Thesis (MSc)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1971. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

This thesis examined the processes involved in reading and recognising acronyms (e.g. BBC, HIV, NATO). Normative values for frequency, age of acquisition, imageability, length, bigram and trigram frequency and orthographic neighbourhood size have been collected, and the influence of these factors on reading, recognition (Chapter 3) and word association responses (Chapter 4) has been assessed. Findings suggest that acronyms are integrated alongside words in the mental lexicon, and that meaning and phonology are particularly important in acronym processing. Chapter 5 extended these findings by investigating the performance of a patient with a specific deficit in semantic processing (semantic dementia). Some acronyms, specifically those which are pronounced by naming each letter in turn, were found to pose few problems for this patient even after her semantic system had been adversely affected by her disorder. Chapter 7 reported an event-related potential study of acronyms, with reference to the N170 and Recognition Potential components. The electrophysiological data supported the interpretation of acronyms as lexical, and particularly influenced by print to pronunciation factors. Findings of the thesis as a whole were discussed in relation to the Dual Route Cascaded model (Coltheart, Perry, Rastle, Langdon & Ziegler, 2001) and the Triangle model (Plaut, Seidenberg & Patterson, 1996). It was concluded that neither model could adequately accommodate acronym reading and recognition processes as they currently stand. Suggestions for amendments to word reading models were made. Potential future research directions are also discussed.

Behavioral studies have shown that youths in various settings can function effectively as behavior change agents. This study used five 15 to 18 year old male youths in a closed institutional setting as behavior change agents for five male Youth Counselors. Youths specified staff behaviors they wanted to change, collected frequency data on each specified staff behavior, and suggested and implemented treatments to change staff behavior. A multiple baseline design across staff members was used to demonstrate the effects of youths' interventions on staff behaviors. Staff increased their frequency of positive verbal comments and decreased their frequency of negative verbal comments and threats .. _regarding loss of privileges following a one-time feedback -from youths regarding staff's baseline frequency_of responses. Two staff members received a second treatment consisting of verbal feedback and praise immediately following each data collection session. This treatment was too short to have an effect on positive and negative verbal comments, but ·appeared to decrease staff's frequency of threats to a near zero rate. Follow-up revealed that frequency of responses did not return to the baseline rate in most cases. Consistent with past studies that have used youths as behavioral change agents, the present findings demonstrate that 11 delinquent" youths can be (a) accurate and reliable data collectors, and (b) effective behavior change agents for staff.

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