Clustering of disfluency in nonstuttering childrens' early utterances

The clustering of disfluency within early utterances in the speech of four nonstuttering children was examined. During the developmental period their mean length of utterance was between 2.25 and 3.0 morphemes. The frequency and characteristics of the clustered disfluencies are described and compared with single disfluent moments. Clusters of two disfluencies were analyzed for interactive effects of positional preference and type. Results were similar to those found in older preschool nonstuttering speakers, demonstrating the normal developmental nature of clustering in early sentences. Implications for using this temporal measure to differentially diagnose normal from abnormal disfluency are discussed.     

Disadvantage,Autonomy, and the Continuity Test

The Continuity Test is the principle that a proposed distribution of resources is wrong if it treats someone as disadvantaged when they don't see it that way themselves, for example by offering compensation for features that they do not themselves regard as handicaps. This principle — which is most prominently developed in Ronald Dworkin's defence of his theory of distributive justice — is an attractive one for a liberal to endorse as part of her theory of distributive justice and disadvantage. In this article, I play out some of its implications, and show that in its basic form the Continuity Test is inconsistent. It relies on a tacit commitment to the protection of autonomy, understood to consist in an agent deciding for herself what is valuable and living her life in accordance with that decision. A contradiction arises when we consider factors which are putatively disadvantaging by dint of threatening individual autonomy construed in this way. I argue that the problem can be resolved by embracing a more explicit commitment to the protection (and perhaps promotion) of individual autonomy. This implies a constrained version of the Continuity Test, thereby salvaging most of the intuitions which lead people to endorse the Test. It also gives us the wherewithal to sketch an interesting and novel theory of distributive justice, with individual autonomy at its core.     

The impact of defibrillator discharges on psychological functioning of implantable cardioverter defibrillator recipients

A lag exists with respect to our understanding of the psychological demands and rehabilitation needs of individuals who have undergone implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) implantation. The ICD is designed to transmit an electric shock to the heart to treat a potentially life-threatening arrhythmia. This study specifically examined the impact of defibrillator discharges on the psychological functioning of ICD recipients. A questionnaire was self-administered to 33 individuals who have been living with the ICD for at least 6 months. Results revealed that levels of anger and depression were significantly higher in those subjects who reported a lower discharge rate, while sense of well-being was significantly higher in those subjects who reported a greater discharge rate. Possible explanations for our findings were proposed as well as implications for clinical intervention were discussed.     

Honoring (Recollecting) Our Memory of Peter McHugh as Social Theorist

The recent death of Peter McHugh becomes an occasion for the remembrance and recollection of the distinctive form of reflexive or analytic social inquiry, which framed his work and that of his longtime friend and collaborator, Alan Blum. Following dual appointments at York University, Toronto, Canada in 1972, Blum and McHugh’s partnership formed the basis for a community of scholars and students throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. A brief review of McHugh and Blum’s works shows theoretical roots in social constructivism and a deep appreciation of the linguistic turn, which in turn lead to the development of a form of social analysis that meets the stringent requirements of a reflexive sociology by repudiating any claim to a privileged exemption of theoretical speech (practice) from the hermeneutical circle of speech and language. Blum and McHugh are shown to embrace and not to evade the hermeneutical circle by a form of social inquiry that subverts the inherent possibilities available within speech and social convention to make available an encounter with the (moral) authority or form of life for that self-same speech. With each example of everyday life or conventional usage, McHugh (and Blum) move from theorizing which formulates the complexity of a particular instance of social interaction through its rules, to the question of the form of life that make that particular instance of the rules possible. It is the pursuit of transparency between speech and its roots in language that informed and continues to inform the distinctive style of social theory fostered at York-Toronto under the orchestration of McHugh and Blum.     

Setting the record straight

Translate This Darkness: The Life of Christiana Morgan. By Claire Douglas. New York: Simon &; Schuster, 1993.

A Most Dangerous Method: The Story of Freud, Jung, and Sabina Spielrein. By John Kerr. New York: Knopf, 1993.

Gods in Our Midst Mythological Images of the Masculine: A Woman's View. By Christine Dawning. New York: Crossroad, 1993.

The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden. By Robert A. Johnson. San Francisco: Harper, 1993.

Listening To Prozac. By Peter D. Kramer. New York: Viking, 1993. Gathering the Light: A Psychology of Meditation. By V. Walter Odajnyk. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1993.

Gathering to Light A Psychology of Meditation

The Pornographer's Grief and Other Tales of Human Sexuality. By Josqjh Glenmullen. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Love and the Soul: Psychological Interpretations of the Eros and Psyche Myth. By James Gollnick. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992.

Healing and Transformation in Sandplay. By Ruth Amman. Peru, IL: Open Court, 1991.

Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine. By Nancy Fierro. Los Angeles: Carondelet Productions, 1994     

生活医学化与健康恐慌的关系及其反思*--论Michael Fitzpatrick《健康的暴政：医生及生活方式的控制》

迈克尔·菲茨帕特里克的《健康的暴政：医生及生活方式的控制》一书,以健康干预为主线,以健康政治化、生活医学化、疾病道德化为主题,论述了生活医学化的不同方面和形成过程,并力图揭示医学化背后隐含着的医学对社会的干预和控制。其中作者关于生活医学化和健康恐慌的一些哲学思考,尤其是生活医学化与健康恐慌的内涵及特点、生活医学化与健康恐慌的关系以及对生活医学化的审视与反思,在一定程度上蕴涵着对当今社会发展的启示。