Rapid Automatized Naming and gesture by normal and language-impaired children

This study investigates whether language-impaired (LI) children show deficits in rapid automatized naming and whether RAN performance is specific to verbal output (or to rapid motor output in general). A total of 67 LI and 54 age-matched control children were tested with the Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) test (Denckla & Rudel, 1976) and with a manual version of the RAN (RAN-manual) in which subjects were required to provide a nonverbal, pantomime response. Subjects also completed tests of rapid oral and manual sequencing skills and standardized tests of reading ability. Each subject was tested at 4, 6, and 8 years old. The results showed that LI children perform significantly poorer on both versions of the RAN than age-matched controls. Correlations between RAN scores and tests of reading ability were significant for normal and LI subjects and were particularly high for 8-year-old LI children. RAN-manual scores also correlated with 8-year-old LI children's reading scores. Further, RAN and RAN-manual scores for the LI children correlated significantly with these children's manual sequencing abilities, whereas this was not the case for the control subjects. These findings suggest that LI children's rapid sequential processing deficits are not limited to verbal output, but also generalize to other motoric domains.     

Single and combined effects of methylphenidate and behavior therapy on the classroom performance of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Twenty-four boys with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) participating in an intensive summer treatment program each received b.i.d. placebo and two doses of methylphenidate (MPH, 0.3 mg/kg and 0.6 mg/kg) crossed with two classroom settings: a behavior modification classroom including a token economy system, time out and daily home report card, and a regular classroom setting not using these procedures. Dependent variables included classroom observations of on-task and disruptive behavior, academic work completion and accuracy, and daily self-ratings of performance. Both MPH and behavior modification alone significantly improved children's classroom behavior, but only MPH improved children's academic productivity and accuracy. Singly, behavior therapy and 0.3 mg/kg PMH produced roughly equivalent improvements in classroom behavior. Further, the combination of behavior therapy and 0.3 mg/kg MPH resulted in maximal behavioral improvements, which were nearly identical to those obtained with 0.6 mg/kg MPH alone.The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Patricia Donovan, Michelle Berry, Mary Ingram, Patricia Wells, Beth Gnagy, Karen Greenslade, Mary Hamilton, and the entire staff of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic ADHD Summer Treatment Program.     

The relationship between personal authority in the family system and discovery of meaning in life

This study investigated the relationship between intergenerational family relationships and Frankl's concept of meaning in life. Intergenerational family relationships were measured by the Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire (PAFS-QE) by Bray, Williamson, and Malone. The meaning in life variables were measured by the Life Attitude Profile-Revised (LAP-R) by Reker. This quantitative study, using the BMDP Statistical Package (Dixon, 1990), correlated the scores on various subscales from both instruments, resulting in seven statistically significant relationships. The findings, although modest, suggest the existence of a relationship between these two theoretical areas.This article is based in part on the first author's doctoral dissertation at Texas Woman's University.A copy of the PAFS-Q may be obtained from: James H. Bray, PhD, 5510 Greenbriar, Houston, TX 77005. A copy of the LAP-R may be obtained from: Gary Reker, PhD, Trent University, Psychology Department, Peterborough, Ontario Canada K9J 7B8.     

‘Healthy eating’ clinics in primary care: Programme intensity and patients' health beliefs

The primary care setting is seen by many to be at the forefront of the attempt to encourage people to follow healthier diets. Conducted in a single practice, the present study firstly considered the effectiveness of three ‘healthy eating’ clinics for patients found to have elevated cholesterol levels at screening. Through the use of a randomised trial, these patients received either basic dietay information or were invited back more frequently and requested to complete food diaries, half of which were then analysed through a computer program. At one year follow up the three programmes were found to have produced a 6.7% reduction in cholesterol levels. However, no differences were found between the three programmes. The study secondly examined a range of health belieji, based on the health belief model, as predictors of reductions in cholesterol levels. These were generally found to be poor predictors, with only the belief that one's diet is related to the chances of developing a number of major conditions and the perception of bam'ers dealing with confidence predicting these reductions. Finally, the case for incorporating self-efficacy beliefs into the healh belief model is outlined and the need for health counsellors to tailor their messages to the pre-existing beliefi and behaviours of patients is highlighted.     

Relationship between religion-related factors and obsessive compulsive disorder

This exploratory study sought to determine whether selected religion-related factors differentiated between 86 patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), 73 patients with panic disorder, and 292 patients with other psychiatric (non-anxiety) disorders. A standard history questionnaire was used to obtain information from patients concerning religion of origin, involvement in religious activities, religious conflict, and perceived religiousness of parents. It was found that the percentage of patients who reported experiencing religious conflict was significantly higher for the OCD group than for the other two groups. Other findings suggested associations between Catholicism and OCD and between Protestantism and panic disorder, but further research is needed to clarify these relationships. This article is based on a paper presented at the 98th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Boston, August 1990.     

The utilization of genetic counselors within a newborn screening program

Genetic counselors have participated in the Michigan Newborn Screening Program on a contractual basis since 1988. Their role includes newborn screening education and training, newborn nursery site visits, and monitoring newborn screening in hospitals. Their impact has been to improve the quality of newborn screening services by reducing errors and increasing completion of data fields on newborn screening cards, improving hospital nursery cooperation and problem solving, and enhancing health department response to specific problems.     

The linkage between stimulus frequency and covert peak areas as it relates to monaural localization

Head-related transfer functions for differently centered narrow noise bands were obtained on 6 subjects. Derived from these measurements were covert peak areas (CPAs), defined as the spatial constellation of loudspeakers that generates maximal sound pressure at the entrance of the ear canal for specific bands of frequency. On the basis of previous data, we proposed that different frequency bands served as important spectral cues for monaural localization of sounds from different loci and that location judgments were directed toward the CPAs associated with the different bands. In the first study, the stimuli were bandpass filtered so that they contained only those frequencies whose associated CPAs occupied either the monaural listener’s “upper” or “lower” spatial regions. Loudspeakers, separated by 15°, were stationed in the left hemifield, ranging from 0° to 180° azimuth and ?45° to 60° elevation. Subjects reported the loudspeaker from which the sound appeared to originate. Judgments of the sound’s elevation were in general accord with the CPAs associated with the different frequency segments. In the second study, monaural localization tests were administered in which different 2.0-kHz-wide frequency bands linked with specific CPAs were notch filtered from a 3.5-kHz highpass noise band. For the control condition, the highpass noise was unfiltered. The data demonstrated that filtering a frequency segment linked with specific CPAs resulted in significantly fewer location responses directed toward that particular spatial region. These results demonstrate in greater detail the relation between the directional filtering properties of the pinna and monaural localization of sound.     

Sacred marriage in the study of religion: A perspective from India on a concept that grew out of the ancient near east

Current scholarly understandings of ‘sacred marriage’ are seriously impaired by work that focuses on ancient cultures, primarily in the Near East, but also in Greece. Even when ‘diffusionism’, ‘patternism’, and an apparent preoccupation with rituals presumed sexual are all factored out, modern scholars offer little new because they appeal to rituals never witnessed and to fragmentary texts which we can only hope had some connection to ritual. Focusing on an extant ritual tradition in India with a 200-year-old festival and an explicitly associated text from the 13th century , Harman suggests that here, at least, sacred marriage is an elaborate, ritual statement of kinship responsibilities and obligations reestablished each year among deities and between deities and selected human beings.