Route-finding: A measure of everyday executive functioning in the head-injured adult

This is an ecological test of adaptation in head-injured adults, reporting reliability and validity of the Executive Function Route-finding Task (EFRT; Boyd and Sautter, 1985). A Likert scale was used to rate executive aspects of route-finding such as task formulation, strategy of approach, detection and correction of errors, and dependence on cueing among 31 head-injured young adults within a large rehabilitation facility. The Task has high inter-rater reliability and acceptable concurrent validity with other neuropsychological constructs.     

Offering predictive testing for Huntington disease in a medical genetics clinic: Practical applications

Predictive testing for Huntington disease is presently offered in a select few medical genetics centers in the United States. This is in part due to the labor intensive counseling and psychological testing suggested by the research protocols. We discuss some specific suggestions for establishing programs for Huntington disease predictive testing within pre-existing medical genetics clinics to encourage more centers to offer presymptomatic testing. This will allow more at risk individuals the opportunity to consider predictive testing and cut down the expenses of traveling to the few predictive testing centers that currently exist. The counseling principals will remain similar to those discussed here, even following the identification of the Huntington disease mutation.     

Parent and Teacher Ratings in the Assessment and Prediction of Antisocial and Delinquent Behaviors

ABSTRACT Subjects consisted of a sample of two cohorts of approximately 100 boys each whose behaviors were rated by their parents and teachers. Criterion variables included antisocial behavior, based on parent, child, teacher, and interviewer reports, and delinquency, based on parent and child reports in addition to cumulative arrest data taken from juvenile court records. The data suggest that mothers are focused on the daily, irritating behaviors of their sons. Teachers, on the other hand, appear to focus on a relatively small number of items (e.g., child physically attacks others, associates with deviant peers), and thereby provide ratings that are better predictors of delinquency and arrest. When the mothers' ratings were constrained to include only items that were salient for teachers, their predictive validity coefficients approached the magnitude of the teacher coefficients.     

Internalistic foundationalism and the justification of memory belief

In this paper I argue that internalistic foundationalist theories of the justification of memory belief are inadequate. Taking a discussion of John Pollock as a starting point, I argue against any theory that requires a memory belief to be based on a phenomenal state in order to be justified. I then consider another version of internalistic foundationalism and claim that it, too, is open to important objections. Finally, I note that both varieties of foundationalism fail to account for the epistemic status of our justified nonoccurrent beliefs, and hence are drastically incomplete.     

ASSESSING FOOD PREFERENCES AMONG PERSONS WITH PROFOUND MENTAL RETARDATION: PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES TO MAKE CHOICES

Increased attention has been directed recently to assisting persons with severe handicaps to express preferences concerning events in their lives. We evaluated a program for assessing choice-making skills to provide opportunities for persons with profound mental retardation to express food and drink preferences. In Experiment 1, the assessment procedure involving repeated, paired-item presentations resulted in active choice making and the identification of preferences for all 5 participants. Results also indicated that caregiver opinion was not predictive of participant food and drink preferences. A survey of service providers supported the importance of meal-related choices in this population. In Experiment 2, the practicality of the assessment procedure was supported by demonstrating that (a) routine caregivers could apply the procedure with appropriate supervision to provide choice opportunities, and (b) results of the procedure were predictive of participant choices when a less structured and more normal opportunity to express a preference was provided during regular mealtimes. Results are discussed in terms of extending the developing technology of preference and reinforcer identification to other important areas for persons with severe disabilities.     

EFFECTS OF CHOSEN VERSUS ASSIGNED JOBS ON THE WORK PERFORMANCE OF PERSONS WITH SEVERE HANDICAPS

We evaluated the effects of several choice-related variables on the work performance of adults with severe handicaps. After assessing client work preferences, three choice-related situations were presented: (a) providing clients with the opportunity to choose a work task, (b) assigning a preferred task, and (c) assigning a nonpreferred task. Results indicated that clients attended to work tasks almost twice as much when they chose their tasks and when assigned to work on preferred tasks versus when assigned to work on nonpreferred tasks. Results are discussed regarding the need to assess systematically the effects of choice-related variables.     

The Use of Psychoendocrine Strategies in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder1

An overview is presented of a pilot psychoendocrine study of PTSD inpatients in comparison with several subgroups of schizophrenic and affective disorder patients. Using a hormonal profile including Cortisol, norepinephrine, epinephrine, testosterone, and thyroxine, it was found that the mean values for the PTSD group were at or near the extreme end of the range for every hormone measured, i.e., relatively low for Cortisol and high for the remaining hormones. The possible clinical meaning of these findings is considered in the light of prior psychoendocrine research on chronic stress. The hormonal alterations in PTSD appear to be persistent and suggest the possibility of being linked largely to traits or character structure, perhaps particularly to cognitive variables related to defense and coping mechanisms, as reviewed in detail for each hormonal system. There appears to be a potential for a fruitful union between the traumatic stress and psychoendocrine fields and some future strategies for developing and strengthening such a union are suggested.