The effects of retention interval on preschool children's short-term memory of verbal items

The short-term recall of word-triads was tested, comparing retention over three types of intervals within 24 preschoolers. Retention was significantly lower in the 16 sec unfilled interval condition than in the immediate test condition. This result, predicted from preschoolers' rehearsal deficiency, differs from those obtained in previous adult and child studies. A filled interval condition, requiring irrelevant verbal activity during the 16 sec period, significantly reduced recall from that of the unfilled interval condition. Recognition of the word items on a subsequent recognition test was greater than chance and was not affected by interval condition. This suggests that the condition effects in short-term recall did not disrupt the long-term storage of the items.     

The moderating effect of need type on the prediction of overall job satisfaction

Recent investigations concerned with the analysis of work motivation and job satisfaction constructs have combined the logic of subgrouping with an emphasis on the importance of individual differences. The present study is based on a need-fulfillment model, which places a major emphasis on individual differences in needs. A hierarchical clustering method was used to subgroup a sample of 570 managers on their need profiles. Need type was tested as a moderator of the relationship between specific dimensions of job satisfaction and overall job satisfaction. The findings showed that need type moderated the relative contributions of specific dimensions of satisfaction in the prediction of overall job satisfaction, and in addition the prediction level was found to be greater for the need types than for the total sample.     

Learning from negative outcomes in stuttering therapy: I. Getting off on the wrong foot

Considering the long history of research into stuttering, it is surprising that so little time has been devoted to the study of factors that contribute to the success of therapy. Even less attention has been devoted to uncovering forces that promote poor treatment outcomes. In this article and the companion piece that follows it, an attempt has been made to delineate what may prove to be predictors of unsuccessful therapy. In this first of the two articles, the focus in on the identification of patient, extraclinical, and clinician variables that could act to negate progress during the establishment phase of treatment.     

The stutterer's reaction to the telephone as a speaking situation

A review of the literature indicates that one of the most commonly feared talking situations among stutterers is speaking on the telephone. One hundred-thirty stutterers who feared speaking on the telephone were interviewed regarding their fear of telephone calling and answering, the age at which they began to fear calling and answering, and their fear reactions to eight specific telephone calling situations.Data was analyzed for all subjects, male/female, black/white, and mild/moderate/ severe stuttering groups. Analysis indicated that telephone calling was judged to be more feared than telephone answering with the exception of the black stutterers. Acquisition of fear of the telephone occured earlier for telephone answering than for calling within most subgroups. When general reactions to the eight telephone situations were considered, the black stutterers had the most severe fear reactions while the male and moderate stutterers had the least severe reactions.     

Language lateralization and handedness: Estimates based on clinical data

The suggestion that the cerebral representation of language is bilateral in at least some left handers relies on using the proportion of aphasics found in available clinical samples of sufferers of unilateral brain damage as a valid estimate of the probability that aphasia will occur following unilateral brain damage. This results in an overestimate of this probability since the clinical sample includes only cases with both unilateral brain damage and clinical symptoms and excludes cases with unilateral brain damage without clinical symptoms. With adjustment for this overestimate the clinical data are consistent with unilateral cerebral representation of language in left handers.     

Factor-derived categories of chronic aphasia

A large sample of patients with aphasia (N = 118), unselected for etiology, were administered the Porch Index of Communicative Ability more than 6 months after the onset of aphasia. Factor analysis of PICA subtest scores identified five factors which accounted for 83.9% of the total variance. The factors were labeled speaking, writing, comprehension, gesturing, and copying. Cluster analyses of the factor scores yielded five patient categories which differed in the pattern of impairment on the language factors as well as in overall severity of aphasia. A subgroup of the parent sample consisting of 52 patients with localized left-hemisphere CVA had cluster analyses repeated after having first been studied as part of the larger sample. The factor-derived categories for the subgroup were similar to those of the entire group. Discriminant functions of the PICA raw scores of the 52-patient subsample correctly classified all of the patients. When discriminant functions were based upon the factor scores of the 118-patient parent sample, 80.7% of the 52 patients were correctly classified into the five categories.     

The precision fluency shaping program: Replication and evaluation

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a two-year project to evaluate the Precision Fluency Shaping Program (Webster, 1980) in a community speech and hearing center. Fifty stutterers participated in therapy. Results indicated that Precision Fluency Shaping was an effective therapy for the treatment of stuttering. In addition, stutterer's perception of their speech changed from pre to post therapy. Follow-up data are presented on 28 clients. Advantages of conducting Precision Fluency Shaping, meeting accountability standards, and procedures for collecting follow-up data are discussed.     

Discrimination of faces by young infants

An experiment was conducted to obtain normative data concerning discrimination between human faces by infants under 6 months of age and to determine the information base required for this performance. Infants were habituated to a specific face and recovery of attention was monitored to a novel face, where one or more features was common to both faces. Results suggested that discrimination between photographs of adult, female faces is possible from 5 weeks of age, with critical information probably lying in the hair-face outline while internal features were relatively unimportant until the 19th week.     

Reaction time,evoked brain potentials,and psychometric g in the severely retarded

Measurements derived from reaction time (RT), movement time (MT), and an index of neural adaptability (NA) derived from averaged evoked potentials are significantly related to each other as well as to g factor scores extracted from a battery of 15 psychometric tests in a sample of 54 severely retarded adults. The RT-MT and NA variables show a shrunken multiple R of .64 (p < .001) with psychometric g.     

Desiring and expecting to work among high school girls: Some determinants and consequences

The effects of mother's and father's work status and of social-psychological intervening variables on high school girls' orientation to the labor force are examined. The dependent variables are separate indicators of whether the girls want and whether they expect to have an occupation. In these data from 1965, a log linear analysis shows that whether the mother worked was the major background influence on the dependent variables; father's occupation had no significant independent effect. In addition, two “ideological” variables, the girl's identification with the mother and beliefs in individual achievement, strongly influenced the dependent variables, in a way that did not merely mediate the background effects. Finally, some consequences of wanting and/or expecting to work are examined, and it is argued that the choice of career pattern (housewife versus paid employment) was a central one in girls' attitudinal structures.