A BEHAVIORAL-EDUCATIONAL ALTERNATIVE TO DRUG CONTROL OF HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN

A behavioral procedure for controlling hyperactivity without inhibiting academic performance is described. Using a time-sample observational method, the hyperactivity displayed by three school children was recorded during math and reading classes. Concurrently, math and reading performances were measured. The study consisted of two baselines, one while the children were on medication and the second while they were off medication. A multiple-baseline design across the two academic subject matters was used to assess the behavioral intervention, which consisted of token reinforcement for correct academic responses in math and subsequently math and reading. Discontinuation of medication resulted in a gross increase in hyperactivity from 20% to about 80%, and a slight increase in math and reading performance. Introduction of a behavioral program for academic performance, during no medication, controlled the children's hyperactivity at a level comparable to that when they were on drugs (about 20%). At the same time, math and reading performance for the group jumped from about 12% during baseline to a level of over 85% correct. Each child performed behaviorally and academically in an optimal manner without medication. Contingency management techniques provided a feasible alternative to medication for controlling hyperactivity in the classroom while enabling the children to grow academically.     

Effects of implementing a token economy on teacher attending behavior

After systematic attempts to increase a teacher's positive responding to her first-grade students, a token-economy system was implemented as a "last resort". On-task student behavior and relative frequency of positive and negative teacher comments were systematically observed. Data indicated that institution of the token system was associated with a relatively higher percentage of positive than negative comments. Termination and re-implementation of the token system caused reversals of the teacher's behavior.     

The effects of component duration on multiple-schedule performance in closed and open economies.

Pigeons responded on multiple variable-interval variable-interval schedules of reinforcement in an open and a closed economy. Equal duration components were increased in duration while the component rates of reinforcement were held constant, the component schedules were reversed, and component duration was decreased. In the open economy, daily sessions were limited to 1 hr, and subjects were maintained at 80% of their free-feeding weights through supplemental feeding when necessary in their home cages. In the closed economy, subjects were housed in their experimental chambers and no deprivation regimen was enforced. Relative response rate decreased as components were lengthened in the open economy, whereas in the closed economy relative rate increased as components were lengthened. Response proportions overmatched reinforcer proportions to a greater extent at long component durations in the closed economy, but there was no systematic effect of component duration on responding in the open economy.     

MULTIPLE-BASELINE ANALYSIS OF A TOKEN ECONOMY FOR PSYCHIATRIC INPATIENTS

Twelve behaviors selected for reinforcement among 16 chronic psychiatric inpatients were divided into four classes: (a) personal hygiene, (b) personal management, (c) ward work, and (d) social skills. A token economy program was introduced for each class in a sequential, cumulative, multiple-baseline format. Corrections were included for methodological deficiencies frequently encountered in past studies. Treatment variables were systematically monitored, and target behavior rates, levels of global individual functioning, general ward behavior, and off-ward behavior were assessed during baseline, implementation, and probe periods. Results indicated abrupt and substantial increases in performance of most target behaviors, significant improvements in global individual functioning (p < .025), positive changes in general ward behavior, and increases in social interaction during off-ward activities. The findings provide strong evidence for the efficacy of a token economy and indicate that the multiple-baseline design can be a useful method for evaluating token economy programs.     

PUPILS' SELF-SCORED ARITHMETIC PERFORMANCE: A PRACTICAL PROCEDURE FOR MAINTAINING ACCURACY1

Scoring of student performance is often costly in teacher time. Self-rating may be a practical alternative, if ratings are accurate. Some conditions affecting self-rating accuracy were examined in two special-education classes in two experiments. The first assessed the separate effects of submitting self-ratings to the teacher and token reinforcement for those ratings. Actual and self-rated performance during daily 20-minute arithmetic assignments were observed in a class of four boys with an average age of 10 years, four months. Subjects answered assignments in pen for later detection of falsified answers. At the end of the session, correct answers were projected and papers self-scored in pencil. During class dismissal, the experimenter surreptitiously scored actual performance. Three experimental conditions were introduced in an A B C B A design. During A, subjects self-rated but submitted no report, nor received token reinforcement. During B, self-ratings were reported to the teacher on a folded slip of paper, without reinforcement. During C, points were awarded for self-reported scores based on changes in individual performance from the prior condition and later exchanged for prizes. Subjects self-rated accurately during A, with little change during B. However, awarding points for self-reported scores in C, produced highly exaggerated performance. There was little change in correct arithmetic performance throughout the experiment. The second experiment examined a low-cost procedure to produce and maintain a low level of exaggeration in a class of 17 boys with an average age of 15 years, three months. Continuous, then intermittent checks on the accuracy of self-rated arithmetic performance were assessed in a multiple-baseline design across groups of subjects. Following a condition where subjects' self-reported performance was reinforced as in the first experiment, the self-rating accuracy of all subjects was checked publicly and a penalty applied for inaccuracies or bonus points for accuracies (Maximum Checks). During Minimum Checks, the self-rating accuracy of one randomly selected subject was checked. The reduction in checking frequency was gradual for one group and abrupt for the other. When self-reports were reinforced, 13 of the 17 pupils submitted ratings discrepant with actual arithmetic performance by more than two problems per session. Maximum Checks reduced discrepancies below two problems per session for 15 of the 17 pupils. This same low level of exaggeration was maintained during Minimum Checks for 14 of the 17 pupils. Correct arithmetic performance showed no systematic change. Teachers reported that self-rating resulted in time savings over their usual methods of scoring. The results indicated that pupils exaggerate when rewarded for self-ratings. Exaggeration was reduced and maintained at low levels by infrequent accuracy checks.     

SARS事件后对卫生体制的反思

SARS事件突出暴露了我国经济和社会发展不协调的问题,由于缺乏科学发展观统领医疗卫生事业的发展,在体制改革中片面突出经济增长在社会发展中的作用、片面追求市场化的支配地位,是导致病象的内在逻辑。从构建“和谐社会”的战略出发,认为应避免社会公共事务管理的“泛市场化”倾向,指出“有管理的市场化”是其应然走向,呼吁在改革实践中重新回复人文精神。     

Subordinating Truth – Is <Emphasis Type="Italic">Acceptability</Emphasis> Acceptable?

Argumentation logicians have recognized a specter of relativism to haunt their philosophy of argument. However, their attempts to dispel pernicious relativism by invoking notions of a universal audience or a community of model interlocutors have not been entirely successful. In fact, their various discussions of a universal audience invoke the context-eschewing formalism of Kant’s categorical imperative. Moreover, they embrace the Kantian method for resolving the antinomies that continually vacillates between opposing extremes – here between a transcendent universal audience and a context-embedded particular audience. This tack ironically restores the very external mediation they thought to obviate in their aim to ‘dethrone’ the absolutism and totalitarianism of formal logic with a democratic turn to audience adherence, the acceptability of premises and inferential links, and a contextual, or participant-relative, notion of cogency.     

Partners and Fellow Patients: Two Sources of Emotional Support for Women with Breast Cancer

This study examined the helping process that occurred when 26 breast cancer patients (the disclosers) talked about their illness-related concerns with their partner and, in a separate conversation, with a fellow patient (the volunteer helpers). The conversations were rated by trained observers and by the disclosers in terms of several process and outcome variables. From the observers' perspective, the volunteer helpers were more helpful, empathic, and supportive, less critical, and used more self-disclosure than the partners. Disclosers did not differentiate between the two types of helper, and gave generally high ratings to both conversations. Strengths and weaknesses of each type of helper were identified. Findings are discussed in relation to the literature on formal and informal helping, and implications for training nonprofessional helpers are suggested.     

Food and water intake as functions of resource consumption costs in a closed economy.

In two experiments, rats living in a closed economy were offered continuous, concurrent access to four resources: food, water, a nest, and a running wheel. Costs of consuming food and water were imposed with bar-press requirements, and the price of either one or both resources was raised. As the consumption cost increased, less was consumed in each bout of resource use. Bout frequency increased, but not sufficiently to compensate for the fall in bout size, and total intake fell. Food and water tended to be complementary resources, in that as intake of one fell with its price, intake of the other also decreased. This interaction was accounted for by the defense of the ratio of body water to lean body mass. As amount consumed decreased, increases in feed efficiency (weight gain per unit of food ingested) and the use of stored calories compensated for the reduced energy intake. There was evidence of competition between feeding and drinking at the higher costs: When both commodities were expensive, the decline in the intake of each one was greater than when only one commodity was expensive. Although the time spent nesting, running, and in unmonitored activity was adjusted when feeding or drinking took more of the rat's day, there was no particular activity that was sacrificed.     

Closed-economy multiple-schedule performance: Effects of deprivation and session duration

Three pigeons responded for food reinforcement on multiple variable-interval schedules in which the total consumption of food was entirely determined by the subjects' interaction with the schedules (a closed economy). The finding of overmatching, where response allocation between components is more extreme than the distribution of reinforcers, was reconfirmed. Generalized-matching sensitivity decreased from overmatching to undermatching values typical of conventional multiple schedules when food deprivation was increased by decreasing session duration, but not when deprivation was increased by decreasing overall reinforcer rate. Sensitivity also increased from undermatching to overmatching as session duration increased from 100 min to 24 hr, while deprivation was held constant by decreasing overall reinforcer rate. These results can be understood in terms of increases in the value of extraneous reinforcers relative to food reinforcers as deprivation decreases or as the economy for extraneous reinforcers becomes more closed. However, no published quantitative expression of the effects of extraneous reinforcers is entirely consistent with the results.