The purpose of the present study was to investigate the viability of a computer-based assessment system, called the System for the Assessment of Reading Competencies, to aid in the description and diagnosis of reading difficulties. The practical need for such a system, the theoretical bases that serve as its foundation, and the evidence for the system's validity are presented. Currently, there is little relation among diagnosis, assessment, remediation, and instruction in reading. The lack of integration of these areas and the need for assessment instruments that provide sufficient information for diagnosis and remediation led to this system's development. The present study involved the implementation and initial validation of the system. The system is a computer-based, componential, reading assessment instrument that is based on an information processing model of reading. One-hundred-and-twelve second, third, fourth, and fifth grade students were administered Sentence Verification Technique (SVT) Tests of listening and reading comprehension in addition to several computer tasks. These tasks included a response time measure, letter matching, word naming, pseudoword naming, category matching, syntactic analysis, and sentence comprehension. Both response times and response accuracies were collected on each task. The results were analyzed to examine the reliability and validity of the assessment system. The results showed that the assessment battery was reliable. Further, the results showed that the system successfully discriminated between students in different grade levels and between students of differing abilities within the same grade. The results showed a developmental trend such that the largest differences between ability groups were on the lower level tasks for second graders and on the higher level tasks for third and fourth graders. It was concluded that the evidence supports the reliability and validity of the system as a measure of reading ability, and further that the system has potential as a diagnostic instrument. It was also concluded that measures of response time may discriminate between ability groups even when measures of response accuracy do not. The development of a remedial component to the assessment system is discussed as a direction for future research.

The present study contributes to the widening body of spirituality research by conceptualizing it as a state-trait construct. A new measure of spirituality, the State-Trait Spirituality Inventory (STSI), was created and validated according to psychometric methods of test construction. In its current form, the STSI contains seven state spirituality items and six trait spirituality items. A thorough review of the literature identified common themes in spirituality definitions and assisted in developing definitions of trait and state spirituality. Internal consistency for the trait scale was .88 and for the state scale, .68. Good test-retest reliability was found with coefficients of .84 for trait spirituality and .81 for state spirituality. Results from a preliminary undergraduate sample as well as from the validation sample yielded a two-factor solution. In general, items determined by expert panels as trait items loaded on one factor and items deemed to be state items loaded on the second factor. Multitrait multimethod analysis yielded mixed findings for convergent, divergent, and concurrent validity for the spirituality and religiosity traits. Methods consisted of paper-and-pencil cognitive and behavioral measures. Cognitive measures were more likely to support convergent/divergent validity than were behavioral measures. A major emphasis in the study was to determine whether state and/or trait spirituality were able to predict current health status and provide evidence for predictive validity. Positive relationships were identified between trait spirituality and the mental health measures of the Short Form-36® (SF-36). In contrast, it was negatively related to the Role-Physical scale. State spirituality was inversely related to the Physical Component scale. These findings are discussed within the context of minimal research using the SF-36 and spirituality measures. The MTMM analysis was limited by available spirituality and religiosity measures that contain only cognitive or behavioral items. Suggestions for future research are offered.

The perception of available social support in the chronic mentally ill may have implications for the maintenance of their social functioning and independence. Perceived social support has been a major focus in the development of theories and measures of social support, and a close relationship has been found between perceived social support and health outcomes in general (Sarason, Sarason, & Pierce, 1990). More specifically, effective social support systems within the chronic mentally ill have been associated with decreased number of hospitalizations (Cutler, Tatum, & Shore, 1987). However, no psychometrically sound measure of perceived social support exists appropriate to the circumstances of the chronic mentally ill. The purpose of this study was to develop such a measure and validate it with chronic mentally ill individuals. A 15-item questionnaire was developed through three iterations with 350 chronic mentally ill individuals, yielding a scale with a final coefficient alpha of.92. These and all other participants were outpatient clients of county mental health systems in California. The final questionnaire's relationship to other measures related to social support was then explored.

Identifying potential reinforcers is an integral part to many behavior modification plans. The purpose of this study was to compare and contrast two methods of stimulus preference assessment (paired stimulus computer and a traditional paired stimulus with tangible and symbolic items) using typically developing preschool children. The participants were four 3-5 year old children recruited from a childcare facility in Stockton, CA. Both methods of stimulus preference assessment were administered to them and reinforcer assessments were conducted. Kendall Rank Correlations between the two methods were low. Both methods produced hierarchies of preference. Both methods produced a reinforcement effect and the difference between the magnitude of reinforcement for the computer and the traditional method was only statistically significant with one child (favoring the computer). The computer method was significantly more time efficient than the traditional method.

This study investigated the relationship between two warm-up interventions and subsequent Rorschach Inkblot Technique color responses from incarcerated wards of the California Youth Authority. The intent was to generate a greater number of color responses so as to better evaluate the delinquent's method of handling emotional situations. The experimental group's thirty subjects each worked individually with the examiner on the chromatic materials of the Representational Stencils Design (RSD) task. Each subject was then administered the Rorschach Inkblots. The control group's thirty subjects worked individually with the examiner on the achromatic materials of the Organization of The Dots (OTD) task; then each subject received administration of the Rorschach. The research hypotheses, in null form, stated that there would be no significant differences between groups: (1) in total number of responses, (2) in total number of color responses, (3) in the number and distribution of impulsive (CF + C) and controlled (FC) color responses. Four t-tests, using the.05 level that findings were due to chance, analyzed comparison of mean differences between groups. Two chi-squares were conducted at the.05 level to compare the number and distribution of color and non-color responses and the number and distribution of impulsive and controlled color responses between groups. The experimental RSD group did produce a statistically greater number and proportion of controlled color responses than did the control OTD group. There was no significant difference between groups in total number of responses, neither in total number of color responses nor in number of impulsive color responses. This is meaningful in light of Rorschach's color/emotion construct which suggests that the way one manages color response on the cards also reflects how one handles emotional situations. Therein, delinquents within the experimental group appeared to have processed color within a better integrated, more mature, reflective response style.

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