Translating multiple assessment techniques into an intervention selection model for classrooms

Translating current research to school-based clinical practice highlights issues not often encountered in laboratory settings. With the assistance of a consultant, teachers conducted functional analyses, brief multielement treatment comparisons, and controlled treatment evaluations under naturalistic conditions in the classroom. Teachers also provided input on treatment selection. Treatment integrity data collected throughout the study suggested that teachers implemented analyses and treatments with high integrity. The functional analysis outcomes combined with effectiveness and acceptability data led to the selection of interventions that reduced problem behavior in the classrooms for each of 3 children.     

“Procrustean Psychotherapy” or Differential Therapeutics: Teaching Treatment Selection to Trainees

Most clinical training programs and treatment facilities offer a relatively narrow range of treatment alternatives to their interns and therefore produce procrustean psychotherapists. One way to remedy this unfortunate situation is to emphasize the importance of differential therapeutics and treatment selection at the outset of their training program. A suggestion on how to accomplish this on a minor scale is described in this paper.     

Alzheimer's disease disrupts arithmetic fact retrieval processes but not arithmetic strategy selection

Three groups of healthy younger adults, healthy older adults, and probable AD patients, performed an addition/number comparison task. They compared 128 couples of additions and numbers (e.g., 4 + 9 15) and had to identify the largest item for each problem by pressing one of two buttons located under each item. Manipulations of problem characteristics (i.e., problem difficulty and splits between correct sums and proposed numbers) enabled us to examine strategy selection and specific arithmetic fact retrieval processes. Results showed that arithmetic facts retrieval processes, which were spared with aging, were impaired in AD patients. However, AD patients were able to switch between strategies across trials according to problem characteristics as well as healthy older adults, and less systematically than healthy younger adults. We discuss implications of these findings for further understanding AD-related differences in arithmetic in particular, and problem solving in general.     

Modality pairing effects and the response selection bottleneck

The present experiment examined the effects of input/output modality pairings on dual-task performance using the psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure. Four groups of participants performed two tasks composed of the same sets of inputs (visual and auditory) and the same sets of outputs (manual and vocal), but with different input/output modality pairings. Whereas modality pairings had only small effects on single-task reaction times, they had large effects on dual-task reaction times. The modality pairing effect cannot stem from differences in the difficulty of stimulus classification or response execution, because these task demands were the same across groups. The effect also does not appear to result from changes in stimulus-response compatibility. The present findings suggest dual-task interference arises not only from postponement of central operations (due to a central bottleneck), but also from a slowing of central operations whose magnitude is sensitive to the input/output modality pairings.     

Sin and bioethics.

The essay starts out with defining the biblical concept of sin in the Old and the New Testaments. The literal knowledge of divine truth is distinguished from its truthful and spiritual interpretation. A further distinction should be made between the Creator of life (God) and the medium or "intermediary creator" (man) of life. I argue for the "single wholeness" of the human race and for the unity of human responsibility in bioethics. In delineating the teaching of the Church on abortion and family planning, I show that the healing of all human diseases, from traditional interventions to genetic ones, is a Christian duty and is in accordance with Christ's mission on earth as long as one has not been directly or indirectly involved in "reproducing" or "designing" one's descendants or destroying or damaging human life even at its very beginnings.     

The effect of test schedules on the formation of linked perceptual classes

After training conditional discriminations among selected stimuli from two perceptual classes, the emergence of novel relations involving other members of both classes was assessed using cross-class probes. The cross-class probes were presented using one of four different testing schedules. In the 2/9 test, nine different probes were presented in each of two test blocks. In the 6/3 test, three different probes were presented in each of six test blocks. In the 18/1-RND test, each of the 18 cross-class probes was presented in separate test blocks. In the 2/9 and 6/3 tests, the cross-class probes were presented in a randomized order within test block. In the 18/1-RND test, the cross-class probes were presented in a randomized sequence. In the 18/1-PRGM test, however, the cross-class probes were presented in a programmed order (i.e., the values of the stimuli in each cross-class probe were changed systematically in the succession of probe presentations). About 55% of the linked perceptual classes emerged during the 2/9, 6/3, and 18/1-RND tests. Thus the number of different probes in a test block did not influence the emergence of classes as long as the probes were presented in a random order. Virtually all classes emerged during the 18/1-PRGM test. Thus at least one ordered introduction of different cross probes resulted in the reliable emergence of linked perceptual classes. Mechanisms responsible for linked perceptual class formation are discussed along with the relation of these classes to other complex categories.     

Hierarchical classes models for three-way three-mode binary data: interrelations and model selection

Several hierarchical classes models can be considered for the modeling of three-way three-mode binary data, including the INDCLAS model (Leenen, Van Mechelen, De Boeck, and Rosenberg, 1999), the Tucker3-HICLAS model (Ceulemans, Van Mechelen, and Leenen, 2003), the Tucker2-HICLAS model (Ceulemans and Van Mechelen, 2004), and the Tucker1-HICLAS model that is introduced in this paper. Two questions then may be raised: (1) how are these models interrelated, and (2) given a specific data set, which of these models should be selected, and in which rank? In the present paper, we deal with these questions by (1) showing that the distinct hierarchical classes models for three-way three-mode binary data can be organized into a partially ordered hierarchy, and (2) by presenting model selection strategies based on extensions of the well-known scree test and on the Akaike information criterion. The latter strategies are evaluated by means of an extensive simulation study and are illustrated with an application to interpersonal emotion data. Finally, the presented hierarchy and model selection strategies are related to corresponding work by Kiers (1991) for principal component models for three-way three-mode real-valued data.     

Clinically useful,research validated assessment of persons with alcohol problems

Advances in treatment approaches available for persons with alcohol problems, particularly the advent of cognitive behavioral and motivational approaches, have made systematic assessment of these problems more important than ever for clinicians. There is a plethora of assessment instruments available, and it is a difficult task for clinicians to conceptualize, select and use these instruments in a coherent fashion. Particularly important in this task is the identification of research validated instruments that provide both clinically useful and psychometrically sound data. This paper presents a model of alcohol assessment and reviews selected research validated instruments that can be assembled into an assessment battery that provides useful data to guide treatment of alcohol problems while also addressing practical concerns encountered by clinicians in practice.     

Contemplating an Evolutionary Approach to Entrepreneurship

This artical explores that application of evolutionary approaches to the study of entrepreneurship. It is argued an evolutionary theory of entrepreneurship must give as much concern to the foundations of evolutionary thought as it does the nature of entrepreneurship. The central point being that we must move beyond a debate or preference of the natural selection and adaptationist viewpoints. Only then can the interrelationships between individuals, firms, populations and the environments within which they interact be better appreciated.     

A Transdisciplinary Perspective Concerning the Origin of the Species: The Migratory Theory of Genetic Fitness

Although the Neo-Darwin Theory of Evolution is one of the most celebrated theories in science, nonetheless it has received many criticisms. These criticisms are documented and a new transdisciplinary theory of origin is introduced. Darwin's original argument was that natural selection, through heritable changes, changed simple organisms over time. These heritable changes are responsible for the complex plethora of life seen around us today. Darwin's original theory, however, was deconstructed after the fact into a mutation-based theory. This mutation-based theory in its current form is an insufficient and indeed unnecessary transdisciplinary explanation. A subsequent statistical comparison between the six extant scientifically based primary theories of origin was undertaken and based on current biological knowledge a statistically significantly (p < .05) best fit phenotypic model emerged.