For over forty years ability grouping has been of professional concern to educators in the United States (Reisner, 1936). There have been fundamental changes in educational theory and practice during that time, one of which is the recognition that educational practices must adjust to individual differences. The interpretation of "equal opportunity" in education has gradually changed from meaning the same methods, standards, and course content for all children, to meaning the full opportunity for each child to develop his own potential in a school program suited to his individual capacities and needs. The interpersonal relationships and social development of school children have received an increasing amount of attention as we have come to realize the pervasive effect they have on educational objectives and as optimal social adjustment has itself become one of these objectives. As Brumbaugh (1960, p. 99) has pointed out: Mental health and social adjustment are words to conjure with when there is discussion about separate grouping. A half century ago, the fear was that stigma would attach to a child in a special class for those with below average intelligence. It is now replaced by anxiety lest those at the other end of the scale would have feelings of superiority and become egotistical little snobs. There are enough studies of children in such classes to indicate that this does not happen but there is also some evidence that there are concomitant effects which are used to oppose ability grouping on a "social segregation" argument. Taba et al. (1952) as an example of this point of view write: Of special interest for intergroup education is the fact that the static single bases for grouping have almost always fixed homogeneity simultaneously along lines of socioeconomic status, race, and religious background. For example, any type of ability grouping also inadervertently introduces segregation by economic class, race, and neighborhood. Because of their cultural handicaps, children from deviant backgrounds tend to be at the bottom of the heap, as far as school achievement is concerned. Hence, in ability grouping, they are thrown together and separated from other children.... This segregation, of course, prevents learning common culture by association with other children. The stigma attached to the lower ability groups further destroys motivation and self-respect, Thus, a basis is built for both physical and psychological isolation. (pp. 138-1939)

Alcohol abuse disorders (AUD) represent a serious worldwide health problem with far reaching social, financial, and interpersonal implications. One of the most devastating facets of these disorders is the propensity to relapse following periods of abstinence. Ethanol withdrawal (EWD) is believed to promote relapse by increasing anxiety and craving, and may contribute to the development of cognitive decline associated with long-term dependence. Clinical data suggest that stress also plays a main role in both the development of AUD as well as relapse to drinking. As a physiological stressor, EtOH elevates levels of stress hormones (cortisol in humans, corticosterone (CORT) in the rat). Both CORT and EtOH have been shown to alter the composition, function, and activity of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, and in particular, the NR2B subunit of this receptor. These alterations have been suggested to mediate EWD, which may negatively impact abstinence rates. This synergistic interaction between EtOH and CORT may present a therapeutic target for the treatment of EWD. In fact, data suggest that blocking the glucocorticoid receptor, which is a main target for CORT, with RU-486 could promote abstinence, as treatment with the drug has been shown to reduce consumption and the development dependence, as well as the severity of EWD and the cognitive deficits following EWD. However, these latter effects have not been validated in models of voluntary EtOH consumption. As there is considerable evidence that active versus passive intake can significantly impact neuroadaptations to ethanol this is an important consideration. These studies sought to characterize consumption and evaluate the development of dependence in a chronic voluntary model of intermittent access (IA) to EtOH. CORT plasma levels and protein expression of the glucocorticoid and NR2B receptors were measured during and/or following exposure. Finally, to assess the role of CORT in EtOH consumption and the development of dependence, the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist ORG-34517 was administered during access to EtOH. IA access to 20% EtOH produced varying levels of consumption (2.0-6.7g/kg/24hr exposure) and blood EtOH levels (6.3-116.9 mg/dl), but did not significantly affect food consumption or weight gain. Baseline CORT levels were found to be predictive of subsequent EtOH consumption and levels of consumption were sufficient to elevate CORT levels following one hour of EtOH exposure. Further, IA to EtOH was sufficient to produce dependence, as measured by elevations in the acoustic startle reflex following 26 hours and five days of withdrawal. No alteration in protein expression was observed regarding either the NR2B or glucocorticoid receptors and exposure to ORG-34517 had no effect on consumption or withdrawal.

Can a common facial cosmetic procedure buffer against the negative impact of adverse social interactions? This pilot tested the hypothesis that an injection of botulinum toxin (Botox) to the corrugator supercilii muscles used in anger, compared to a placebo injection to the same location, will reduce the impact of social rejection on mood, self-esteem, control, meaningful existence, and aggression. Freezing facial musculature was hypothesized to alter the first physical signal of negative emotional reactions, thereby reducing the impact of social rejection on distress and aggression. This was the first study using Botox to examine the effects of reduced facial feedback on felt emotions during social interactions. While the findings in this pilot were not statistically significant, a trend in the data suggests that the effect was in the opposite direction of the prediction such that participants in the Botox (vs. saline) condition experienced greater feelings of rejection. Further investigation is needed.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there existed significant relationships between 4 and 5 year old children’s attitude toward school, their classroom teacher’s perception of their attitude toward school, length of time in school, sex, or a composite of these with their achievement on the Pre-School Attainment Record. A random sample of 55 Head Start children completed three instruments. The instruments used in this study were a revised Children’s Attitude Toward School Scale (CATSS-R), (Beere, 1970) The Pre-School Attainment Record (PAR), (Doll, 1966) and the Teachers Rating of Attitude of Children Toward School (TRACTS). The results of the multiple regression analysis yielded an R of .517 between the composite variable (CATSS-R and Age) and the PAR achievement measure. This was statistically significant at the .01 level of confidence and explained 26.7% of the PAR variance. The second composite variable consisting of CATSS0R, Age and TRACTS correlated with the PAR achievement variables at .530 and was significant at the .01 level, explaining 28.13% of the PAR variance. The third variable, TRACTS, contributed only 1.3% of the total composite variance explaining PAR achievement. Time in school and sex contributed even less when included with the other variables in the composite variable. Results of the Pearson-product moment correlation of each of the variables with PAR achievement demonstrated significant correlations for only CATSS-R and Age (r .45 and r -.30) at the .01 level of confidence. However, the ­ tests between Pearson correlation coefficients of each of the variables’ correlation with the PAR achievement revealed four out of a possible 10 significant differences. The ANOVA test showed that the four year olds were superior to the five year olds on the PAR. A brief discussion was given of the implications for education in regard to the vast differences between teachers perception and students own perception of their attitude toward school.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:38:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luciano de Sousa Cunha.pdf: 837027 bytes, checksum: bfaac4274033a31c31550114d6c6c288 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-04-16 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Analistas de Comportamento têm apontado relações entre contingências de reforçamento, estados corporais (eventos privados) e eventos públicos. O presente experimento teve por objetivo investigar o controle de contingências programadas sobre eventos privados do tipo sentir, empregando um procedimento que eliciou tais eventos e evocou o tacto dos mesmos (sentimentos). Participaram 20 estudantes, de ambos os sexos, com idade entre 11 e 14 anos, que cursavam o ensino fundamental em uma escola privada de Vitória-ES, que executaram as tarefas do software PsychoTacto 2.0. Diante de uma tela dispondo de quatro estímulos (cards), um localizado na parte superior central (estímulo-modelo) e três alinhados na parte inferior central da tela (estímulos-comparação), os participantes respondiam clicando com um mouse em um dos estímulo-comparação a conseqüência era programada de acordo com a contingência básica de reforçamento em operação e, ao término de cada procedimento, relatavam o que sentiram. A freqüência cardíaca e a latência das respostas foram medidas; comportamentos motores e verbais foram registrados por observadores treinados; dos verbais foi inferido controle instrucional sobre o desempenho. Resultados: na fase Reforçamento Positivo predominaram relatos de contentamento (30%), ansiedade (30%), satisfação (20%) e alegria (20%). Na fase Punição Negativa, predominaram relatos de frustração (50%), desapontamento (20%), tristeza (20%) e apreensão (10%). Na fase Punição Positiva, predominaram relatos de raiva (30%), aborrecimento (20%), ansiedade (20%), apreensão (20%) e medo (10%). E na fase Reforçamento Negativo, relatos de ansiedade (40%), apreensão (30%) e alívio (30%). Em todas as fases as respostas apresentaram um tempo médio de latência diferente, sendo a maior para o Reforçamento Positivo (3 min e 17 seg) e a menor para o Reforçamento Negativo (1 min e 23 seg). As regras formuladas indicaram a não discriminação do desempenho como variável controlada. Os dados motores, verbais e cardíacos combinados mostram que a exposição a contingências pode eliciar eventos privados do tipo sentir e produzir tactos dos mesmos. Não foram registradas discrepâncias entre os dados obtidos entre meninos e meninas. / Behavior Analysts have appointed relations between contingencies of reinforcement, corporeal conditions (private events), and public events. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the control of programmed contingencies on private events (fellings), using a procedure that caused those events and evoked the tact of them (feelings). Twenty students executed the assignments from the software PsychoTacto 2.0. They were students (both sex aged between 11 and 14 years old) from a private elementary school in Vitória-ES. In front of a screen with four stimulus (cards), one located at the upper central part (model stimulus) and three aligned at the lower central part of the screen (comparison stimulus), the subjectives had answered, clicking with a mouse on one of the comparison stimulus. The consequence was programmed according to the basic contingencies of reinforcement in operation and at the end of each step they told what they felt. The cardiac frequency and the latency time of the answers were measured; motor and verbal behaviors were registered by trained observers; from the verbal ones was inferred instructional control about the performance. In the Positive Reinforcement phase predominated contentment (30%), anxiety (30%), satisfaction (20%) and joy (20%) reports. In the Negative Punishment phase predominated frustration (50%), disappointment (20%), sadness (20%) and apprehension (10%) reports. In the Positive Punishment phase predominated anger (30%), disgust (20%), anxiety (20%), apprehension (20%) and fear (10%) reports. And in the Negative Reinforcement, anxiety (40%), apprehension (30%) and relief (30%) reports. In all of the phases the answers presented a different average time of latency time, being the longest for the Positive Reinforcement (3 minutes and 17 seconds) and the shorter for Negative Reinforcement (1 minute and 23 seconds). The formulated rules indicated the non discrimination of the performance as a controlled variable. The combined motor, verbal and cardiac data indicate that the exhibition to contingencies can eliciate private events (feelings) and produce tacts of them. No discrepancies were registered among the obtained data from both, boys and girls.

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is a behavioral trait found across a number of animal species, including humans. Neophobic individuals perceive novel environments and stimuli to have aversive properties, and exhibit fearful behaviors when presented with non-familiar situations. The present study examined how early life exposure to aversive novel stimuli could reduce neophobia in bobwhite quail chicks. Experiment 1 exposed chicks to a novel auditory tone previously shown to be aversive to naïve chicks (Suarez, 2012) for 24 hours immediately after hatching, then subsequently tested them in the presence of the tone within a novel maze task. Postnatally exposed chicks demonstrated decreased fearfulness compared to naïve chicks, and behaved more similarly to chicks tested in the presence of a known attractive auditory stimulus (a bobwhite maternal assembly call vocalization). Experiment 2 exposed chicks to the novel auditory tone for 24 hours prenatally, then subsequently tested them within a novel maze task. Prenatally exposed chicks showed decreased fearfulness to a similar degree as those postnatally exposed, revealing that both prenatal and postnatal exposure methods are capable of decreasing fear of auditory stimuli. Experiment 3 exposed chicks to a novel visual stimulus for 24 hours postnatally, then subsequently tested them within a novel emergence box / T-maze apparatus. Chicks exposed to the visual stimulus showed decreased fearfulness compared to naïve chicks, thereby demonstrating the utility of this method across sense modalities. Experiment 4 assessed whether early postnatal exposure to one novel stimulus could generalize and serve to decrease fear of novelty when chicks were tested in the presence of markedly different stimuli. By combining the methods of Experiments 1 and 3, this experiment revealed that chicks exposed to one type of stimulus (auditory or visual) demonstrated decreased fear when subsequently tested in the presence of the opposite type of novel stimulus. These results suggest that experience with novel stimuli can moderate the extent to which neophobia will develop during early development.

Aims: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and opioid agonist treatment (OAT) with methadone or buprenorphine represents the most efficacious treatment. However, data suggest that chronic administration of opioids may be associated with significant weight gain, possibly by altering an organism’s perception of and preference for sweet foods. The primary aim of this laboratory study was to rigorously examine sucrose subjective response among adults receiving OAT and a comparison sample without OUD. As secondary outcomes, we also sought to compare the groups on additional baseline characteristics that may influence subjective sucrose response and weight gain during treatment. Methods: Participants were 40 adults receiving treatment for OUD (OUD+) and a comparison sample of 40 adults without OUD (OUD-). All participants completed an initial screening visit that included questionnaires on eating behaviors, diet and nutrition, recent substance use, and measurement of body mass index. Eligible participants completed two, same-day outpatient laboratory sessions during which they sampled six experimenter-administered concentrations of sucrose solution (0, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0M in distilled water) each three times under double-blind counterbalanced conditions. Following each exposure, participants rated the pleasantness and intensity of each sample using 100-point visual analog scales. Results: OUD+ participants rated sucrose solutions as less pleasant than OUD- participants (p<0.001). However, this effect was limited to the three lowest sucrose concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.25M), and at higher concentrations there were no group differences. There were no between-group differences on ratings of intensity (p=0.35). Given these baseline group differences in placebo (0M) responding, sucrose response was also examined in terms of change from baseline. In this analysis, there was a significant group effect, with a higher magnitude of change in pleasantness ratings and a lower magnitude of change in intensity ratings from 0M in OUD+ vs. OUD- participants (p’s<0.05). With regard to baseline characteristics that may influence sucrose response and eating behavior more generally, the OUD+ group had a higher prevalence of obesity, food insecurity, unhealthy eating behaviors, high sugar consumption, and nutrition knowledge deficits compared to the OUD- group (p’s<0.05). Conclusion: Data from preclinical and clinical research have suggested that opioid agonist medications may enhance subjective response to sweet flavors. In the present study, OUD+ participants exhibited a higher magnitude of change in pleasantness ratings from placebo compared to OUD- participants. However, this effect was largely driven by pronounced group differences in perceived pleasantness of essentially unsweet solutions. On the outcome of sucrose intensity, findings were more mixed with no consistent differences between OUD+ and OUD- participants. In contrast, group differences were far more pronounced in participants’ daily eating behaviors and nutrition knowledge, with OUD+ participants presenting with a consistently more severe profile. These data highlight the significant risk factors experienced by OUD+ individuals that extend beyond drug-related risks and may inform future scientific and clinical efforts to improve health outcomes in this vulnerable population.

This study was designed to test the responses of a group of juvenile delinquests and a group of normal adolescents to a sentence completion test. The test used was a modified form of Sack's Sentence Completion test in two forms--form A, first person stems and form B, third person stems. The hypothesis to be tested were (1) people project more in the third person, (2) the normal projects more, and (3) there would be no difference in projection on neutral items. The results bear out the three hypothesis. The sex scale, however, was an exception. This may be due to the deficiency of items on this particular scale.

The relative advantages or disadvantages associated with the practice of grouping school children according to ability level has long been the subject of considerable discussion among educators. The general tendency has been for educators to divide into two camps: Those who expound the various merits of homogeneous grouping, and those who favor and support heterogeneous grouping practices, Less common, but acknowledged, are those educators who favor a combination of the two methods. Research dealing with the relative value of either method has usually been concerned with only one aspect of the problem--that of academic achievement. However, the.efforts of several investigators (Luchins and Luchins, 1948; Mathias, 1959; Tonsor, 1953) have suggested that different grouping practices may have differential effects upon the social adjustment and personality development of the pupil as well. As the total development of the child is of primary importance in the educational process, an investigation of the differential effects inherent in either of these methods of grouping would seem to be of value.

Twenty emotionally disturbed children between the ages of six and twelve from three agencies providing special treatment for behavioral or emotional problems were the subjects for this study. The subjects were divided into two major diagnostic categories, withdrawn and acing out, and then matched in pairs by age and diagnosis. One half of each pair was randomly assigned to the experimental condition and the remaining halves were assigned to the control condition. Both the experimental and control groups contained five withdrawn and five acting out subjects. Four experimenters were used, and each experimenter worked with two or four experimental children and their matched control subjects. The Purdue Perceptual-Motor Survey was administered to all the subjects prior to the experiment and behavior rating of maladaptive behaviors was obtained on each child from three adults who worked closely with the child. Using the methods outlined by Kephart and Radler in “Success Through Play”, the experimental subjects received perceptual-motor training for one-half hour three times a week for nine weeks. The control subjects received individual adult attention for the same amount of time as the training in the form of physical or quiet activities and games. At the end of the nine weeks the subjects were tested with the Purdue Perceptual-Motor Survey again and new behavior ratings also were obtained. The behavior scale was analyzed as a total score and then two subscores were obtained for anti-social and asocial behaviors. Analysis revealed that: 1) The experimental subjects’ perceptual-motor scores increased the most, especially among the withdrawn subjects; 2) The training had little effect on the maladaptive behaviors of the acting out subjects. The experimental acting out subjects improved behaviorally, but not significantly more than the control acting out subjects; 3) The training had a significant effect on the maladaptive behaviors of withdrawn children. The total behavior scores and the asocial behavior scores of the experimental withdrawn children improved; their anti-social scores changed very little. The subjects came from three agencies with different treatment philosophies. One agency was a public school with special classrooms for emotionally disturbed children which exclusively used behavior modification techniques. Another agency was a residential treatment center which was designed for a milieu therapy, where the children are removed from the home. The third agency was a semi-residential treatment center that used a combination of milieu therapy and behavior modification techniques, where the children return home for weekends. There were equal numbers of acting out, withdrawn, experimental and control subjects from any single agency. An analysis of the amount of behavioral improvement within each agency was performed which revealed that there was significantly more improvement among the subjects from the semi-residential treatment agency. It was concluded from this study that; perceptual-motor training increases the perceptual-motor abilities of emotionally disturbed children, especially those diagnosed as withdrawn, childhood schizophrenic and autistic; perceptual-motor training aids in reducing maladaptive behaviors in disturbed children diagnosed as withdrawn, childhood schizophrenic and autistic; perceptual-motor training may most effectively be used for emotionally disturbed children in conjunction with other forms of treatment.