Taking visual disability into account: Explaining failure to experts and non-experts

The present study was designed to investigate visually handicapped students' explanations for failure when the motive to maintain or enhance self-esteem was in conflict with the motive to present a favorable social image. Subjects experienced manipulated failure in a text comprehension task and were subsequently asked to give causal and responsibility attributions in the presence of either a visually handicapped or a non-handicapped experimenter. It was expected that visually disabled participants would claim a handicap-bonus from the non-handicapped experimenter by explicitly presenting non-defensive attributions and accounts as well as handicap-related responses, while defensive explanations should be more pronounced when faced with a blind experimenter. The data provide support for the existence of presumed social expectations as determinants of individuals' verbal self-presentations.     

Building and Maintaining Clinical Programs

This paper describes the basic elements of practice development and management within the academic medical setting. These include assessment of the market environment, both in the community and within the medical setting, product development, marketing, budget basics, quality, managed care negotiations, and finding time to do research in a financially-driven health care system.     

多点触觉定位

在左手食指第一节腹侧分别进行1个点、2个点和3个点的定位实验,探讨了多点定位的特点。实验发现,按单个点的定位误差来计算．1个点和3个点的定位误差无显著差异,且二者均显著地低于2个点的定位误差;在2个点的定位中,一个点的定位误差是此2个点的空间距离的函数．定位误差有随距离加大而增加的趋势;在3个点的定位中．同一个点在不同的3点组台中的定位误差无显著差异。结果指示,多点触觉定位除以受刺激的躯体部位框架为参照（基本参照）外,还受到诸刺激点构成的刺激模式（次级参照）的影响。     

Family Secrets: The Case of the Patient Kept in the Dark

The author examines the position of a child from whom important matters in his or her own life or key events in the family have been kept secret, outlines criteria by which the decision whether or not to unveil the secret should be made, and urges colleagues to gather more data and examine further family secrets.     

ACADEMIC EFFECTS OF PROVIDING PEER SUPPORT IN GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS ON STUDENTS WITHOUT DISABILITIES

We studied the academic effects on peers without disabilities of serving as peer supports for students with disabilities in general education classrooms. Three peers were studied using a range of indicators, including academic engagement, coursework performance, and social validity assessments. Peers assisting a student with disabilities via curricular adaptation, assignment completion, and social facilitation constituted the multicomponent independent variable. We used withdrawal or multiple baseline designs to demonstrate positive benefits for peers for all measures used. In addition, follow-up data for 2 peers indicated that the positive changes associated with serving as a peer support were maintained for up to 2 months. Our results are discussed in relation to the possible academic and social effects of providing peer supports in general education classrooms for students with and without disabilities.     

Nodality effects during equivalence class formation: An extension to sight-word reading and concept development

Three students with moderate disabilities were taught to read and match-to-sample sight words comprising stimulus sets based upon the four food groups. We taught students conditional discriminations within four four-member sets using a single-sample/four-comparison procedure. Students were taught A-B, B-C, and C-D conditional discriminations for each of the four potential stimulus classes. Subsequent probes tested for relations based upon symmetry and one-node and two-node transitivity. The performances for all students indicated that symmetric relations emerged before one-node transitive relations, and that one-node transitive relations emerged before two-node transitive relations. These results are consistent with a pattern of responding, referred to as a "nodality effect," in which relations with fewer nodes are demonstrated prior to the demonstration of relations with a greater number of nodes. These results extend this area of research to sight-word reading for students with moderate disabilities.     

BALANCING SOCIAL ACCEPTABILITY WITH TREATMENT EFFECTIVENESS OF AN INTRUSIVE PROCEDURE: A CASE REPORT

The debate over social acceptability of intrusive procedures has led some school districts to adopt policies allowing punishment for only the most extreme forms of destructive behavior. We investigated the effectiveness of selectively implementing punishment for only the most severe topographies of aggression and property destruction, while less extreme behaviors were ignored. Results indicated that severe behaviors were reduced to near-zero levels only when both severe and less severe behaviors were similarly punished.     

Preventing antisocial behavior in the schools

Multiple correlates and determinants of antisocial behavior within the home, community, and school are reviewed. Due to the school's pivotal role in our society, an emphasis is placed on how our schools contribute to antisocial behavior, and what educators can do to prevent anti-social behavior and related attendance problems. A variety of contextual factors and setting events within our schools appear to be major contributors to antisocial behavior, and some of the same factors identified within the schools also have been identified within the home. These setting events, rather than quick restrictive fixes, must be given more attention if we are to provide safe school environments-environments that durably prevent antisocial behavior and related attendance problems.     

Comparing interspersed requests and social comments as antecedents for increasing student compliance

Two students were alternately presented with interspersed high-compliance requests and social comments as antecedents to low-compliance requests. An initial comparison demonstrated similar positive effects on compliance for interspersed requests and social comments. A second analysis indicated that the effectiveness of social comments for increasing compliance was related to the time interval between social comments and low-compliance requests.     

INCREASING COMPLEX SOCIAL BEHAVIORS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM: EFFECTS OF PEER-IMPLEMENTED PIVOTAL RESPONSE TRAINING

Two children with autism were taught to engage in a variety of complex social behaviors using peer-implemented pivotal response training (PRT), a set of procedures designed to increase motivation and promote generalization. Typical peers were taught to implement PRT strategies by modeling, role playing, and didactic instruction. After training, peers implemented the procedures in the absence of direct supervision in a classroom environment. After the intervention, both children with autism maintained prolonged interactions with the peer, initiated play and conversations, and increased engagement in language and joint attention behaviors. In addition, teachers reported positive changes in social behavior, with the largest increases in peer-preferred social behavior. Further, these effects showed generality and maintenance. Implications of these findings are discussed.