NONVOCAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN ADOLESCENTS WITH SEVERE PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: BLISSYMBOL VERSUS ICONIC STIMULUS FORMATS

This study compared training in two language systems for three severely handicapped, nonvocal adolescents: the Bliss symbol system and an iconic picture system. Following baseline, training and review trials were implemented using an alternating treatments design. Daily probes were conducted to assess maintenance, stimulus generalization, and response generalization, and data were collected on spontaneous usage of either language system throughout the school day. Results showed that students required approximately four times as many trials to acquire Bliss symbols as iconic pictures, and that students maintained a higher percentage of iconic pictures. Stimulus generalization occurred in both language systems, while the number of correct responses during responses generalization probes was much greater for the iconic system. Finally, students almost always showed more iconic responses than Bliss responses in daily spontaneous usage. These results suggest that an iconic system might be more readily acquired, maintained, and generalized to daily situations. Implications of these findings for the newly verbal person were discussed.     

The Marital Communication Rating Schedule: An instrument for clinical assessment

The Marital Communication Rating Schedule (MCRaS) is presented as an observationally based clinical rating system for assessing verbal behavior in marital communication. Data from 35 response display discussions lasting from 20 to 30 min each, which took place between 11 married couples, were used to examine aspects of the reliability and validity of the instrument. Three raters made independent ratings of 37 MCRaS categories for each husband and wife for each discussion period. Reliability among the raters was shown to be high when calculated within one scale point. Concurrent validity was assessed by comparing MCRaS ratings for four categories with observationally based validation criteria independently coded and measured. Results indicated that for three categories — negative statements, overgeneralizations, and amount of talk — ratings produced results that were similar to those yielded by laborious coding of audiotapes. For one category, opinions requested, a relationship between the ratings and coded data was not found. The validation results were discussed in terms of possible differences in the basis of ratings for the categories subjected to validation. Although further research is needed, it was concluded that MCRaS has many of the desirable qualities needed in a clinically useful, observationally based rating system.This investigation was conducted in connection with the Sociobehavioral Research Project at The University of Michigan when Joyce Borkin and Claude L. Walter were affiliated with the project.     

AIDS and ‘dirt’: Reflections on the ethics of ritual cleanliness

AIDS and the responses and attitudes it evokes surpass the analytic abilities of standard bioethics. These responses and attitudes are explored in terms of literary and anthropological categories, such as dirt, disorder, pollution and ritual cleanliness. Implications for medical education are suggested.     

论公民道德建设的文化生态基础

为了使公民道德能在我国整个社会文化生态系统中获得稳定的、可持续的快速发展,必须深入考察、全面审视和正确把握我国现今的文化生态系统,努力探寻使系统保持良性循环并不断优化的最佳途径,从而为公民道德建设提供一个健康、坚实的客观文化基础。     

Medical Manichaeism

Medical discourse in the contemporary United States is rife with military metaphors. These metaphors have come under vigorous criticism over the last few decades but to no avail; the militaristic tendency has proven tenacious. This essay suggests that its tenacity stems, at least in part, from a dualistic understanding of medicine unaddressed by prior criticisms. For an alternative, this essay turns to Augustine of Hippo, balancing close readings of works that deal explicitly with medical themes—The Catholic Way of Life and the Manichean Way of Life (De moribus) and The Nature of the Good (De natura boni)—with a constructive approach. By adapting Augustine's privative account of evil, we can understand disease as a condition of loss and treatment as a task of restoration. This reconfiguration shifts the focus of our interpretive discourses from malicious invaders to a fuller affirmation of the lived experiences of those who are ill.     

精子捐赠与伦理

引起男性不育的一个重要原因是无精症、死精症。精子捐赠的出现为这些患者带来了福音,使其享受天伦之乐成为可能,但同时也带来了一系列伦理学、社会学上的问题,包括子代的知情权问题、近亲结婚问题、家庭内部矛盾问题等等。因此要准确认识、运用和完善新的医学技术,并对其进行伦理和法律的规范,防止滥用。     

Renegotiating Aquinas

While Roman Catholic feminist ethicists typically endorse moral realism and crosscultural standards of justice, they also have been influenced by the postmodern interrogation of abstract reason and moral universalism. As theologians writing after the Second Vatican Council, they are increasingly sensitive to the communal and ecclesial dimensions of morality and of Christian ethics, and to the integral relation of Christian faith and ethics. This essay will consider two approaches to Catholic feminist ethics that differ in the relative weight they give to constructive work for social justice (realist gender justice ethics), or to the grounding of ethics in prayer and mysticism (postmodern gendered faith ethics). Using critical feminist reappropriations of the theology and ethics of Aquinas as examples, this essay will argue that the two approaches are overlapping and interdependent.     

No Ethics Without Things

Just as recognition and pursuit of the human good take place in language and action, so too do they unfold in encounter with the material and visual. The ethical crises, projects, and striving we see in everyday religious life are worked out not just in the intersubjective play and politics of language but also in encounter with, in dwelling with, material and visual substances and forms. This essay considers the material conditions that make possible the “ethical pleasures” sought by Indonesian painter A. D. Pirous in making and displaying contemporary works of “Islamic art,” most especially works that make “visual recitation” of passages from the Qur'an.     

How can Asian social psychology succeed globally?†

The present article is inspired by the provocative ideas of Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward expressed in this Special Issue on the past achievements, current status, and future opportunities and challenges of Asian social psychology as an international (vs a regional) endeavour. I believe that the success of Asian social psychology as a new voice and emerging perspective in social psychology hinges upon several factors: (i) adoption of an international (vs regional) outlook; (ii) not letting arbitrary geographical or intellectual boundaries restrict creative expansion of research ideas; and (iii) striving to craft a global identity with an Asian character by developing communicable theories that describe and explain important Asian social psychological phenomena for the benefits of Asia and beyond.     

Creating a qualitative typology of electric vehicle driving: EV journey-making mapped in a chronological framework

‘Range anxiety’ is considered a barrier to market acceptance of electric vehicles (EVs), but perceptions of inadequate recharging infrastructure and limited battery range may be part of a more complex set of consumer concerns; experiences and practices of existing EV drivers – with reference to wider transport and energy systems – need to be understood in greater detail. Qualitative material from semi-structured interviews [n = 88] is used to formulate a chronological Typology of Electric Vehicle Driving which synthesises drivers’ decisions, actions and dynamic considerations before, during and after a journey. The typology outlines and tabulates spatio-temporal elements specific to driving an EV; describes adaptations and compromises in household routines and travel habits; draws out how or when drivers engage with external digital information sources – i.e. smartphone apps, social media – during journey-making; plots their intervention in behavioural changes; and could inform development of infrastructure, tools or services, policy or interventions to support EV uptake.