Disfluency characteristics of 2-, 4-, and 6- yr-old males

Fluency characteristics of 36 nonstuttering males aged 2, 4, and 6 yr are presented in terms of patterns of disfluency and relationships among disfluency variables. The most frequently occuring disfluency types at each age level were revision-incomplete phrase and interjections; the least noted type was part-word repetitions for 2- and 4-yr olds and disrhythmic phonations for 6-yr-olds. Patterns of disfluency appear to be similar at all age levels studied, except that the 2-yr-old pattern showed greater magnitudes in various disfluency types. A range exists in the relationships among individual disfluency types, from moderately strong relationships between, for example, revision-incomplete phrase and interjections to lack of linear relationships between, for example, interjections and phrase repetitions. A linguistic factor may be strong within certain disfluency types. e.g., revision-incomplete phrase, interjections, and word repetitions, whereas a motor factor may be operative in others, e.g., part-word repetitions and disrhythmic phonations.     

Case vignette: genetic secrets

Mrs. Thomas, age 50, became concerned after experiencing intermittent uncontrollable jerky body movements. She contacted her family physician and, following a full diagnostic evaluation, learned that she is experiencing early symptons of Huntington's disease. This illness is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, which will ultimately lead-to physical incapacity, dementia, and death. The disease is known to be transmitted genetically as an autosomal dominant trait, with the first onset of symptoms usually occurring in middle age. For example, the child of an affected person has a 50% chance of inheriting the gene, and thus the illness, and a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. Mrs. Thomas is unaware of any history of the disease among others in her family; however, her father was an adopted child, who died in an automobile accident at the age of 37 and may well have been a carrier of the gene. It is highly likely that other members of her family, including her siblings and children, may be carriers of the gene and ultimately transmit it to their children before clinical symptoms of the disease develop. Her own son married last year, and her two brothers have children of childbearing age. Genetic screening and counseling are available for those at risk for Huntington's disease; however, Mrs. Thomas does not want to discuss her diagnosis with family members, fearing that they may blame her and that she may lose her job and friends if the information becomes public knowledge. What advice would you give to the health-care providers caring for Mrs. Thomas regarding the assorted rights, duties, and obligations surrounding this situation?     

Therapeutic jurisprudence and changing conceptions of legal scholarship

This article traces changes in the nature of legal scholarship and illustrates how therapeutic jurisprudence reflects changing conceptions of the law and legal scholarship. It argues that therapeutic jurisprudence may be regarded as a mental health law counterpart to ?New Public Law,”? and shows that questions asked by therapeutic jurisprudence scholars parallel closely those asked by public law scholars.     

Movement prediction and movement production

The prediction of future positions of moving objects occurs in cases of actively produced and passively observed movement. Additionally, the moving object may or may not be tracked with the eyes. The authors studied the difference between active and passive movement prediction by asking observers to estimate displacements of an occluded moving target, where the movement was driven by the observer's manual action or was passively observed. In the absence of eye tracking, they found that in the active condition, estimates are more anticipatory than in the passive conditions. Decreasing the congruence between motor action and visual feedback diminished but did not eliminate the anticipatory effect of action. When the target was tracked with the eyes, the effect of manual action disappeared. Results indicate distinct contributions of hand and eye movement signals to the prediction of trajectories of moving objects.     

An ERP investigation of binding and coreference

This study examines the nature of violations in processing one class of binding construction, namely those involving reflexives and their antecedents. When arguments of verbs appear at the point where a syntactic violation is detected, a centroparietal positivity occurs, peaking at 600 ms after the presentation of the stimulus (P600), as is consistent with other types of syntactic anomalies. However, nonarguments in similar sentences fail to elicit the same response. For example, the reflexive in "John's brothers like himself" is in an argument position and elicits the P600 when compared to its grammatical counterpart. The nonargument, participating in the same type of mismatch, "John's brothers like Bill and himself," does not elicit the same positivity. This provides evidence that there are two processes involved in parsing this binding construction, one syntactic and another as yet unidentified, perhaps involving meaning or pragmatics.     

Obstacles to Personal Creativity between Brazilian and Mexican University Students: A Comparative Study

The study focused on personal obstacles to creativity between 385 Brazilian and 305 Mexican university students. The Obstacles to Personal Creativity Inventory, designed and validated by Alencar (1999b), was administered to these students. The results indicated that Lack of Time/Opportunity was the most frequent obstacle. Significant differences were observed between Brazilian and Mexican students in the cluster of obstacles named Lack of Motivation, and between male and female students in the cluster of obstacles named Inhibition/Shyness. The results point to several obstacles to personal creativity which are common among university students. These obstacles should be known by those involved in education in order for them to help students to be less susceptible to obstacles that hinder their creativity.