Numerical approximation abilities correlate with and predict informal but not formal mathematics abilities

Previous research has found a relationship between individual differences in children’s precision when nonverbally approximating quantities and their school mathematics performance. School mathematics performance emerges from both informal (e.g., counting) and formal (e.g., knowledge of mathematics facts) abilities. It remains unknown whether approximation precision relates to both of these types of mathematics abilities. In the current study, we assessed the precision of numerical approximation in 85 3- to 7-year-old children four times over a span of 2 years. In addition, at the final time point, we tested children’s informal and formal mathematics abilities using the Test of Early Mathematics Ability (TEMA-3). We found that children’s numerical approximation precision correlated with and predicted their informal, but not formal, mathematics abilities when controlling for age and IQ. These results add to our growing understanding of the relationship between an unlearned nonsymbolic system of quantity representation and the system of mathematics reasoning that children come to master through instruction.     

Improving Children's Mental Rotation Accuracy With Computer Game Playing

The authors investigated the relation between mental rotation (MR) and computer game-playing experience. Third grade boys (n = 24) and girls (n = 23) completed a 2-dimensional MR test before and after playing computer games (during 11 separate 30-min sessions), which either involved the use of MR skills (the experimental group) or did not involve the use of MR skills (the control group). The experimental group outperformed the control group on the MR posttest but not on the pretest. Boys outperformed girls on the pretest but not on the posttest. Children whose initial MR performance was low improved after playing computer games that entailed MR skills. The findings imply that computer-based instructional activities can be used in schools to enhance children's spatial abilities.     

Setting Generalization during Self-Reinforcement with Educationally Handicapped Children

Eight educationally handicapped boys ranging in age form 10 to 11 years old and described as the worst behavior problems in their class participated in a series of single-subject studies carried out in their self-contained classrooms. Three served as target subjects, using self-reinforcement procedures to increase their sustained on-task behavior in a treatment setting; five served as generalization subjects. Data were collected in three settings within the self-contained classroom; an early morning treatment setting, a late morning generalization setting, and an afternoon generalization setting. The three target subjects averaged a 51% increase over their baseline median levels of sustained on-task behavior in the treatment setting. They averaged 84% and 96% generalization to the late morning and afternoon generalization settings, respectively. These results demonstrate that self-reinforcement can produce setting generalization of treatment effects in the absence of prior externally determined reinforcement. Evidence for subject and subject-setting generalization was also obtained.     

From Good to Great: Examining Exemplary Counselor Development

Some counselors excel in the profession. Few do so while maintaining a balance in life. This article examines the life of one such individual, Samuel T. Gladding. He models for counselors an aspirational process of making significant contributions to the profession while staying personally grounded. Qualities that propel professionals like Gladding from being good as a young professional into prominence as a mature counselor are examined.     

How does knowledge bring one to the state of immortality in early Upaniṣadic philosophy? A new perspective on the ‘Magical’ way of cognition

ABSTRACT

The Upani?adic philosophers believed that acquiring certain knowledge would lead them toward a state of immortality. Merely by obtaining that knowledge, they thought people could surmount the various causes of death of the natural body. How and why did they develop and maintain this belief? To understand this, this article analyzes the difference between our views as modern humans and those of early Upani?adic philosophers, regarding the concepts of knowledge and death. They seem to have believed that knowing a concept meant actualizing that concept in the real world. Therefore, possessing the concept or knowledge of death guaranteed the actualized occurrence of death. This article argues that early Upani?adic philosophers must have thought that replacing the knowledge of death with the true knowledge of immortality would really make people immortal. In other words, to know that one is immortal truly makes one immortal. I also propose a new method of analyzing ancient thoughts.     

To be in touch

This study examined the constellation of interaction structures – repetitive patterns of interactions between patient and therapist over the course of treatment – that emerged in the psychodynamic therapy (PDT) of a child diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and treated by two doctoral student therapists. Identification of these interaction structures can inform therapists of what might be expected from patients with particular symptom or behaviour patterns and how interactions change over time. This study also examined each session’s adherence to three session prototypes: PDT, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and reflective functioning (RF) process. The Child Psychotherapy Q-Set (CPQ) is a 100-item instrument that assesses the processes within a single psychotherapy session. Items reflect a wide range of therapist attitudes and behaviours, patient attitudes and behaviours and interactions between therapist and patient. Experts used the CPQ to define PDT, CBT and RF process session prototypes. The results suggested that four distinct interaction structures could be identified and that their constellations differed between the two therapists and also differed over time within each treatment. Therapists were more structured and accommodating early on in their treatments and more interpretive later. Prototypical PDT process was more prominent in the sessions than RF process, which in turn was more prominent than CBT process. Unique therapeutic processes are at work in every dyad, despite holding the patient and theoretical orientation constant. An effective treatment in one dyad might not work in another due to therapist-specific and dyad-specific effects.     

‘Between the woods and frozen lake’: a child psychotherapist’s experiences of developing a grant application for an RCT feasibility study

Drawing on the six stages identified by Henton and Midgley (2012) in the narratives of five child psychotherapists involved in the IMPACT study on their evolving attitudes towards participation in outcome research, this paper explores another child psychotherapist’s internal and external world experiences of writing a National Institute of Health Research grant application for a randomised controlled trial feasibility study. It makes use of the key associations that came to mind on first reading Henton and Midgley’s article, outlines the practical and emotional stages of developing the grant proposal and briefly considers some of the wider implications of this kind of work on a personal, organisational and professional level.     

Do as you’re told! Facets of agreeableness and early adult outcomes for inner-city boys

With data from the middle cohort of the Pittsburgh Youth Study, a prospective longitudinal study of inner-city boys, we examined whether Big Five agreeableness facets could be reliably recovered in this sample, and whether facets predicted educational, occupational, social, and antisocial life outcomes assessed a decade later. Caregivers described their adolescent boys’ personalities using the Common California Q-Set; twelve years later, participants were interviewed and court records were obtained. Factor analyses recovered two facets: compliance and compassion. Compliance predicted more schooling and lower risk of unemployment, teenage fatherhood, and crime; compassion related to longer committed relationships. Findings highlight the value of studying personality at the facet level.     

Predictors of Smoking Status After Eight Years: The Interaction of Stages of Change and Addiction Variables

Abstract

With a smoking rate of 30% of the population Switzerland has one of the highest rates of all industrialised countries. Changes in smoking status over eight years are examined by analysing the course of non-smokers, former smokers and current smokers between 1987 and 1995. Stages of change and addiction variables, as well as their interaction, are analysed for 1987 as predictors of smoking status in 1995.A sample of 953 non-smokers and former and current smokers was interviewed in 1987 and followed up in 1995. Between 1987 and 1995 every fifth non-smoker (20.9%) began smoking. The higher one is in the stage hierarchy the higher the probability of forward than of backward movement. Within the stages of change the likelihood of cessation is moderated by addiction variables. Thus, in the case of contemplating smokers in 1987, the more cigarettes they smoked daily at that time the less likely they were to be former smokers by 1995, but for preparating smokers who had already made an attempt to quit the converse holds - the more they smoked in 1987, the more likely they were to be non-smokers eight years later. The same holds for former smokers in 1987: former moderate smokers then were more likely to relapse than former heavy smokers. The implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.     

Are fear-avoidance beliefs related to the inception of an episode of back pain? A prospective study

Abstract

Fear-avoidance beliefs and catastrophizing have been implicated in chronic pain and theoretical models have been developed that feature these factor in the transition from acute to chronic pain. However, little has been done to determine whether these factors occur in the general population or whether they arc associated with the inception of an episode of neck or back pain. The aim of this study was to evaluate prospectively the effects of fear-avoidance beliefs and catastrophizing on the development of an episode of self-reported pain and associated physical functioning. To achieve this, we selected a sample of 415 people from the general population who reported no spinal pain during the past year. At the pretest a battery of questionnaires was administered to assess beliefs about pain and activity and it featured the Pain Catastrophizing Scale and a modified version of the Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire. One year later outcome was evaluated by self-reports of the occurrence of a pain episode as well as a self-administered physical function test. The results showed that scores on both fear-avoidme and cabstrophizing were quite low. During the one year follow-up, 19% of the sample suffered an episode of back pain. Those with scores above the median on fear-avoidance beliefs at the pretest had twice the risk of suffering an episode of back pain and a 1.7 times higher risk of lowered physical function at the follow-up. Catastrophizing was somewhat less salient, increasing the risk of pain or lowered function by 1.5. but with confidence intervals falling below unity. These data indicate that fear-avoidance beliefs may be involved at a very early pint in the development of pain and associated activity problems in people with back pain. Theoretically. our results support the idea that fear-avoidance beliefs may develop in an interaction with the experience of pain. Clinically, the results suggest that catastrophizing and particularly fear-avoidance beliefs are important in the development of a pain problem and might be of use in screening procedures.