Imitation in language development: If,when, and why

In order to explore the function of imitation for first language learning, imitative and spontaneous utterances were compared in the naturalistic speech of six children in the course of their development from single-word utterances (when mean length of utterance was essentially 1.0) to the emergence of grammar (when mean length of utterance approached 2.0). The relative extent of imitation, and lexical and grammatical variation in imitative and spontaneous speech were determined. There were inter-subject differences in the extent of imitation, but each child was consistent in the tendency to imitate or not to imitate across time. For those children who imitated, there were both lexical and grammatical differences in imitative and spontaneous speech, and a developmental shift from imitative to spontaneous use of particular words and semantic-syntactic relations between words. The results are discussed as evidence of an active processing of model utterances relative to the contexts in which they occur for information for language learning.     

Alcoholics treated by individualized behavior therapy: One year treatment outcome

One-year treatment outcome results are reported for 70 male alcoholics who, while hospitalized at Patton State Hospital, served as subjects in an experiment evaluating ‘Individualized Behavior Therapy (IBT)’ techniques. Initially, subjects had been assigned to a controlled drinking or non-drinking (abstinence) treatment goal, and then were randomly assigned to either an experimental group receiving IBT or a control group receiving conventional state hospital treatment. One year follow-up results demonstrated that IBT treated subjects had functioned significantly better than control subjects. Dependent variable measures included daily drinking disposition, general emotional adjustment, vocational satisfaction, occupational status, driving status and an index of residential status and stability. The results support the view that some ‘alcoholics’ can acquire and maintain controlled drinking behavior over at least a 1-yr follow-up interval. The difficulties of designing and applying sophisticated follow-up procedures and measures are discussed.     

Children's decision strategies and their adaptation to task characteristics

Recent research has established decision making as an important type of strategic problem solving. From this perspective, the present paper examines strategic decision behavior in children and, in particular, the ability to adapt decision strategies to task characteristics. Twelve-year-olds' strategies were identified through analyses of information search patterns with different-sized matrices of information. Using a similar procedure, Payne (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 366–387) found that adults shifted to more efficient (but less “optimal”) strategies as task complexity increased. The present study indicates that, by 12 years of age, children understand many of the basic concepts of strategic decision making, such as compensation and elimination, and, like adults, they modify their strategies appropriately in response to complexity. However, their behavior differs from that reported for adults in that the distinctions among specific decision strategies are not clear cut, and there is frequent use of less demanding, cost-cutting strategies even with smaller decision tasks. Memory capacity and topic interest also affect decision strategy. The results support the feasibility of further developmental study of decision strategies. Analytical techniques developed here for use with children may profitably be applied in studies with adults as well.     

A case of literal alexia: evidence for a disconnection syndrome

We describe a patient with literal alexia, agraphia, and only minimal aphasia, resulting from a left occipito-parietal ischemic infarction. Neither impaired visual processing nor impaired oral output could explain the patient's letter reading deficit, since he retained the ability to match letters of mixed case, and remained able to spell aloud and to pronounce and comprehend orally spelled words. His residual word reading was characterized by better performance for nouns and highly imageable words than for functors , poorly imageable words, and nonwords. We propose that this patient's letter reading deficit was due to a partial disconnection of his visual from his linguistic systems, with residual word reading accomplished by a semantically mediated compensatory mechanism. We suggest, further, that the dissociations between word and letter reading observed in some alexic individuals may be attributed, in part, to a difference in the relative contributions of dorsal and ventral occipital structures to the reading process.     

Anxiety and aggression of high and low assertive persons following conflict

This experiment examined changes in anxiety and differences in aggression for high and low assertive women when different degrees of conflict were encountered. As predicted, low assertive women were intially more uneasy or anxious than high assertive women when they were placed in a conflictual situation. When the level of actual conflict was low, the level of anxiety of low assertive women decreased. However, when the actual level of conflict was high the anxiety level of low assertive women remained unchanged. These results were taken as support for the fear of conflict hypothesis which predicted that the reduction in anxiety for low assertive persons is contingent upon whether or not the anticipated conflict is actually encountered. The results also indicated that high assertive women were not significantly more aggressive than low assertive women. This finding provided support for Galassi's position that assertiveness and aggression are distinct concepts.     

Generational differences in work values between parents and children and between boys and girls across grade levels 6, 9, 10, and 12

A cross-sectional comparison of school children in grades 6, 9, 10, and 12 and their parents was made to examine changes in work values and the relationship between children's and their parents' work values as a function of age and sex. Discriminant function analyses revealed support for hypothesized differences in children's values and for the convergence of sex differences in values at later ages. Results also confirmed that at earlier ages there is greater similarity in values between children and their like-sexed parent but older (grade 12) boys and girls are most similar to their fathers. These findings confirm and expand the results of earlier research.     

The effects of television on children's stereotyping of women's work roles

Sixty-seven elementary school students, ages 5 through 10 years, from three ethnic groups were systematically exposed, over a 1-month period, to specially produced television commercials. One treatment group viewed prevideotaped cartoons interspersed with commercials of women in “traditional” roles, while a second group viewed the same cartoons but with commercials which portrayed women in traditionally male or “reversed” roles. Children were measured on pre-and post-tests on (1) their occupational knowledge, (2) the extent to which they stereotyped occupations, and (3) their own preferences for traditionally male and female jobs. Results indicate that children do learn about occupations from television content, that they also learn to stereotype or nonstereotype various occupations based on the sex of the TV model, and, finally, that girls will change their preferences for various occupations based on the particular roles they view women portrayed in.     

Rapid silent response to repeated target symbols by dyslexic and nondyslexic children

A previous study demonstrated that naming of repeated colors, objects, letters, and numbers (RAN test) was performed more slowly by dyslexic than by nondyslexic learning disabled children, whereas both groups were slower than controls. A test eliminating the vocal response and requiring “cancellation” of selected verbal targets distinguished the two learning disabled groups from each other only when the targets were triads of numbers or letters, the dyslexic group performing more slowly. Compared even with triad target selection, however, dyslexic children were relatively more impaired on rapid naming (RAN), suggesting a specific relationship of reading to speech or the greater mobilization of language functions which speech requires.