THE EFFECTS OF CHOICE AND TASK PREFERENCE ON THE WORK PERFORMANCE OF ADULTS WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

We evaluated the effects of choice versus the assignment of tasks of varying preferences on the work engagement of adults with severe disabilities. The combined results of two experiments suggest that the relative preference for a task may be an important variable in the effectiveness of choice for some individuals.     

Parenting stress in parents of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and parents of children with learning disabilities

Parenting a child with ADHD can challenge parenting resources and coping. Increasingly, researchers are examining the relationship between the behavior of the child with ADHD and family functioning. While studies have shown inceased parenting stress in parents of children with ADHD, these studies have compared children with ADHD to non-disabled children. This study compares reports of parenting stress among mothers of children with ADHD, mothers of children with learning disabilities and mothers of non-referred children. Results showed that parenting stress was highest for mothers of children with ADHD. Increased parenting stress was associated with child characteristics and, in particular, with externalizing behavior problems.     

Brain dynamics,psychophysiological uncertainty and behavioral learning

The present paper takes a first step toward the integration of recent findings on brain dynamics and learning into established fields of psychophysiological science. Leading-edge studies of brain dynamics have shown that the brain manifests an inherent variability and that, when new stimuli (i.e., “problems”) are presented to the organism, brain chaos increases.     

Role of the striatal cholinergic system in the regulation of learned manipulation in rats

The experiments were performed on adult Wistar male rats trained to push with the forepaw on a fixed piston inside a narrow tube. It was found that after localized intracerebral injection of a cholinergic antagonist into the dorso-lateral (but not medial) neostriatum (i.e., the caudato-putamen) the behavioral performance requiring brief innate movements remained unchanged, but the performance requiring a prolonged pushing movement (> 50 msec) became disrupted. Microinjection of carbacholine (0.03-3 μ g/1 μ1) did not affect the performance of the acquired movements, whereas scopolamine (3 μ g/1 μ1) led to the significant decrease in pushing time. We conclude that changes in the state of the dorso-lateral neostriatal cholinergic system result only in disturbances of the sensory-controlled component of a complex instrumental movement. The 1994 Pavlovian Society Young Investigator Awardee was Nadezda Dubrovskaya, first author of this paper, which was presented at the annual meeting of the Pavlovian Society, July 3, 1994, in Prague, Czech Republic.     

Interactive effects of dispositional mindfulness and PETTLEP imagery training on basketball shooting performance: A randomized controlled trial

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of dispositional mindfulness and visualized PETTLEP imagery training on basketball mid-range shooting performance and retention. Seventy-three participants (M age = 20.32 ± 1.09) with high/low dispositional mindfulness (high n = 35; low n = 38) selected out of 302 college students were randomly assigned into the following six groups: (a) high mindfulness internal imagery (H-II, n = 13); (b) high mindfulness external imagery (H-EI, n = 11); (c) high mindfulness control (H–CO, n = 11); (d) low mindfulness internal imagery (L-II, n = 13); (e) low mindfulness external imagery (L-EI, n = 12); and (f) low mindfulness control (L-CO, n = 13). Participants engaged in a pretest to measure their basketball shooting performance, then participated in a 6-week (3 times/per-week) intervention, plus a posttest and retention test. A three-way 2 (high/low mindfulness) X 3 (treatments: internal-, external imagery, and control) X 3 (measurement time: pretest, posttest, and retention) mixed ANOVA statistical analysis found dispositional mindfulness interacted with treatments and measurement time. The main effects showed high dispositional mindfulness performed better than low dispositional mindfulness, and internal imagery training performed better than external imagery training on mid-range basketball performance at retention. The 3–way interaction indicated that when using either internal or external imagery, high dispositional mindfulness performed better than low mindfulness on retention but not posttest. For 2-way interaction, high dispositional mindfulness performed better than low dispositional mindfulness on retention but not posttest. Our results extended current knowledge on sport imagery and dispositional mindfulness and gained several theoretical implications for researchers. The limitations, future research directions, and practical implications were also discussed.     

Specific and general transfer of perceptual-motor skills and learning between sports: A systematic review

ObjectivesSport developmental models contend that participating in different sports promotes expertise development, implying positive skill transfer between sports. This study conceptualizes and examines how specific and general transfer occur and interact between sports in the short- (skill transfer) and long-term (learning transfer). Specific transfer is predicated on the perception and utilisation of specifying information in a transfer task, while general transfer relies on non-specifying, "general" information. Furthermore, the study examined how certain conditions (affordance similarity, perceptual-motor exploration and expertise) promote the transfer process.DesignSystematic literature review.MethodsAn electronic search was performed on SPORTDiscuss, Pubmed/MEDLINE, and Scopus. Studies were included if participants performed a transfer task in a sport different to the sport they learned a skill in.ResultsA total of 17 studies of low-to-moderate quality were included. Most studies showed specificity of transfer between sports with overlapping affordances and generality of transfer between sports with no overlapping affordances (for a given skill). Only 2 studies examined how perceptual-motor exploration supported specific transfer, and 2 examined transfer for (subsequent) learning with contrasting results. Six studies indicated an expertise effect, showing higher transfer in skilled vs less-skilled athletes.ConclusionsThis review provides a conceptualization of specificity and generality of transfer, and initial evidence on how transfer emerges between sports in the short-term. It provides little information on the general-specific interaction in the short-term, and does not provide any insights on how transfer emerges in mid- and long-term. As such, no inference regarding sport developmental models can be made. The low-to-moderate quality of the studies requires caution in interpreting these findings. We encourage future research to investigate general and specific transfer longitudinally, recruiting populations with different expertise levels to further advance our current understanding.     

A PRELIMINARY PROCEDURE FOR PREDICTING THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT-BASED PROCEDURES

In the current investigation, a modification was made to the preference assessment described by Pace, Ivancic, Edwards, Iwata, and Page (1985) to predict the effects of stimuli when used in a differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO) schedule for 2 clients with severe self-injurious behavior (SIB) and profound mental retardation. Based on the results of the preference assessment, three types of stimuli were identified: (a) high-preference stimuli associated with high rates of SIB (HP/HS), (b) high-preference stimuli associated with relatively lower rates of SIB (HP/LS), and (c) low-preference stimuli associated with low rates of SIB (LP/LS). Consistent with the results of the preference assessment, the DRO schedule with HP/HS stimuli resulted in increased SIB, and the DRO schedule with LP/LS stimuli resulted in no changes in SIB. HP/LS stimuli were demonstrated reinforcers but did not result in a change in SIB when used in a DRO schedule. Thus, the stimulus preference assessment may be useful clinically in some situations for predicting both the beneficial and the negative side effects of stimuli in DRO procedures.     

Improving the spelling performance of students with disabilities

The present study examined the effects of an error correction strategy on the spelling accuracy of students with emotional and/or learning disabilities. The strategy, which asked students to spell a word, view a correct model, and then correct their errors, was compared to a traditional strategy that asked students to write words three times each while viewing a correct model. Results showed that students learned more words in the error correction condition than in the traditional condition. The error correction treatment was shown to be an effective strategy that reduced the number of repetitive spelling practice trials, and was preferred by students.