An indigenous community mental health service on the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Indian reservation: Seventeen years later

The status of a fully indigenous mental health program serviced and controlled by the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Indian tribe is reviewed from the perspective of its 17-year history. The program functions in large measure in a crisis intervention model, with suicidal or acutely disturbed cases being most frequent. However, a whole range of disorders and ages are seen. Traditional Medicine Men and Women are often used as consultants, as are some professionals. In recent years child sex abuse and abuse of drugs among youth are prominent problems. The program experienced problems of obtaining services off reservations for patients in need, and in establishing credibility of the Indian Mental Health workers with the outside service providers.     

Word-finding abilities of three types of aphasic subjects

Word-finding difficulties are often observed among different types of aphasic patients. This investigation analyzed the word-finding abilities of 30 aphasic subjects (10 Broca's, 10 Wernicke's, and 10 anomic). Forty nouns counterbalanced according to word length and frequency of occurrence in English language usage were used as stimuli and presented through four modalities (oral expression, writing, auditory comprehension, and reading comprehension). It was expected that patterns of word finding abilities would help in the classification of the different types of aphasia. In addition, long words and less frequently occurring words in English language usage should prove more difficult in word-finding ability, regardless of modality. The results of this study found long words and less frequent words were more difficult for aphasic subjects. Among the modalities, long words were significantly harder than short words for the writing modality only. It was also found that semantic errors were the most common errors for all types of aphasic subjects. Broca's subjects produced significantly moreno response errors in oral expression; Wernicke's subjects produced significantly more semantic and phonemic errors in reading comprehension; and, Wernicke's subjects produced significantly more unrelated errors in both oral expression and reading comprehension. Clinical implications were also discussed.The present study was based on a doctoral dissertation completed at the City University of New York in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences by the first author under the direction of the second author. The authors wish to thank Dr. Louis J. Gerstman for his assistance with the statistical analysis of this research and Dr. Robert Goldfarb for all his helpful suggestions and editorial comments.     

Automatic monitoring of temperature and/or location: A computer-controlled radiotelemetry system

A radiotelemetry system for continuous monitoring of the temperature and/or location of small animals is described. All the functions of system control are carried out by an on-line microcomputer (TRS-80 Model III), resulting in a versatile system capable of alternating recording the temperature/location of multiple subjects with other behavioral or physiological events, such as activity level. We describe the use of this system in monitoring body temperature in hamsters and in recording the incubation pattern of breeding ring doves.     

Perceptions of maternal and paternal solicitude by birth children and adoptees: Relevance for maternal bonding theory

This study emanated from the long-standing question of whether a maternal bonding process similar to other mammalian species occurs in humans. The perceptions of adult adoptees and a matched sample of non-adoptees about their parents' behaviours towards them were compared on an original Parental Solicitude Scale. As hypothesized, birth children perceived their mothers as the more solicitous parent, but ratings of adoptive mothers showed a unilateral decline. Further, the differential ratings for birth and adoptive mothers occurred mostly for the factors labelled benignity vs abuse and tolerance vs control, rather than caretaking vs neglect, which was congruent to reported effects in prior studies of lack of mother-infant contact during the sensitive period for bonding. An alternative explanation of the data was also tested but not substantiated.     

Children's understanding of private keys in referential communication

A private key is a referential utterance used to inform selectively. The ambiguity of the utterance conceals meaning from nonselected audience members. The purpose of this study was to examine three aspects of children's understanding of the use of private keys. Experiment 1 concerned children's sensitivity to information in the context of utterance (i.e., the common ground). Experiment 2 examined appreciation of audience design and the speaker's intent. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 explored some reasons for children's problems in understanding private keys. The results show that even first graders are sensitive to common ground information and the speaker's intent. However, audience design is troublesome even for second graders in some situations, probably because they fail to assess the knowledge of the audience members. Private keys are important theoretically because they represent an aspect of referential communication involving the uses of ambiguous utterances that have been ignored by developmental researchers.     

The noble savage and the global village: Cultural evolution in new age and neo‐pagan THOUGHT

This article examines some of the assumptions underlying cultural evolution and such concepts as the Noble Savage and the Golden Age. Looking briefly at the influence and inference of these ideas in the past, their use and appearance in certain aspects of contemporary Pagan and New Age thought are then explored. The notion of the Noble Savage has recurred in various guises since at least classical times, and people have looked longingly to a lost Golden Age in history, myth or religion throughout recorded history. The theory of cultural evolution has had ramifications for both concepts, while in some respects seeming inimical to them. Now aspects of these three ideas are having spiritual implications for a large number of people. Examining the connections between them and contemporary religiosity can therefore provide useful insights towards our understanding of the present phenomena.