Outcome predictors in the behavioral treatment of stuttering

The MMPI and subscales of the Stuttering Severity scale were utilized to predict motivation and success in the behavioral treatment of 32 stutterers. Subjects spent a mean of 10 individual sessions in criterion-oriented learning of fluent speech based on speech-muscle relaxation aided by EMG visual biofeedback. Judged motivation and judged success were strongly related to each other and significantly related to MMPI K and Es scores and negatively to F and Sc. Actual success was negatively related to Sc and Pd, completely unrelated to Es, and (if anything) negatively related to K. Results are consistent with previous studies, and show that global judgements of progress were only minimally related to a measure of actual progress.     

Bibliography of literature pertaining to the onset,development, and treatment of stuttering during the preschool years

This bibliography consists of clinical, experimental, and theoretical papers pertaining to the onset, development, and treatment of stuttering in children five- years old and younger. It is a downward extension of Silverman, F.H., Bibliography of literature pertaining to stuttering in elementary-school children, Journal of Fluency Disorders, 1978, 3, 87–102.     

Memory scanning,introversion-extraversion,and levels of processing

Individual differences in information processing were studied in the form of the hypothesis that arousal, as indexed by a personality measure of introversion-extraversion, affects the speed with which certain kinds of processing are completed. The Sternberg paradigm was used, and the results suggested that introverts and extraverts scanned for physical features equally rapidly, but that introverts were slower than extraverts at scanning for the semantic features of category membership. There was limited support for the hypothesis that introverts, thought to be more aroused than extraverts, are less able to engage in shared or parallel processing. It was concluded that information processing in introverts and extraverts may differ qualitatively as well as quantitatively.     

Short-term memory in deaf and hearing children in relation to stimulus characteristics

Experiment 1 examined short-term memory with a serial probe task in 20 younger (mean age: 6 years, 3 months) and 20 older (mean age: 8 years, 8 months) deaf children. Four sets of stimuli were used: familiar animals, unfamiliar nonsense forms, fingerspelled letters, and lower-case print. In contrast to earlier research with hearing children, strong primacy effects were found with all stimuli at both ages, with frequent gestural and/or oral labeling but little cumulative rehearsal evident. To determine whether results were uniquely tied to deafness, identical procedures were used in Experiment 2 with 20 younger (4 years, 9 months) and 20 older (5 years, 10 months) hearing children. Again, overt activity was common, with strong primacy effects on animals and nonsense forms in the older group and on animals in the younger group. Contrasts between present and earlier findings suggest the need to consider the degree to which stimulus labels are overlearned, the role of nonverbal mediators in rehearsal, and the effects of changing educational experiences.     

The effects of attention-directing training on recognition memory task performance of three-year-old children

Thirty-eight 3-year-old children served as subjects in an investigation of recognition memory in which schematic faces differing only in the orientation of the eyes were employed as stimuli. A pretest was administered to all children, after which the two experimental groups received training in either attention to the distinctive feature of the training stimuli (also schematic faces) by means of a matching task, or in labeling the faces according to how they looked (sleepy, happy, sad, mad) and in using the labels to perform a matching task. After the training session all children were given a posttest on recognition memory of the faces. The verbally trained group obtained significantly higher scores on the posttest than either the feature or control groups. These results indicate that although the children were able to discriminate the faces, evidenced in their ease of performance on the training tasks, they were not able to use this knowledge unless given training in attaching labels to the stimuli, which enabled them to store the information for later use. Results are discussed in light of Gibson's (1969) theory of the developmental interrelations of cognitive processes.     

Differences in the search rate of children and adults in short-term memory

When people recognize a test item as belonging or not belonging to a previously presented set, recognition latency increases with the number of items in the set. Although some evidence suggests otherwise, it is currently held that the rate of this increase is the same for children and adults. In contrast, the present experiments indicated a much slower search rate for second graders (mean age = 7.33 years) than for seventh (mean age = 12.50 years) and twelfth graders (mean age = 17.25 years). Moreover, search rate for second graders was invariant under instructions which did or did not emphasize speed and with presentation of the memory set in either the auditory or visual modality. Experiment II showed that the slow search rate for children was not due to differences in encoding between children and adults.     

The role of action lines in children's memory for pictures

The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that memory for pictorial material is dependent on initial comprehension of the depicted relationships. Subjects at three age levels (second, sixth, and ninth grades) were compared on ability to remember cartoon pictures which did or did not contain action lines as clues to the interaction between actors. It was predicted that the older children, because of extensive experience with still cartoons and comics, would benefit from the action lines. The action lines facilitated recall of pictures for only the older students, specifically, the ninth graders. The object of the action was the most efficient probe, even though the action was more frequently remembered. These results are discussed in terms of the action (interaction) being the basis of comprehension and, consequently, the remembering of the picture.