Who uses community mental health centres? A study of one health district

A caseload analysis was undertaken to investigate those clients seen by five community mental health centre teams within one healthcare district. The 985 clients are described in terms of demographic and clinical features and questions relating to service provision are discussed.     

A content analysis of the conversational behavior of accepted and rejected children

The present study was designed to assess whether the conversational behavior of children separated into accepted, rejected, and mixed-status dyads differed along the dimensions of listening to, paying attention to, and indicating interest in their dyadic partner. Conversations of 40 third-grade dyads were analyzed as they occurred in a 2- min waiting period and a 4- min conversation period. Seventeen categories of verbal behaviors that indexed these dimensions were used as content codes. Multivariate analyses of variance performed on the observational data yielded significant main effects for status, sex, and experimental condition. Results are interpreted in terms of previous social skills research, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Reciprocal peer management: Improving staff instruction in a vocational training program

To test the feasibility and utility of involving peers as sources of feedback, 6 subjects, instructors in a vocational program for adults with mental retardation, participated in a staff training and management program. Subjects' teaching interactions were assessed during baseline, in-service training (on effective teaching), return-to-baseline, peer management, and follow-up phases. Peer management was introduced in multiple baseline fashion across pairs of subjects. Members of each pair were trained to monitor peer teaching, to record and graph data, to provide feedback, and to set goals with the peer. Each pair then performed these procedures on the job for several weeks, during which time 4 of the 6 subjects increased their use of effective teaching methods (over baseline). However, inconsistencies in the magnitude and durability of these increases require that the study be viewed as inconclusive, although it has heuristic value as a promising model for involving co-workers in staff management programs.     

谈谈个人对智力落后儿童早期干预的看法

本文作者根据从事智力落后儿童的早期干预教学研究的实践经验对当今在我国开展早期干预的必要性以及早期干预的目的、设置的理由、内容、方式、对象、教师的条件、效果的评价以及开展的步骤等9个问题,提出了自己的看法。     

Work,leisure, and psychological well-being in a sample of young adults

This study of 20 ‘white-collar’ workers aged 20–30 measured motivation, enjoyment and access to various categories of experience in both work and leisure, and examined their relationship with psychological well-being on a number of dimensions. The method used a short questionnaire, psychological scales and the innovatory ‘experience sampling methodology’ (ESM) where respondents answer questions in a diary on the receipt of a signal from a pre-programmed watch or radio pager eight times a day for 1 week. The results show, in line with other studies, that intrinsic motivation in daily life is correlated with happiness but that, not previously reported, when motivation at work is examined both extrinsic motivation and instances where a person had to do the activity but did not wish to be doing something else, i.e. ‘positive motivational change’, are correlated with positive aspects of psychological well-being, while instances where a person wanted to do the activity but wished to be doing something else, i.e. ‘negative motivational change’, correlated with negative aspects. The results also show that enjoyment in both work and leisure correlates with aspects of psychological wellbeing; and that macro ‘flow’ experiences, where high skills and high challenges are perceived as equal, are enjoyable and interesting and come primarily from work. The study also shows that categories of experience considered important for psychological well-being and deemed to come primarily from work can be obtained in leisure. The results are discussed in the context of person—situation interactions and processes, and it is advocated that these should be studied in a variety of samples.     

Comparison of simultaneous prompting and constant time delay procedures in teaching sight words to elementary students with moderate mental retardation

Simultaneous prompting (a type of antecedent prompt and test procedure) and constant time delay were compared with four students with moderate mental retardation learning expressive sight words. A parallel treatments design across word sets and replicated across students was used. For acquisition, the simultaneous prompting procedures required fewer trials, sessions, and training time to criterion and resulted in fewer student errors during daily probe and training sessions. However, maintenance data indicated mixed results across the two procedures. Reliability data (both dependent and independent variables) revealed no differences between the two procedures in terms of the teacher's accuracy in recording student responses and implementing each procedure. Future research issues are discussed.     

Delayed constructed-response identity matching improves the spelling performance of students with mental retardation

We assessed the effects of a computerized matching-to-sample procedure on the spelling performances of three students with mental retardation. Initially, the students could 1) match pictures and printed words to one another, and 2) match pictures and printed words to spoken words. However, they could not construct words to either pictures or spoken words (e.g., touch, in order, the letters s->h->o->e given the spoken-word sample Shoe). Word constructions then improved markedly after exposure to delayed constructed-response identity matching (e.g., touch the letters s->h->o->e given the printed-word sample shoe). One subject's oral and written spelling also improved. The results extend previous research by showing multiple positive effects of a computerized spelling intervention. These effects may have occurred in part because of the formation of stimulus classes among pictures, printed words, and spoken words.     

Algorithmic shaping and misbehavior in the acquisition of token deposit by rats

In two experiments, rats were trained to deposit ball bearings down a hole in the floor, using an algorithmic version of shaping. The experimenter coded responses expected to be precursors of the target response, ball bearing deposit; a computer program reinforced these responses, or not, according to an algorithm that mimicked the processes thought to occur in conventional shaping. In the first experiment, 8 of 10 rats were successfully shaped; in the second, 5 of 5 were successfully shaped, and the median number of sessions required was the same as for a control group trained using conventional shaping. In both experiments, “misbehavior,” that is, excessive handling and chewing of the ball bearings, was observed, and when the algorithmic shaping procedure was used, misbehavior could be shown to occur in spite of reduced reinforcement for the responses involved.     

GENERALIZED LANGUAGE LEARNING BY CHILDREN WITH SEVERE MENTAL RETARDATION: EFFECTS OF PEERS' EXPRESSIVE MODELING

In this study, we investigated the conditions that contribute to observational learning of generalized language in children with severe mental retardation. Matrix-training strategies were used to teach 6 children with mental retardation to combine known words into two- or three-word utterances consistent with syntactic rules. Subsequently, the children learned two or more unknown words concurrently, inducing word-referent relations consistent with these word order rules. Generalized learning of responses not taught directly was shown to be under experimental control using a multiple baseline design across submatrices. Expressive modeling of only four or five responses was sufficient to promote recombinative generalization in the expressive and receptive modalities. Thus, 95% to 98% of subjects' learning was attributed to generalization processes. This study demonstrates how the efficiency of language training with children with mental retardation might be enhanced by coupling observational learning and matrix-training strategies.