Effective remote staff training of objective session notes

Session notes are a required component of documenting behavior analytic sessions. The direct training of writing objective session notes is important to the success of direct line staff completing adequate documentation and meeting requirements set forth by agencies, certification boards, and insurance funders. However, in‐person training is not always immediately available due to contextual restrictions. This study evaluated the effectiveness of implementing the teaching interaction procedure when training staff remotely to objectively document client progress within session notes. Three Registered Behavior Technicians? (RBT®s) were trained via telehealth to complete session notes objectively. Results showed that all 3 participants met the mastery criterion during probes measuring the objective documentation of home‐based behavior analytic sessions. These findings suggest that a training package, such as the teaching interaction procedure, can be effectively implemented remotely when conducting staff training.     

人工语法学习中习得知识的分离:基于信号检测论和结构知识的视角

习得知识的意识觉知问题一直以来是内隐学习领域的研究热点和难点。以加工分离程序来分解击中率和虚报率、以结构知识中意识和无意识测量为视角,采用2（测验方式：SDTT,SKT）×2（学习程度：30试次,60试次）混合设计,试图去分离人工语法学习中习得的意识知识和无意识知识。结果发现：（1）学习程度影响到习得的无意识知识,但还未影响到习得的意识知识;（2）在分离人工语法学习的习得知识上,SDTT的敏感性高于SKT;（3）SKT夸大了元认知中的意识成分。     

Identity leadership and social identification within sport teams over a season: A social network analysis

ObjectivesThis study explored the relationships between identity leadership and social identification in sport teams over the course of a season using social network analysis.MethodsParticipants from 23 competitive sport teams (N = 388, M_age = 20.7 years) indicated the extent to which each of their teammates displayed various forms of identity leadership (i.e., identity prototypicality, identity advancement, identity entrepreneurship, identity impresarioship) and the extent to which these same teammates were seen to identify with the team (assessed by ingroup ties, cognitive centrality, ingroup affect) early and later in a season. Quadratic assignment procedure correlations and multiple quadratic assignment procedure regressions examined the relationships between the different types of networks for each team across time.ResultsAthletes who perceived team members to show greater identity leadership perceived those same teammates to identify more strongly with the team both early (rs_average > .46) and later (rs_average > 0.48) in the season. Averaged across teams, identity entrepreneurship early in the season was most strongly associated with both perceived ingroup ties (β_average = .24) and ingroup affect (β_average = 0.13) later in the season, while identity impresarioship was most strongly associated with cognitive centrality (β_average = .16). In the reversed direction, perceptions of ingroup ties early in the season were most strongly associated with all identity leadership dimensions later in the season (.28 < β_average < 0.38).ConclusionsCollectively, these findings provide evidence of a mutually reinforcing bidirectional link such that teammates who are seen as actively contributing to promote a sense of ‘us’ among team members are also more likely to be seen as identifying strongly with the team.     

Behavioral Marital Therapy: An Outcome Evaluation of Conjoint,Group and One Spouse Treatment

Abstract

Behavioral Marital Therapy has focussed on the modification of marital behavior in conjoint and couples group settings. This study extends previously published outcome studies in that one treatment condition involved treating only one of the partners. Fifty-seven couples were consecutively assigned to one of the three treatment conditions. Outcome evaluations included an independent assessment, marital satisfaction, sexual adjustment and an assessment of target problems. The results revealed no significant differences between the three treatment conditions. However, couples in the conjoint treatment resolved their target problems more rapidly than the other two treatments. The implications of the result as well as issues of outcome prediction, cost-effectiveness and the viability of treating one spouse are discussed.     

The influence of attachment and temperament on venipuncture distress in 14-month-old infants: the Generation R Study

Objective

This study examined the effects of attachment and temperament on infant distress during venipuncture.

Method

The study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a prospective population-based study. Two different research procedures (i.e., blood sampling and the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure) yielded measures of venipuncture distress and attachment security and disorganization in 246 infants aged 14 months. Four temperament traits (distress to limitations, fear, recovery from distress, and sadness) were assessed using the maternally reported Infant Behavior Questionnaire - Revised, at the age of 6 months.

Results

There were no differences between mean levels of distress during venipuncture in infants classified as having insecure attachment, but there was a trend for disorganized attachment. The temperament traits were not related to distress. However, children with a disorganized attachment and higher temperamental fear had more venipuncture distress.

Conclusion

When different risk factors are present simultaneously, infant distress is heightened.     

A tutorial on how to do a Mokken scale analysis on your test and questionnaire data

Over the past decade, Mokken scale analysis (MSA) has rapidly grown in popularity among researchers from many different research areas. This tutorial provides researchers with a set of techniques and a procedure for their application, such that the construction of scales that have superior measurement properties is further optimized, taking full advantage of the properties of MSA. First, we define the conceptual context of MSA, discuss the two item response theory (IRT) models that constitute the basis of MSA, and discuss how these models differ from other IRT models. Second, we discuss dos and don'ts for MSA; the don'ts include misunderstandings we have frequently encountered with researchers in our three decades of experience with real‐data MSA. Third, we discuss a methodology for MSA on real data that consist of a sample of persons who have provided scores on a set of items that, depending on the composition of the item set, constitute the basis for one or more scales, and we use the methodology to analyse an example real‐data set.     

HUMAN RESPONDING ON RANDOM‐INTERVAL SCHEDULES OF RESPONSE‐COST PUNISHMENT: THE ROLE OF REDUCED REINFORCEMENT DENSITY

An experiment with adult humans investigated the effects of response‐contingent money loss (response‐cost punishment) on monetary‐reinforced responding. A yoked‐control procedure was used to separate the effects on responding of the response‐cost contingency from the effects of reduced reinforcement density. Eight adults pressed buttons for money on a three‐component multiple reinforcement schedule. During baseline, responding in all components produced money gains according to a random‐interval 20‐s schedule. During punishment conditions, responding during the punishment component conjointly produced money losses according to a random‐interval schedule. The value of the response‐cost schedule was manipulated across conditions to systematically evaluate the effects on responding of response‐cost frequency. Participants were assigned to one of two yoked‐control conditions. For participants in the Yoked Punishment group, during punishment conditions money losses were delivered in the yoked component response independently at the same intervals that money losses were produced in the punishment component. For participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group, responding in the yoked component produced the same net earnings as produced in the punishment component. In 6 of 8 participants, contingent response cost selectively decreased response rates in the punishment component and the magnitude of the decrease was directly related to the punishment schedule value. Under punishment conditions, for participants in the Yoked Punishment group response rates in the yoked component also decreased, but the decrease was less than that observed in the punishment component, whereas for participants in the Yoked Reinforcement group response rates in the yoked component remained similar to rates in the no‐punishment component. These results provide further evidence that contingent response cost functions similarly to noxious punishers in that it appears to suppress responding apart from its effects on reinforcement density.     

Rapid acquisition of choice and timing and the provenance of the terminal-link effect

Eight pigeons responded in a concurrent-chains procedure in which terminal-link schedules changed pseudorandomly across sessions. Pairs of terminal-link delays either summed to 15 s or to 45 s. Across sessions, the location of the shorter terminal link changed according to a pseudorandom binary sequence. On some terminal links, food was withheld to obtain start and stop times, measures of temporal control. Log initial-link response ratios stabilized within the first half of each session. Log response ratio was a monotonically-increasing but nonlinear function of programmed log terminal-link immediacy ratio. There was an effect of absolute terminal-link duration on log response ratio: For most subjects, preference for the relatively shorter terminal-link delay was stronger when absolute delays were long than when absolute delays were short. Polynomial regressions and model comparison showed that differences in degree of nonlinearity, not in sensitivity to log immediacy ratio, produced this effect. Temporal control of stop times was timescale invariant with scalar variability, but temporal control of start times was not consistent across subjects or terminal-link durations.     

Hot Sauce,toy guns,and graffiti: A critical account of current laboratory aggression paradigms

In 1996, Tedeschi and Quigley published a review of laboratory aggression research that included many damning criticisms of the genre. This paper revisits Tedeschi and Quigley's critique, and examines the ways that subsequent researchers have addressed the weaknesses they identified. In particular, it examines three new laboratory aggression paradigms (Hot Sauce, Bungled Procedure, and Experimental Graffiti Paradigms) that have attempted to improve upon the “classic” paradigms (Teacher/Learner & Essay Evaluation Paradigms, Competitive Reaction Time Game, Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, and Bobo Modelling Paradigm). In each case, this review will show, that although some aspects of the new designs are indeed improvements, many of Tedeschi and Quigley's arguments still apply. In conclusion, this investigation will identify a number of factors that future laboratory aggression researchers should consider. These include: The perceptions and motivations of the aggressor; the apparent distance between the aggressor and the target; the availability of non‐aggressive response options; the problems of demand characteristics, permissive cues and agentic shift; the differences between proactive and reactive aggression, and the distinction between overt and covert forms of aggression. Aggr. Behav. 00:000–000, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

安乐死立法比较兼立法原则理论初探

通过介绍与借鉴荷兰、美国、日本、比利时等国安乐死立法经验,结合我国立法难的现状,对我国安乐死立法进程进行思考,同时建设性提出了我国安乐死的立法原则:生命权神圣不可侵犯原则,死亡方式选择权有限制的自主决定原则,知情自愿原则,严格程序原则等。