安乐死论纲

就发展中国式安乐死提出了１８条纲领性意见。指出安乐死是一种社会文明,需要进行学科的、理论的、法制的、伦理的建设,超越传统上升到新的时代高度。就安乐死的定义、本质、目的、性质、权利、分型、对象等基本问题提出了不同于国外的独立见解。对于安乐死的立法、法制管理的体制和程序,以及医学伦理、生命伦理要服从社会伦理,树立新的安乐死伦理观提出了具体建议。     

Effects of High-Probability Request Sequences on Preschoolers' Compliance and Disruptive Behavior

A high-probability request sequence was implemented with three preschool children with developmental delays within their classroom during typical activities. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to evaluate the effects of the high-probability request sequence on compliant responding to low-probability requests and the occurrence of disruptive behavior. Results of the study indicate that the use of the high-probability request sequence was effective in increasing compliant responding to low-probability requests delivered by two different trainers for all children. No increases in disruptive behavior were noted as a result of using the high-probability request sequence. When the high-probability request sequence was withdrawn, compliant responding to low-probability requests was maintained for all children across time and in different settings.     

Family management of childhood diabetes

This paper reviews the available literature on family management of childhood diabetes and highlights gaps in the current knowledge base. Four aspects of family management of childhood diabetes are discussed: coping (how the family adjusts to living with a child who has diabetes), compliance (how the family manages the child's diabetes on a daily basis), communication (how the family learns from interactions with the health provider), and context (how the family environment sets the stage for managing diabetes).     

Affordances and infant learning: A reply to Horowitz

We reply to three major points made by F. Horowitz (1983, Developmental Review, 3, 405–409) in her commentary on the ecological approach to infant knowing presented by E. Goldfield (1983, Developmental Review, 3, 371–404). We first clarify the relation between perceiving and acting from an ecological perspective, and distinguish between affordances as environmental properties scaled to the perceiver/performer and representations as mental structures. We then present a critique of the process of association offered by Horowitz as an explanation of infant learning. Association fails to specify the constraints on what is learned, while the ecological process of noticing affordances, presented by Goldfield, considers such constraints. We conclude by presenting operational criteria for measuring affordances and evidence that perception is scaled to the perceiver/performer.     

The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler: Toward an Adlerian vocational theory

Within the past couple of decades, the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler has become increasingly popular among consultants, educators, and psychotherapists alike. The approach also has gained the attention of several vocational researchers, and some vocational investigations on Adler's theory have appeared. Unfortunately, such empirical studies have been all too few, seemingly because no articulated framework exists of an Adlerian vocational theory. In this article, an Adlerian vocational theory is proposed. Specific hypotheses and corollaries, each derived from the substantive base of Individual Psychology, are presented and explained.     

Intrusions and perseverations

Twenty-two subjects with presumed senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type (SDAT), twenty-two with dementia other than SDAT, twenty with aphasia, and seventeen healthy controls over 50 years of age were examined for intrusions and perseverations. Perseverations were defined as the immediate inappropriate repetition of a prior response whereas intrusions were defined as the inappropriate repetition of prior responses after intervening stimuli. Intrusions and perseverations occurred in demented and aphasic subjects, but were rare in controls. Intrusions occurred most often in SDAT or Wernicke aphasia, but also in dementia other than SDAT. Intrusions were not correlated with dementia severity. Intrusions are a useful sign of dementia, but they cannot be considered pathognomonic of SDAT. They appear to arise when subjects are unable to access correct responses from long-term memory and instead substitute erroneous responses selected from short-term memory. Perseverations were most common in the Wernicke aphasics and subjects with dementia due to communicating hydrocephalus. Although frontal lobe dysfunction is prominent in communicating hydrocephalus, it is absent in cases of Wernicke aphasia. Thus, we have confirmed prior suggestions that perseveration can occur in the absence of frontal lobe injury. Failure to self-monitor speech as well as an inability to change mental set probably plays an important role in the genesis of perseverations. There was no statistically significant correlation between dementia severity and number of perseverations. Low correlations were found between intrusions and perseverations suggesting that these seemingly similar behaviors are distinct and are probably produced by separate neuropsychological mechanisms.     

Right-hemispheric language evidence from cortical stimulation

While the left-hemispheric dominance for language in most right-handers is unquestionable, clinical observations suggest that the right, nondominant hemisphere has a considerable capacity for language. Under certain neuroanatomical conditions, the right-hemispheric capacity becomes functional and, thus, measurable. This study focuses on evoked language responses during electrical stimulation of the right hemisphere in three left-dominant patients undergoing temporal lobe resections for medically intractable seizures.     

Infants' attention to intrastimulus motion

Twenty-four 5-week-old infants sucked significantly less when shown a schematic face in which the eye dots oscillated at 4 or 7 cm/sec than when shown the same face with the eye dots oscillating at 1 cm/sec. When identical moving dots were presented in the absence of the surrounding facial configuration, infants showed the same pattern of response. These results indicate (a) that 5-week-old infants can attend to intrastimulus movement, and (b) that the “externality effect” does not extend to compound visual displays which have moving internal elements.     

Lateral-frontal slow potential shifts preceding language acts in deaf and hearing adults

Slow potential EEG shifts (SPSs) recorded over Broca's area and the paired contralateral site preceding cued language acts have been reported to identify the language-dominant hemisphere. A contingent negative variation paradigm SPS method was applied to the comparative study of 10 hearing adults and of 10 adult prelingually deaf persons whose first learned language was American Sign Language. Volunteers performed both language and non-language acts in both oral and manual expressive modes. The hearing group showed no lateralized SPS, failing to replicate previous reports. The deaf group showed a nonsignificant trend opposite in laterality to that of hearing groups in previous reports.