Family Processes and Treatment Outcome in the MTA: Negative/Ineffective Parenting Practices in Relation to Multimodal Treatment

To elucidate processes underlying therapeutic change in a large-scale randomized clinical trial, we examined whether alterations in self-reported parenting practices were associated with the effects of behavioral, medication, or combination treatments on teacher-reported outcomes (disruptive behavior, social skills, internalizing symptoms) in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Participants were 579 children with Combined-type ADHD, aged 7–9.9 years, in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA). We uncovered 2 second-order factors of parenting practices, entitled Positive Involvement and Negative/Ineffective Discipline. Although Positive Involvement was not associated with amelioration of the school-based outcome measures, reductions in Negative/Ineffective Discipline mediated improvement in children's social skills at school. For families showing the greatest reductions in Negative/Ineffective Discipline, effects of combined medication plus behavioral treatment were pronounced in relation to regular community care. Furthermore, only in combination treatment (and not in behavioral treatment alone) was decreased Negative/Ineffective Discipline associated with reduction in children's disruptive behavior at school. Here, children in families receiving combination treatment who showed the greatest reductions in Negative/Ineffective Discipline had teacher-reported disruptive behavior that was essentially normalized. Overall, the success of combination treatment for important school-related outcomes appears related to reductions in negative and ineffective parenting practices at home; we discuss problems in interpreting the temporal sequencing of such process-outcome linkages and the means by which multimodal treatment may be mediated by psychosocial processes related to parenting.     

A comparison of verbal and tangible stimulus preference assessments

Tangible preference assessments were compared with verbal preference assessments for 6 individuals with mental retardation, behavior disorders, or both. In the tangible assessment, items were placed in front of the participant. In the verbal assessment, participants were asked, “Do you want X or Y?” and the items were not present. The two assessments yielded similar high‐preference items for 4 of the 6 participants. The verbal assessment was typically completed in less time than the tangible assessment.     

Further evaluation of low-ranked items in stimulus-choice preference assessments

The generality of the findings reported by DeLeon, Iwata, and Roscoe (1997) was examined by conducting two stimulus-choice preference assessments, the second of which evaluated low-ranked items from the initial assessment. Results for the 2 participants suggested that supplementary assessments of low-ranked items may be useful for identifying a wider variety of reinforcing stimuli.     

The Therapeutic Factors Inventory: Development of a Scale

Although Yalom's (1995) framework of the therapeutic factors facilitating outcome in group has been accepted by group specialists, no empirically based instrument assesses all of these factors. The Therapeutic Factors Inventory (TFI), with 11 scales based on the therapeutic factors, has been designed to fill this gap. This article summarizes the development and preliminary reliability testing of the TFI. Each scale of the instrument demonstrated high internal consistency; however, one scale obtained unacceptably low test-retest reliability. Further validity testing is needed. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

An evaluation of a brief multiple-stimulus preference assessment with adolescents with emotional-behavioral disorders in an educational setting

Brief multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessments were conducted with 3 adolescent boys with emotional-behavioral disorders in the context of their public school educational program. The reinforcing effects of stimuli identified as high, medium, and low preference were then evaluated using an alternating treatments design in which, following an initial baseline, stimuli were delivered contingent on on-task behavior. High-preference stimuli produced the highest percentages of on-task behavior for all 3 participants.     

Using brief experimental assessment of reading interventions for identification and treatment of a vocal habit

An 11-year-old boy presented in an outpatient clinic with a vocal habit that occurred during reading and conversation. A brief reading assessment was conducted to determine an effective intervention to decrease the habit. A modified version of the word error-correction procedure resulted in positive changes and was implemented by his mother during home reading practices. Significant decreases in the rate of vocal habit were observed during home reading probes, generalization probes, and follow-up.     

Use of a lag differential reinforcement contingency to increase varied selections of classroom activities

The present study evaluated the effects of a lag differential reinforcement contingency on 2 students' activity selections using reversal designs. Results showed that the lag contingency was responsible for promoting increased novel selections, engagement in diverse activities, and greater progress with respect to programmed academic activities.     

Representation of subjective preferences under ambiguity

The objective of this paper is to show how potentially incomplete preferences of a decision maker (DM) on acts can be modelled formally in a subjective ambiguity perspective. We identify acts as functions from a state space Ω to bounded support (finitely additive) probabilities over a set X of prizes. Then, we characterize preferences over equibounded acts a which have a numerical representation by the family of functionals , where u is a cardinal utility on X (representing the risk attitude of the DM) and Π is a unique pointwise closed convex set of probabilities on all events in Ω (representing the ambiguity perceived by the DM). To this end, in addition to the usual independence and continuity assumptions, we add completeness and dominance for preferences restricted to constant acts; moreover, we consider two other properties (subjective monotonicity and coherence) related with the preferences of a DM who is not able, owing to his partial knowledge, to evaluate any event in Ω.     

Admissibility of Cut in <Emphasis Type="Italic">LC</Emphasis> with Fixed Point Combinator

The fixed point combinator (Y) is an important non-proper combinator, which is defhable from a combinatorially complete base. This combinator guarantees that recursive equations have a solution. Structurally free logics (LC) turn combinators into formulas and replace structural rules by combinatory ones. This paper introduces the fixed point and the dual fixed point combinator into structurally free logics. The admissibility of (multiple) cut in the resulting calculus is not provable by a simple adaptation of the similar proof for LC with proper combinators. The novelty of our proof—beyond proving the cut for a newly extended calculus–is that we add a fourth induction to the by-and-large Gentzen-style proof. Presented by Robert Goldblatt     

Nietzsche Contra “Self-Reformulation”

Not only do the writings of Nietzsche – early and late – fail to support the pedagogy of self-reformulation, this doctrine embodies what for him is worst in man and would destroy that which is higher. The pedagogy of self-reformulation is also incoherent. In contrast, Nietzsche offers a fruitful and comprehensive theory of education that, while non-democratic and contemptuous of egalitarian aspirations, emerges consistently from his metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. Whatever, then, we might think of his premises, Nietzsche’s philosophy of education represents an attractive model for those who would develop a meaningful, distinctive, and persuasive educational theory. It defines a domain of the possible and then straightforwardly states what is and is not to be done within it – and why.