Using a Person-Centered Approach in Community-Based Instruction for Adults with Developmental Disabilities

Instruction is a variable that has enhanced community access for adults with developmental disabilities. Community-based instruction emerged as an especially useful format to teach individuals daily living and work skills in the settings where skills would be used. As advocacy and self-advocacy for individuals with developmental disabilities increased, professionals recognized the importance of empowerment and self-determination in gaining community access. Adult education that incorporates the values of person-centered planning will evolve beyond what has traditionally been viewed as community-based instruction. This article describes the characteristics of community-based instruction designed to enhance not only community access, but also the participant's overall quality of life.     

Role of siblings in adult daughters' anticipation of caregiving

Despite extensive research regarding adult daughters' experiences as caregivers to aging parents, little attention has been paid to how adult daughters anticipate future caregiving roles. The current study examines the impact of sibling networks on the caregiving anticipation of 103 adult daughters. Factors influencing the expectation and amount of support adult daughters anticipate include daughters' birth order and proximity to their mothers. Characteristics of the sibling networks, including percentage of sisters within the family, are also important to care anticipation.     

Daniel levinson and his theory of adult development: A reminiscence and some clarifications

I offer some reminiscences occasioned by the death of Daniel Levinson, a modern pioneer in the study of the human life cycle. I clarify three controversial aspects of Levinson's theory—its universality, the role of critical life events, and the place of relationships—as well as briefly foreshadow findings from his forthcoming book on women. I show that relationships to people, enterprises, and social institutions are the stuff out of which the individual life structure—Levinson's central concept—is formed. Levinson's dream was of a society in which the developmental needs of adults were better understood and met so that they could more generatively fill their roles in the institutions upon which the young depend. He thought this essential to the evolution of a society that would be both more competent and more humane. In this dream, which was a product of his own difficult mid-life transition and a measure of the success he achieved in integrating its polarities, Levinson united a warm, scientific interest in others with an affectionate curiosity about nature.     

Reaction times of younger and older men and temporal contingencies of reinforcement

Influences of extended training and temporal contingencies on reaction time were studied in relation to developmental differences. Older and younger men were trained on a chained schedule in which completion of a variable interval produced a terminal link in which reaction time was measured. The reaction-time procedure involved a conditional discrimination with matching to sample in one component and oddity matching in the other. During baseline training, no time limit was placed on the response to the discrimination choice stimuli. Subsequently, increasingly severe time limits were imposed over a series of sessions. Older and younger men showed increased speeds (decreased reaction times) when temporal contingencies were imposed, and these changes were maintained during post-training baseline sessions when there was unlimited time in which to respond. The younger men generally responded faster than the older ones, and age differences were not appreciably reduced during the course of the experiment. The results indicated the feasibility of studying reaction time in human subjects using operant procedures analogous to those developed for the study of nonverbal organisms.     

Human performance on conjunctive fixed-interval fixed-ratio schedules

Eighteen young adults performed a lever-pulling task for money. Subjects were initially exposed to a fixed-interval 80-second schedule and subsequently to one of three conjunctive schedules in which the added fixed-ratio requirement was set at either 10, 80, or 120 responses. Three fixed-interval response patterns emerged: high constant rate, intermediate rate, or low rate, with most subjects displaying the last. Conjunctive performance was related to the subjects' prior fixed-interval patterns and the conjunctive ratio requirements. Low-rate subjects tended to optimize reinforcement (maximum reinforcers for minimum responses) on conjunctive schedules. Response rate was directly related to ratio requirements. Subjects' performance closely corresponded to their verbal statements of the contingencies.     

WITHDRAWAL OF CHRONIC CHLORPROMAZINE MEDICATION: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Approximately 50% of all institutionalized, mentally retarded adults receive psychotropic medication to control inappropriate behavior. In this study, behaviors exhibited by five retarded adults were formally observed while they were on and off medication. Each subject had been receiving chlorpromazine for six or more years prior to the start of the study. The drug was withdrawn and readministered using a double-blind B-A-B (drug-placebo-drug) design. Effects were highly individualized. Some desirable behavior emerged when chlorpromazine was discontinued.     

THE ROLE OF FEEDBACK IN VOLUNTARY CONTROL OF BLOOD PRESSURE IN INSTRUCTED SUBJECTS1

Forty normal male volunteers were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions and instructed to raise and lower their systolic blood pressure. Subjects received either beat-to-beat feedback contingent on pressure changes, noncontingent beat-to-beat feedback, noncontingent feedback presented randomly with respect to the occurrence of each heart beat, or instructions alone. The order of increase and decrease trial blocks was counterbalanced across groups. Subjects receiving contingent feedback were monetarily rewarded for appropriate pressure changes. Subjects receiving noncontingent feedback received rewards and feedback equal to the mean received by the contingent group. Subjects in the instructions-only condition were also paid this bonus but were informed of their earnings only at the conclusion of the experiment. Results indicated that in the presence of instructions, feedback, whether contingent or noncontingent, added little to subjects' ability to control pressure during a single session. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

Clock control of human performance on avoidance and fixed-interval schedules

The avoidance and fixed-interval performances of human subjects were studied in two experiments. Addition of time-correlated stimuli (added clock) improved behavioral efficiency, since response rates decreased without decreases in reinforcement rates. Response-dependent display of the clock maintained a second, observing response and reductions in clock duration weakened such observing behavior. Generally, the reinforcing properties of the clock were more apparent with the avoidance than with the fixed-interval schedule, a finding attributed to temporal cues already provided by delivery of the fixed-interval reinforcers. Reduced rates of the main response when the clock was dependent on an observing response were more than offset by rates of the observing response in the majority of subjects. Thus, the results do not support an interpretation of the reinforcing properties of added clocks simply in terms of work reduction.     

Culture of distracted driving among intra-city commercial bus drivers in Ile-Ife,South-western Nigeria

This study investigated the culture of driving distractions among commercial bus drivers in Ile-Ife, Southwestern Nigeria. The aim was to identify the most prominent non-driving activity (N-DA) causing distraction to drivers. 16 independent research assistants were engaged in naturalistic recording of 128 commercial bus drivers in the study area. Among the variables selected for observation, passenger scouting (93%), fare collection (89.8%) and money counting (75%) were found to be the frequent N-DAs in their order of importance. These variables (passenger scouting, fare collection and money counting), however, have correlations with drivers having no conductor on-board. More so, relationships existed between certain N-DAs (call making, passenger scouting, fare collection sight-seeing and money counting) and loss of concentration by drivers on one hand; and between loss of concentration and the forms the loss of concentration took. It can be concluded from the findings that driving was disrupted and uncoordinated when combined with non-driving activities.     

Psychometric Properties of Two Implicit Associations Tests measuring Adult Attachment

Adult attachment style has consequences for mental health, interpersonal functioning and emotion regulation. This occurs partly deliberately, also referred to as explicit, and partly on an automatic level outside of conscious awareness, also referred to as implicit. Whereas explicit adult attachment can be assessed with self-report instruments, measurement of implicit adult attachment requires indirect methods. This paper describes the psychometric properties of two Implicit Association Tests measuring general adult attachment in a population sample. The study evaluated the reliability and the validity of the Avoidant Attachment IAT (ANX-IAT) and the Anxious Attachment IAT (AVOID-IAT). Validity was evaluated against self-report measures of adult attachment style (RQ), psychopathology (SQ-48), and well-being (MHC-SF). The split-half reliabilities of both IATs were good; the test-retest reliability of the ANX-IAT was adequate; however the AVOID-IAT had low test-retest reliability. Both IATs did not explain variance in psychopathology additional to explicit measures. The AVOID-IAT showed added value over explicit measurement of avoidant attachment in explaining variance in well-being, particularly regarding emotional and psychological well-being. The ANX-IAT did not explain variance in any measure of well-being additional to the explicit measure of anxious attachment. Our findings provide a basis from which more valid IATs measuring general adult attachment can be developed. Furthermore, they suggest that implicit avoidant attachment might be related to well-being, particularly emotional and psychological well-being. However, further research is needed to investigate the role of implicit general adult attachment in mental health and to optimize the two IATs in terms of validity before clinical use is recommended.