The General Behavior Inventory as an outpatient screen for dysthymic disorder

High prevalence, morbidity, and response to treatment make the detection of dysthymic disorder an important public health issue. We report our experience with the General Behavioral Inventory, a self-report questionnaire developed to detect affective illness, including dysthymic disorder. In a small sample of psychiatric outpatients the instrument yielded a sensitivity of 61% and a specificity of 88% for dysthymic disorder. These results challenge the utility of this instrument for detecting dysthymic disorder in this population.This work was supported in part by Grants MH-19069 and MH7103 from the National Institutes of Mental Health.     

Behavioral case consultation with parents and teachers: An example using differential reinforcement to treat psychogenic cough

This study presents a demonstration of successful behavioral case consultation combined with case study methodology in the treatment of a 13-year-old female who presented with a brief history of psychogenic cough. Psychogenic cough is diagnosed when there is no organic or physiologic basis for the repeated, harsh coughing. We first present a brief review of treatments for psychogenic cough and then describe how we used differential reinforcement of low rate responding (DRL) and differential reinforcement of zero responding (DRO) within an A-B-C design. The DRL schedule produced significant decreases in coughing but plateaued at about one-third the baseline rate. Thereafter, a DRO schedule was employed which resulted in complete and lasting elimination of coughing. Discussion focuses on the limitations of case study methodology as well as its usefulness for conducting service related research in the schools, implications of some of the findings for practitioners, and other issues related to treatment.     

IMPLICATIONS OF BEHAVIORAL PHARMACOLOGY RESEARCH FOR APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSES: JEAB'S SPECIAL ISSUE CELEBRATING THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF JOSEPH V. BRADY (MARCH 1994)

We review four articles from JEAB's March 1994 issue celebrating the contributions of Joseph V. Brady. These articles have implications for studying private events and for studying multiple operants. We suggest that regularly including self-reports about private events in behavioral pharmacological research has resulted in an accumulated knowledge that has facilitated examination of interesting relations among self-reports, environmental factors, and other observable behaviors. Methodological lessons that behavioral pharmacologists have learned regarding the study of multiple operants are also relayed. We provide examples of how these lessons could be useful to applied behavior analysts studying nonpharmacological issues.     

Eliminating nail-biting by the habit reversal procedure

Fingernail-biting is prevalent among children and adults alike. About 43% of children bite their nails during the puberty ages (Wechsler, 1931); 25% of college students are nail-biters (Coleman and McCalley, 1948), and 10% of adults bite their nails (Pennington, 1945).A variety of treatments including negative practice, operant procedures and psychotherapy have been used in treating nail-biting but no single treatment has been generally effective in eliminating nail-biting. Smith (1957) using negative practice reported that 21 of 57 (39%) of his nail-biting clients were cured. 9 improved and 27 (47%) were unimproved. Bucher (1968) reported that 13 of 20 (65%) college students stopped nail-biting by using a self-administered operant shock procedure. However, he reported many relapses after the withdrawal of shock for nail-biting. No evaluation of psychoanalytic treatment for nail-biting appears to have been made.     

Development and psychometric properties of the Children's Assertive Behavior Scale

The purpose of this paper is to present the psychometric properties and individual items comprising the Children's Assertive Behavior Scale (CABS). The CABS is a behaviorally designed self-report instrument for children which measures general and specific social skills and covers many socially relevant situations which are problematic for children. Acceptable psychometric properties of the 27-item test were obtained in several independent investigations across both geographical regions and grade levels. The CABS showed significant concurrent validity with peer, parent, and teacher measures of social competency. The CABS also discriminated trained versus untrained children participating in social skills versus a placebo discussion group. The instrument is presented, along with recommendations for future applications and research.Both authors share equal responsibility for the development and evaluation of the Children's Assertive Behavior Scale.