation, which is reportedly used by approximately one third of the respondents with from 41% to 100% of clients. Although most of the respondents report a preference for continuing to do approximately the same amount of the various social-emotional assessment activities as they are presently doing, very high percentages of respondents indicate that their use of behavioral assessment strategies would increase with development of published instrumentation, normative standards, and standardized out-of-setting behavioral procedures.     

Cognitive Impairment and Personality Adjustment in Vietnam Veterans

This study investigated the intellectual functioning and personality characteristics of 81 Australian ex-servicemen, 42 of whom had served in Vietnam. A Cognitive Impairment Model (SCIM) developed by Savage (1978, 1981, 1984) enabled intellectual functioning levels, intellectual deterioration and learning ability in the verbal and performance modalities to be asses. The Clinical Analysis Questionnaire (CAQ) of Krug (1980) based 00 Cattell's theory and personality measurement techniques provided an assessment of normal personality characteristics and clinical factors. The data suggested that the two groups, Australian ex-servicemen and Australian Vietnam veterans, were relatively homogeneous with regard to cognitive functioning and gave no indication of impairment in their intellectual levels or of their learning ability. Significant personality differences were, however, found between the two groups of ex-servicemen. The Vietnam veterans showed significantly more tension, depression, guilt, resentment, alienation and hypochondriasis than their colleagues who had remained in Australia. They were more withdrawn from others and from reality and had more abnormal thought than the ex-servicemen who had not been to Vietnam. The cognitive data do not support the view that Vietnam veterans suffered from any serious cognitive impairment. The personality data, however, suggest a significant “Psycbological Stress Syndrome” in these Vietnam veterans which required professional psychological treatment.     

Midi-level measurement of social anxiety in psychiatric and non-psychiatric samples

This paper reports the development and assessment of midi-level behavioral measures of social anxiety in the context of two experiments, one studying an analog student sample, the other a psychiatric sample. Judgments on nine categories of clinically practical midi-level behaviors (e.g. Facial Expression, Orienting, Sense of Timing), based on a review of the literature on human ethology and on pilot research, were compared to global judgments of social anxiety and social skill and to physiological arousal. Intraclass correlations exceeded 0.80 for judgments of the global and midi-level behavioral ratings on both samples. Results of correlational analyses indicated that while there were several significant predictors of global skill and anxiety among the midis, the magnitude of the relationship between midis and globals was stronger for the patient than the student sample. Further analyses based on S's heart rate (HR) reactivity suggested that while global ratings did not significantly predict H R in a high social anxiety situation, one midi-level behavioral rating (self-manipulations) did. The clinical utility of the newly developed measures is discussed with particular attention to their practicality for behavior therapy.     

Dietary concern, weight fluctuation and weight status: further explorations of the restraint scale

The theory of restrained eating predicts that the Dietary Concern and Weight Fluctuation factors of the Restraint Scale should correlate with percentage overweight. However, Drewnowski, Riskey and Desor (1982) recently found that only Weight Fluctuation did in fact. The current study replicated that of Drewnowski el al. using a population which more closely resembled the one used in prior research on restraint. Correlations were computed between Restraint scores and both overweight and weight suppression, a second validational criterion with which indices of restraint should be related. Furthermore, since Drewnowski et al.'s results imply that it is Weight History rather than Dietary Concern which might be responsible for behavioral differences in restrained and unrestrained normals, the history of overweight among these two groups was examined. Contrary to Drewnowski et al., Dietary Concern was more strongly related to overweight than was Weight Fluctuation. Both factors correlated with weight suppression. Restrained normals had a much greater history of overweight than unrestrained normals, suggesting that previously observed similarities in behavior between restrained normals and obese individuals might be due to characteristics associated with the former group's prior overweight rather than with their current level of cognitive restraint.     

Factors influencing readability of rapidly presented text segments

Experiment 1 compared paragraph comprehension for texts shown either as normal pages on a computer terminal screen or as rapid serial visual presentations (RSVPs) of small text segments to a common location. Over several days of practice, reading comprehension was equivalent in the normal presentation mode and the RSVP format. When successive RSVP segments contained some information in common, to mimic the experience of successive parafoveal and foveal views of words in normal reading, comprehension was somewhat worse than when successive segments contained no overlapping information. Experiment 2 used a variety of segment size and segment duration combinations to investigate the optimal means of presenting text in the RSVP format. Across a variety of presentation rates and text difficulties, comprehension was maximal for segments averaging about 12 character spaces in length. In Experiment 3, texts were divided into short idea units or into random segments of equal average length. Comprehension was shown to be greater in the structured condition than in the random condition. An optimal means of presenting text in the RSVP format could be superior to normal presentation methods for reading and other text-processing tasks.     

Comprehension of main ideas and details in coherent and noncoherent discourse by aphasic and nonaphasic listeners

Aphasic and nonaphasic listeners' comprehension of main ideas and details within coherent and noncoherent narrative discourse was examined. Coherent paragraphs contained one topic to which all sentences in the paragraph related. Noncoherent paragraphs contained a change in topic with every third or fourth sentence. Each paragraph contained four main ideas and one or more details that related to each main idea. Listeners' responses to yes/no questions following each paragraph yielded the following results: (1) Nonaphasic listeners comprehended the paragraphs better than aphasic listeners. (2) Both aphasic and nonaphasic listeners comprehended main ideas better than they comprehended details. (3) Coherence did not affect comprehension of main ideas for either group. (4) Coherence did not affect comprehension of details by nonaphasic subjects. (5) Coherence affected comprehension of details by aphasic subjects, and their comprehension of details in coherent paragraphs was worse than their comprehension of details in noncoherent paragraphs. There was no significant correlation between Token Test scores and measures of paragraph comprehension.     

Language and the young stutterer: A new look at old theories and findings

The major theories and research approaches as to the etiology and development of stuttering are reviewed from a historical perspective. Findings are drawn from different sources indicating that language deficits are an initial contributing factor and a continuing component of this disorder. Those subsets of children which constitute high-risk groups are identified. It is suggested that researchers begin investigating the underlying organic bases of stuttering and its relationship to stages of language development. Finally, clinicians are encouraged to employ a therapy program that is concerned with all areas of language, rather than emphasizing treating only the symptoms of stuttering behavior.     

Automatic aftereffects in two-choice reaction time: a mathematical representation of some concepts

A mathematical model is developed to describe sequential effects in two-choice reaction time experiments with a short response-stimulus interval. Evidence is briefly discussed that in conditions with short response-stimulus intervals, automatic aftereffects dominate sequential effects, and the influence of subjective expectancy can be neglected. In these conditions the model premises three components of automatic aftereffects--facilitation, inhibition, and noise, with a common decay factor. Influence of response-stimulus interval and practice on sequential effects are examined and related to parameter changes in the proposed single-decay model. The decrease of automatic aftereffects with increasing response-stimulus interval is primarily ascribed to an increasing decay factor. The parameter representation of the model also clarifies the issue of the disappearance of automatic aftereffects with practice. It shows a gradual fading of inhibition in the initial stages of practice, together with a slower decrease of the facilitation effect. The single-decay model provides a satisfactory explanation for the processes involved in compatible two-choice reaction time with short response-stimulus interval.     

Integrating pictorial information across eye movements

Six experiments are reported dealing with the types of information integrated across eye movements in picture perception. A line drawing of an object was presented in peripheral vision, and subjects made an eye movement to it. During the saccade, the initially presented picture was replaced by another picture that the subject was instructed to name as quickly as possible. The relation between the stimulus on the first fixation and the stimulus on the second fixation was varied. Across the six experiments, there was about 100-130 ms facilitation when the pictures were identical compared with a control condition in which only the target location was specified on the first fixation. This finding clearly implies that information about the first picture facilitated naming the second picture. Changing the size of the picture from one fixation to the next had little effect on naming time. This result is consistent with work on reading and low-level visual processes in indicating that pictorial information is not integrated in a point-by-point manner in an integrated visual buffer. Moreover, only about 50 ms of the facilitation for identical pictures could be attributed to the pictures having the same name. When the pictures represented the same concept (e.g., two different pictures of a horse), there was a 90-ms facilitation effect that could have been the result of either the visual or conceptual similarity of the pictures. However, when the pictures had different names, only visual similarity produced facilitation. Moreover, when the pictures had different names, there appeared to be inhibition from the competing names. The results of all six experiments are consistent with a model in which the activation of both the visual features and the name of the picture seen on the first fixation survive the saccade and combine with the information extracted on the second fixation to produce identification and naming of the second picture.