Delayed matching to two-picture samples by individuals with and without disabilities: an analysis of the role of naming

Delayed matching to complex, two-picture samples (e.g., cat-dog) may be improved when the samples occasion differential verbal behavior. In Experiment 1, individuals with mental retardation matched picture comparisons to identical single-picture samples or to two-picture samples, one of which was identical to a comparison. Accuracy scores were typically high on single-picture trials under both simultaneous and delayed matching conditions. Scores on two-picture trials were also high during the simultaneous condition but were lower during the delay condition. However, scores improved on delayed two-picture trials when each of the sample pictures was named aloud before comparison responding. Experiment 2 replicated these results with preschoolers with typical development and a youth with mental retardation. Sample naming also improved the preschoolers' matching when the samples were pairs of spoken names and the correct comparison picture matched one of the names. Collectively, the participants could produce the verbal behavior that might have improved performance, but typically did not do so unless the procedure required it. The success of the naming intervention recommends it for improving the observing and remembering of multiple elements of complex instructional stimuli.     

Next Steps in Research on Children Exposed to Domestic Violence

The papers in this special issue of Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review provided an overview of what is known about children's exposure to domestic violence, and include indications of gaps in extant research. These gaps and research needs are summarized in this conclusion. Specifically, there is need for further research in several broad areas: definition and measurement of children's exposure to domestic violence; development of research methods and statistical designs that provide detailed information and provide for evidence of intervention effectiveness; impact of domestic violence on parenting and family functioning; the role of child factors and exposure to violence factors in predicting developmental risk and resilience; medical and health consequences of exposure to violence; and the nature of child-system interaction in response to domestic violence. Research needs in these areas are discussed in greater detail, and specific questions are raised for further development.     

Children Exposed to Domestic Violence and Child Abuse: Terminology and Taxonomy

Three definitional issues regarding children exposed to domestic violence are examined. First, the multiple ways in which a child can be exposed to violence is discussed. A taxonomy of 10 types of exposure is proposed. Nine key characteristics of domestic violence, as they relate to children and children's exposure, are then outlined. The third issue addressed concerns why children who are exposed to domestic violence can be considered victims of child maltreatment. These children, by nature of their experience in the home, are psychologically maltreated and are also at high risk for physical abuse and some risk for sexual abuse. Empirical questions concerning these definitions and taxonomies and their interrelations are discussed.     

Introduction

This issue of Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: Current Status and Research Directions, addresses the current status of our knowledge as well as critical research needs in the area of children exposed to domestic violence. Although much has been learned in recent years about children exposed to violence, significant research gaps remain, the identification of which may help to build a more complete and rigorous science base in this area. This journal issue represents the distillation of a 3-day workshop on children exposed to violence, held in July of 2002, that identified what is known about children exposed to violence and what this information tells us about future research directions. Although many federal agencies have supported some research in this area, there is a need for more targeted attention on the topic, particularly with regard to measurement, sampling, and interventions/services. The papers in this issue were selected with these themes in mind. Although no single issue could cover the entire field, we intend to offer a representative sample of where we are and where we need to go with the hope of stimulating additional thought, collaboration, and research in this important area.     

Towards a research programme for ethics and technology

In this editorial contribution, two issues relevant to the question, what should be at the top of the research agenda for ethics and technology, are identified and discussed. Firstly: can, and do, engineers make a difference to the degree to which technology leads to morally desirable outcomes? What role does professional autonomy play here, and what are its limits? And secondly, what should be the scope of engineers' responsibility; that is to say, on which issues are they, as engineers, morally obliged to reflect? The research agendas proposed by the authors contributing to this special section, implicitly, give different answers to these questions. We suggest that an explicit discussion of these issues would greatly help in constructing a common research agenda.     

Resistance to change of operant variation and repetition

A multiple chained schedule was used to compare the relative resistance to change of variable and fixed four-peck response sequences in pigeons. In one terminal link, a response sequence produced food only if it occurred infrequently relative to 15 other response sequences (vary). In the other terminal link, a single response sequence produced food (repeat). Identical variable-interval schedules operated in the initial links. During baseline, lower response rates generally occurred in the vary initial link, and similar response and reinforcement rates occurred in each terminal link. Resistance of responding to prefeeding and three rates of response-independent food delivered during the intercomponent intervals then was compared between components. During each disruption condition, initial- and terminal-link response rates generally were more resistant in the vary component than in the repeat component. During the response-independent food conditions, terminal-link response rates were more resistant than initial-link response rates in each component, but this did not occur during prefeeding. Variation (in vary) and repetition (in repeat) both decreased during the response-independent food conditions in the respective components, but with relatively greater disruption in repeat. These results extend earlier findings demonstrating that operant variation is more resistant to disruption than is operant repetition and suggest that theories of response strength, such as behavioral momentum theory, must consider factors other than reinforcement rate. The implications of the results for understanding operant response classes are discussed.     

Betrayal And Paranoia: The Psychotherapist's Function as an Intermediary

We present an approach to the problem of structuring a therapeutic alliance with patients presenting paranoid symptoms, using both psychoanalytical and cognitive techniques. Initially, we focused on one of the main aspects of the paranoid worldview: the fear of being betrayed and the tendency to betray. This is a defense maneuver, through which patients deny their passivity, and the impotence in the relationship with their own internal needs and with the significant people in the external world, including the therapist. In our experience to build up a working relationship, both a psychoanalytical interpretation of unconscious conflicts and the cognitive analysis of dysfunctional beliefs are needed. Often, in more serious cases, the role of nonqualified object must be accepted at the beginning, due to the patient's need to be in control of the situation. Only then can a therapeutic phase begin, in most cases, through an integrated approach that includes pharmacological, psychodynamic, and cognitive modalities.     

Parent Perspectives on Family Involvement in Therapeutic Foster Care

There has been an increasing focus on family involvement in the treatment of children with serious emotional disorders, but it has received only limited attention in relation to out-of-home placements. I present the findings from a qualitative study of family involvement from the perspectives of parents whose children were placed in therapeutic foster care (TFC). Parents' perspectives on their involvement in placement decisions, relationships with professionals and TFC providers, practices related to family involvement, barriers to involvement, and strategies to enhance family involvement are described. Parents of children in TFC wanted to have contact with their children and to participate in decision making. They described relationships and practices that contributed to their involvement.     

Why? Versus Why Not?: Potentialities of Aging in Shaw's Back to Methuselah

Bernard Shaw's critique of society's sacred cows, as well as his participation in the social, cultural and political marketplace in which he lived, resemble the new historical/cultural materialism of contemporary theory. In Back to Methuselah, Shaw examines the notions of aging and illuminates the degree to which our chronological standards of old age are sociological not biological constructs. This tour de force on aging both dramatizes age as a function of societal and/or individual choice, not as a biological given, and juxtaposes opinions toward aging in such a way that flexible attitudes toward the subject emerge.     

Equivalence class establishment, expansion, and modification in preschool children

Preschool children were taught four two-choice match-to-sample conditional discriminations with 10 arbitrary visual stimuli. For 6 participants, 2 of the 10 stimuli served as the sample, or conditional, stimuli in all discriminations. For 5 additional participants, the same pair of stimuli served as the discriminative, or comparison, stimuli in all discriminations. Equivalence classes were established with more participants in the latter group, replicating prior research with participants with retardation. Four participants, in whom equivalence classes were established and who were available for further participation, were exposed to new conditional discriminations without trial-by-trial feedback and involving some novel and some familiar stimuli. Consistent conditional responding was observed, and tests for inclusion of the novel stimuli in the original classes showed class expansion. Training to reverse the unreinforced conditional performances produced a reversal of class membership in 3 of 4 participants, an outcome not consistent with other studies. The results are discussed with respect to the interaction of class structure and size.