Vocal changes in stutterers and nonstutterers when speaking to children

Within the last few years, considerable attention has been devoted to the possibility that the amelioration of stuttering in many novel speaking conditions is a function of vocal changes with or without accompanying modifications in prosodic expression. These formulations have made reference primarily to conditions in which stutterers were induced into one or another novel speech pattern by an external stimulus such as masking noise, a rhythmic cue, or by instructions to sing, or read in unison with another speaker. In contrast, far less attention has been paid to other ameliorative conditions that lack a novel external stimulus or special instructions that direct the stutterer to speak in some unique manner. Speaking or reading to a child is an example of this latter type of condition. The present study was conducted to see if nine adult stutterers and a matched group of nonstutterers would evince vocal changes as they read aloud to another adult, a child, and a child and adult together. There was also a fourth control condition wherein the subjects read to one of the experimenters. Dependent measures of disfluency and stuttering, fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency deviation, fluent reading rate, and peak vocal sound pressure level were made and treated statistically. The major findings of this study indicated that, relative to the control condition, both subject groups exhibited several vocal changes when reading to a child alone and to a child and adult together. In addition, the stutterers experienced a reduction in disfluency, but only when reading to the child alone. The normal speakers exhibited too few disfluencies in the control condition for any meaningful change to occur in that dependent variable. The fact that the stutterers evinced vocal changes in both experimental conditions but a significant drop in disfluency in just one bears importantly on hypotheses that emphasize vocal changes in conditions that ameliorate stuttering.     

A cautionary note on using internal cross validation to select the number of clusters

A highly popular method for examining the stability of a data clustering is to split the data into two parts, cluster the observations in Part A, assign the objects in Part B to their nearest centroid in Part A, and then independently cluster the Part B objects. One then examines how close the two partitions are (say, by the Rand measure). Another proposal is to split the data into k parts, and see how their centroids cluster. By means of synthetic data analyses, we demonstrate that these approaches fail to identify the appropriate number of clusters, particularly as sample size becomes large and the variables exhibit higher correlations.The authors express their thanks to the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center, Wharton School, for support of this project.     

Adapting School-Based Substance Use Prevention Curriculum Through Cultural Grounding: A Review and Exemplar of Adaptation Processes for Rural Schools

A central challenge facing twenty-first century community-based researchers and prevention scientists is curriculum adaptation processes. While early prevention efforts sought to develop effective programs, taking programs to scale implies that they will be adapted, especially as programs are implemented with populations other than those with whom they were developed or tested. The principle of cultural grounding, which argues that health message adaptation should be informed by knowledge of the target population and by cultural insiders, provides a theoretical rational for cultural regrounding and presents an illustrative case of methods used to reground the keepin’ it REAL substance use prevention curriculum for a rural adolescent population. We argue that adaptation processes like those presented should be incorporated into the design and dissemination of prevention interventions.     

Muslims Love Jesus,Too? Corrective Information Alters Prejudices Against Islam

The present study examined whether prejudices towards Islam can be altered through corrective information. A total of 1715 German participants were first asked to appraise their opinions towards Judaism, Christianity and Islam (the ratings pertained to progressiveness, tolerance, peacefulness). Subsequently, questions regarding knowledge about religious topics were posed to participants. Questions were selected to elicit common prejudices pertaining to Islam. The correct answers were then displayed along with detailed explanations. Finally, participants were asked to rate their current opinion towards the three religions once again. Opinions towards Islam were largely negative at baseline but improved significantly after presentation of the correct answers. The present study suggests that prejudices against Islam are partially fueled by knowledge gaps.     

Short-term memory performances during sustained wakefulness in patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome

Both working and immediate memories were assessed every 4h by specific short-term memory tasks over sustained wakefulness in 12 patients with obstructive sleep apnea and hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS) and 10 healthy controls. Results indicated that OSAHS patients exhibited lower working memory performances than controls on both backward digit span and complex Sternberg tasks. Speed and accuracy on Sternberg tasks were affected by memory load in both groups. However, immediate memory was not impaired in OSAHS patients. Diurnal and nocturnal SaO(2) were correlated with speed and accuracy high-speed memory scanning performance on Sternberg tasks in patients. These results suggest specific working memory deficits associated with OSAHS over sustained wakefulness with a possible deficiency in the central executive responsible for the higher information processing, in addition to a potentially insufficient storage capacity. Among OSAHS patients, working memory ability involved in high-speed memory scanning may be impaired by chronic hypoxemia.     

The Role of Judaism in Family Relationships

This article explores the religious and social underpinnings of family as a central social structure to Jewish life. Torah and Talmudic sources, conceptual papers, and empirical research that address the relevance of family to Judaism are examined. Suggestions for working with Jewish families in a therapeutic setting are provided. Este artículo explora los fundamentos religiosos y sociales de la familia como estructura social central en la vida judía. Se examinan fuentes de la Torah y el Talmud, ensayos conceptuales e investigaciones empíricas que tratan la relevancia de la familia en el judaísmo. Se proporcionan sugerencias para trabajar con familias judías en un entorno terapéutico.     

Understanding the negative effects of legal education on law students: a longitudinal test of self-determination theory

Longitudinal studies suggest that law school has a corrosive effect on the well-being, values, and motivation of students, ostensibly because of its problematic institutional culture. In a 3-year study of two different law schools, the authors applied self-determination theory's (SDT) dynamic process model of thriving to explain such findings. Students at both schools declined in psychological need satisfaction and well-being over the 3 years. However, student reports of greater perceived autonomy support by faculty predicted less radical declines in need satisfaction, which in turn predicted better well-being in the 3rd year and also a higher grade point average, better bar exam results, and more self-determined motivation for the first job after graduation. Institution-level analyses showed that although students at both schools suffered, one school was perceived as more controlling than the other, predicting greater difficulties for its students. Implications for SDT and for legal education are discussed.