Problems in recent tests of two cognitive theories of panic.

Four problems in five recent tests of two cognitive theories of panic are discussed: (a) the ambiguity and indistinguishability of the 'body sensations' and 'cognitions' concepts; (b) the uncertain meaning of 'meaningful relationships'; (c) problems arising from differences in Clark's (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 24, 461-470, 1986) theory and Goldstein and Chambless' (Behavior Therapy, 9, 47-59, 1978) theory; (d) the ambiguity of correlational data. Some desiderata for future research on these theories are proposed.     

Reliability of self-reported service use: Test-retest consistency of children's responses to the Child and Adolescent Services Assessment (CASA)

This paper reports on the reliability of children's responses on the Child and Adolescent Services Assessment (CASA) — a self-report instrument for use with 8– to 18-year-olds that gathers information about services used to address mental health problems. Findings were based on interviews completed by 77 children at a one week test-retest interval. Results showed that reports of lifetime service use were as reliable as were reports of service use in the preceding three months. Children reported restrictive and intrusive services more reliably than services that were provided in their natural environment. Reliability appeared to be associated more strongly with characteristics of the type of service than with characteristics of the child. Children also could report reliably on some details about their encounters with service providers (e.g., length of stay, number of visits, and onset of service use).     

Do confidants of depressed women provide less social support than confidants of nondepressed women?

The prediction was tested that during a simulated telephone conversation, the confidants of depressed women would provide less social support than the confidants of nondepressed psychiatric and nonpsychiatric control women. The coded speech of subjects and their confidants indicated that (a) confidants echoed the positive or negative valence of the statements made by subjects; (b) depressed women exhibited more depressotypic speech than women in both control groups; (c) confidants of depressed women also made more depressotypic statements, possibly due to the echoing phenomenon; (d) contrary to prediction, there were no significant group differences in the sequential dependencies of responses that confidants made to depressotypic or antidepressotypic subject statements; (e) contrary to prediction, the affect of depressed women's confidants was not more negative.     

Behaviour therapy: Criticisms and confusions

An attempt will be made in this paper to show that the two most frequent criticisms of behaviour therapy are based on confusions. These confusions, it will be shown, are not solely the responsibility of the critics. The behaviour therapists themselves, in their writings, are partly responsible for the confusions.     

Evidence-based treatment of stuttering: I. Definition and application

The philosophy guiding evidence-based treatment and its application to decision-making in stuttering treatment is described. Limitations to the use of evidence-based treatment principles to guide stuttering treatment, namely the lack of a substantial treatment research literature that can serve as the basis for meta-analyses and systematic reviews of effective treatment studies, are bemoaned. Guidelines are provided to aid clinicians in their own conduct of critical evaluations of treatment research. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to (1) describe the four steps that characterize evidence-based practice, (2) evaluate previous efforts to develop practice guidelines for stuttering, (3) assess the importance of an evidence-based approach to stuttering treatment, and (4) discuss the need for more research that will contribute to the evidence base.