Effects of a Dependent Group-Oriented Contingency on Middle School Physical Education Students’ Fair Play Behaviors

This study investigated the effects of a dependent group-oriented contingency on the supportive and non-supportive fair play behaviors of 6th grade students engaged in volleyball games as part of their physical education instruction. Six students, one male and one female per class, from three classes, identified as demonstrating low incidences of supportive behaviors during volleyball games, were participants in this study. A multiple baseline across classes design was used to examine the data. During baseline few incidences of non-supportive behaviors occurred among all six students. However, the participants seldom displayed supportive behaviors during games (i.e., encouraged each other). Following the introduction of the dependent group contingency, supportive behaviors for all participants increased. Follow-up data, collected in an alternative setting, indicated variable maintenance. The results are discussed in the context of group contingencies and social behaviors in sports.     

Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Vocational Rehabilitation on Metacognition and Coping in Schizophrenia

The Indianapolis Vocational Intervention Program (IVIP) is a cognitive behaviorally based program of group and individual interventions that seeks to help persons with schizophrenia improve vocational function and sustain hope. In this study we compared baseline and follow-up assessments of coping and metacognition among 50 participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders offered a six-month job placement and randomized to receive IVIP (n = 25) or standard services (n = 25). ANCOVA controlling for baseline suggest that the IVIP group gained greater ability to think about their own thinking and to cope by seeing what were previously perceived as negative stressors in more positive light. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Implementation and Assessment of an Empirically Validated Intervention Program to Prevent Tobacco Use Among African-American Middle-School Youth

Evaluated Project Towards No Tobacco Use (TNT), a tobacco-use prevention program delivered in schools with primarily African-American students. Students were assigned randomly by classroom to either the intervention (n=58) or to a no-treatment control group (n=40). Students in the intervention group received a curriculum-based program over the course of 10 sessions. Pre-and post-assessments of tobacco knowledge, attitudes, communication, peer refusal, and smoking tendency were gathered. Students in the intervention group differed from their peers in the control group by evidencing greater knowledge and communication skills. We found this tobacco-use prevention program useful for African-American students.This investigation was supported in full by the American Cancer Society Grant Award ACS IRG 97-151.     

关于体育高职生心理健康影响因素的研究

本文以117名体育高职生为研究对象,采用心理测量、访谈等方法对在校体育高职生的心理健康现状作了调查,在此基础上分析了影响体育高职生心理健康的主要因素。研究表明:(1)自编的“体育高职生心理健康影响因素问卷”具有良好的信度和效度;(2)体育高职生心理问题的检出率为9.4%;(3)体育高职生心理健康的影响因素在不同专业学生间不存在显著差异,但在不同类别学生间存在显著差异,三校生(来自职校、技校和中专学校的学生)在学校因素和学习因素上的得分显著高于来自普通高中的学生;(4)人际交往因素和学习因素对体育高职生的心理健康水平有显著的回归效应。建议体育职业技术院校在学生中大力加强心理健康教育工作,做到因材施教,对症下药。     

Further Analysis of the Discriminate Validity of the Parenting Scale

The psychometric properties of the Parenting Scale (PS), a measure employed to identify use of dysfunctional strategies for managing child misbehavior, were examined. Parents of 75 children ages 2 to 12 (45 in the clinic-referred and 30 in the community sample group) completed the PS and a measure of child misbehavior. Mean scores were significantly higher for parents in the clinic-referred group on the PS Total, Laxness, and Overreactivity scales. However, there were no between-group differences in the number of parents who scored at or above a cutoff score designed to identify “clinical significance” on any PS scale. Reported parenting strategies were associated with reported child misbehavior regardless of group status; associations were not stronger depending on referral status. Results support the ability of the PS to discriminate between referred and community sample families. However, the PS scales were not precise in identifying clinically significant variations in parenting practices. Portions of this work were presented at the 2004 convention for the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, New Orleans, LA.     

New Developments in Understanding Skilled Performance

ABSTRACT— Skilled performance, whether it involves rapid and accurate motor movements (such as playing a video game or using a scalpel in the operating room) or a high degree of domain knowledge (such as finding a small tumor in an X-ray or writing a journal article) typically involves learning and practice over an extended period of time. In light of recent theory and empirical research, I consider two enduring issues associated with skill acquisition: whether individuals become more alike in performance or more different over the course of skill acquisition, and what the determinants of individual differences in skilled performance are. Two broad classes of tasks are considered: tasks that involve speed and accuracy of motor movements and tasks that primarily involve domain knowledge. Issues of practice, ability, and other determinants of skilled performance such as gender and aging are discussed.     

Emergence of intra verbal antonyms in children with pervasive developmental disorder

In the type of intraverbal that consists of saying the opposite of a word, two intraverbals are related to one another because the response form of each intraverbal functions as part of a discriminative stimulus for the other (e.g., "cold" in response to "name the opposite of hot," and vice versa). Moreover, the contextual cue "Name the opposite of--" is the same in the two intraverbals. The purpose of the present research was to explore a procedure designed to promote emergence of intraverbals of this type. Two children with pervasive developmental disorder learned pairs of intraverbals. Thereafter, they were tested for emergence of intraverbals with reversed stimulus-response functions. Results indicate that, although the participants did not initially show emergence of intraverbals with reversed stimulus-response functions, repeated cycles of probing and teaching facilitated emergence of these relations.     

DO INFANTS SHOW GENERALIZED IMITATION OF GESTURES?

Two experiments were conducted to investigate generalized imitation of manual gestures in 1- to 2-year-old infants. In Experiment 1, 6 infants were first trained four baseline matching relations (e.g., when instructed "Do this", to raise their arms after they saw the experimenter do so). Next, four novel gestures that the infants did not match in probe trials were selected as target behaviors during generalized imitation Test 1; models of these gestures were presented on unreinforced matching trials interspersed with intermittently reinforced baseline matching trials. None of the infants matched the target behaviors. To ensure that these behaviors were in the infants' motor skills repertoires, the infants were next trained to produce them, at least once, under stimulus control that did not include an antecedent model of the target behavior. In repeat generalized imitation trials (Test 2), the infants again failed to match the target behaviors. Five infants (3 from Experiment 1) participated in Experiment 2, which was identical to Experiment 1 except that, following generalized imitation Test 1, the motor-skills training was implemented to a higher criterion (21 responses per target behavior), and in a multiple-baseline, across-target-behaviors procedure. In the final generalized imitation test, 1 infant matched one, and another infant matched two target behaviors; the remaining 17 target behaviors still were not matched. The results did not provide convincing evidence of generalized imitation, even though baseline matching was well maintained and the target behaviors were in the infants' motor skills repertoires, raising the question of what are the conditions that reliably give rise to generalized imitation.     

学前和小学低段不同识字量儿童的认知能力比较

以193名学前儿童和291名一到三年级小学生为研究对象, 比较了不同年级、不同识字量儿童在语音意识、语素意识、快速命名、视觉技能和正字法意识方面的差异。结果显示, 不同年级、不同识字量儿童分别在语音意识和语素意识的不同层面存在差异, 学前主要表现在音节删除和语素建构任务中, 小学阶段表现在韵母识别、音位删除以及语素判断和语素产生方面;快速命名能力是区分各阶段儿童汉字识别能力的有效指标, 学前儿童的视觉能力与识字量密切相关, 而小学儿童的正字法意识与识字量密切相关。     

Loneliness among school-aged children and their parents

The aim of this study was to examine the existence of the intergenerational transmission of loneliness between parents and children, including an examination of its stability and of gender differences. The study consisted of an evaluation of loneliness in mothers ( n = 834), fathers ( n = 661) and their 10-year-old children ( n = 981). Parent's self-reported loneliness was measured once, and their children's social and emotional loneliness were assessed at three time-points. The stability analysis indicated average stability in children's loneliness, especially their social loneliness. Boys were found to experience more emotional loneliness than girls. Structural equation modeling indicated no direct relationship between mothers'/fathers' loneliness and their children's loneliness. However, mothers' and fathers' loneliness reduced their daughters' peer-evaluated cooperating skills, which consequently predicted higher levels of both social and emotional loneliness.