Ensuring generalization and maintenance of the effects of staff training is a significant challenge in human service settings. The application of behavioral management procedures, especially performance feedback, has proved particularly effective in meeting that challenge. However, few studies have reported management of such procedures by co-workers (peers). This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a package consisting of inservice training and a peer management program on the promotion and maintenance of instructional interactions of paraprofessional staff working with mentally retarded clients. Three pairs of subjects, vocational instructors at a large residential facility for the developmentally disabled, participated directly at their job sites. Dependent measures of staff instruction included complete and incomplete teaching interactions, and contingent reward. Collateral measures their client's performance included engagement with work materials for prevocational-level clients and rates of productivity for vocational-level clients. The experimental phases, introduced in multiple baseline fashion across the three pairs of subjects, were: (1) baseline, (2) inservice training of teaching skills, (3) return to baseline, (4) training in peer management, (5) peer management, (6) instructions to fade peer management, and (7) follow-up. The peer management program was associated with increased and sustained levels of high quality teaching by all subjects. Two subjects had previously demonstrated short-term gains in teaching skills following inservice training. Collateral measures of client performance indicated increased work productivity among nine of eleven vocational-level clients, but minimal effects on engagement among the prevocational-level clients. The results obtained in this study support benefits to staff and clients through utilizing paraprofessional peers as managers of the performance of their co-workers.

The appearance-reality distinction refers to the understanding that objects can have misleading appearances that contradict reality. Traditionally, studies investigating children's ability to make this distinction have used a verbal-based task that requires children to answer two questions regarding the appearance and reality of a target object whose appearance has been altered. In general, these studies have found that children are not successful in this task until 4–5 years of age. The purpose of the current study was to investigate three different hypotheses regarding why 3-year-olds fail the traditional verbal-based task in order to determine whether their poor performance truly represents an inability to distinguish appearance from reality. In Experiment 1, the hypothesis that 3-year-olds fail the traditional task simply because they are unfamiliar with the property-distorting devices typically used to alter the appearances of target objects, rather than an inability to distinguish appearance from reality, was examined. Experiments 1 and 2 also examined the hypothesis that 3-year-olds' failure in this task may be due to an inability to assign conflicting, dual representations to a single object. Finally, the role of the language used in making the appearance-reality distinction also was examined in both experiments. In this case, the hypothesis that 3-year-olds may be able to distinguish appearances from reality in an action-based, but not verbal-based task, was evaluated. In Experiment 1, all of this was done using a property-distorting device typically used in traditional appearance-reality studies, whereas a completely new method for altering the appearances of objects was used in Experiment 2. No supporting evidence for the familiarity or dual representation hypotheses was found in either experiment, however, children in both experiments performed better on an action-based task than on two verbal-based tasks. Children went from answering the traditional appearance-reality questions on the basis of misleading perceptual information to overriding this misleading information in an action-based task. Together, these results provide evidence that 3-year-olds have some competence in distinguishing appearances from reality that is masked by the language demands of the traditional verbal-based task.

Four experiments investigated how verb-specific lexical information is used in resolving the noun phrase complement/tensed sentence complement ambiguity, extending prior research (Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; Holmes, Stowe, & Cupples, 1989; Trueswell, Tannenhaus, & Kello, 1993). Predictions from the Constraint Satisfaction Approach (MacDonald, 1994; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994a; 1994b; Tannenhaus & Trueswell, 1994; Trueswell, Tannenhaus, & Kello, 1993) and the Lexical Filtering Proposal (Clifton, Speer, & Abney, 1991; Ferreira & Henderson, 1990; 1991; Frazier, 1987; Frazier & Clifton, 1989) were contrasted. The former approach assumes that lexical information is used to guide the analysis of syntactically ambiguous phrases, predicting that comparable effects of verb bias should be observed for ambiguous versus unambiguous tensed sentence complements as for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements and for sentences containing unambiguous tensed sentence complements. The latter proposal, an extension of the Garden Path Model (Frazier, 1978; Frazier & Fodor, 1978; Frazier, & Rayner, 1982), assumes that lexical information may be used when it becomes available; however, the analysis of syntactically ambiguous phrases is not delayed until lexical information becomes available, but instead is made in accordance with the syntactic parsing principles Minimal Attachment and Late Closure. Therefore, larger effects of verb bias are predicted for ambiguous versus unambiguous tensed sentence complements than for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements or for sentences containing unambiguous tensed sentence complements. In Experiments 1-3, two self-paced reading methods (phrase by phrase and word by word presentation) and eye tracking were used to compare reading time on sentences containing ambiguous and unambiguous tensed sentence complements, containing either short or long ambiguous noun phrases, preceded by either NP-biased verbs, i.e., verbs generally occurring most frequently with noun phrase complements, or S-biased verbs, i.e., verbs generally occurring most frequently with tensed sentence complements. In Experiment 4, eye tracking was used to compare reading time on sentences containing temporarily ambiguous tensed sentence complements, temporarily ambiguous noun phrase complements, and unambiguous tensed sentence complements, containing either short or long ambiguous noun phrases, preceded by either NP-biased or S-biased verbs. Results from these four experiments are most compatible with the Lexical Filtering Proposal. Implications for models of human sentence processing are discussed.

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Little is known about how children develop their concepts of the future. However, future time perspective (FTP) is considered important in the development of abilities such as planning, goal setting, and the delay of gratification. FTP has also been related to mental health in adults and academic achievement in adolescents. This study explored FTP, defined as the ability to temporally locate and organize future events, and compared participants' ability to locate and organize the same events with respect to their past occurrences. There were 167 participants from four grade levels with average ages of the groups ranging from 7.4 to 10.5 years of age. Participants located five recurrent events on four timelines representing; a past(day), a past(year), a future(day), and a future(year). Participants also took tests to assess their knowledge of conventional time (i.e., clocks and calendars). Hypotheses were proposed that: (a) participants would show a general developmental improvement on all tasks, (b) participants would perform better on day-scale than year-scale timelines, (c) participants would perform better on past than future timelines, and (d) knowledge of conventional time would be used by older participants to structure year-scale, but not day-scale, timelines. Results supported the first two hypotheses but, contrary to expectations, participants performed better on future than past timelines. The author proposed that location of sequences in the past is more cognitively challenging because it moves counter to the unidirectional flow of time; events that are more distant from the present are earlier in the sequence. Results supported the hypothesis that more sophisticated representations of conventional time are needed for location of events in longer durations, and that such representations are developmentally acquired, but a causal relationship could not be established. Participants relied heavily on event schemas in locating events; these schemas helped participants produce a correct sequence but often with the incorrect start of the sequence given the instructions regarding use of the present as a reference point. Results also suggested that children might have a different concept of the relationship between the present and the past and future than that of adults.

This dissertation investigated the allocation of visuo-spatial attention during dynamic viewing. The hypothesis of an attentional focus that is initially centered at fixation and then shifts to the location of a forthcoming eye fixation prior to the overt eye movement was tested. Participants performed three different dual tasks while their eye movements and manual responses were recorded. The primary tasks all required sequential left-to-right eye movements; they were silent reading (Experiment 1), oculomotor scanning of text without vowels (Experiment 2), and visual search for a target letter (Experiment 3). A speeded manual response was made to an asterisk that appeared early or late after the onset of a critical fixation (25 or 170 ms probe delay), and either to the left of, or directly above, or to the right of the currently fixated character ($-$10, $-$5, 0, +5, or +10 characters probe eccentricity). It was predicted that early probes should be detected equally fast in the left and right hemifield, while responses to late probes should be faster when they appeared in the right than in the left visual hemifield. Selective facilitation of manual probe detection latencies near the location of the forthcoming eye fixation was found in the visual search task, but not during reading or scanning. Fixation times increased and saccade lengths decreased as a consequence of probing in all three tasks. Fixation durations were less prolonged when the probe appeared in the right than in the left hemifield; the critical saccades were largest when the probe appeared at +10 characters and smallest when it appeared at +5 characters eccentricity. In summary, detection latencies in the search task supported the attentional predictions, and the eye movement data provided consistent indirect support for the notion of attention shifts prior to eye movements. Task-specific processing demands may have diluted further evidence in the probe detection times from reading and scanning. Individual reaction times further revealed considerable intra- and interindividual differences. It is concluded that the present dual task combination with its dual motor response requirements may not be adequate to assess visuo-spatial attention allocation during sequential eye movement tasks.

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.

Previous studies have indicated that feedback improves staff compliance with preventive practices in health care settings. This study examined the steps needed to establish frequent use of feedback by supervisors to direct service workers about infection control practices in a head-injury treatment program. Nurses were trained to provide written feedback to nursing assistants about the use of gloves to avoid contact with body fluids. The primary dependent variables were the number and content of forms completed by nurses. Training for nurses was followed by low rates of written feedback. A weekly intervention provided nurses with group and individual goals and feedback and contingent letters of appreciation to managers. This process-focused condition increased nurses' use of feedback forms. However, feedback was used by nurses primarily to mention unobserved aspects of infection-control practice. Additional information was included in the weekly intervention: Nurses were shown grouped data on assistants' accuracy in specific performances and the number of feedback forms nurses completed to mention these performances. This process and outcome focused condition resulted in some changes in the forms completed by nurses. Increased completion of feedback forms by nurses was correlated with increased numbers of gloves supplied to the unit. Individual use of gloves also increased in some cases. Observations of assistants' performances showed some signs of improvement as well. Thus, feedback by nurses was judged to be an effective intervention. However, difficulties in measuring infection control practices limited the assessment of the influence of feedback from nurses about specific performances. The written feedback format was very useful in making otherwise private interactions partially measurable. In a survey at the end of the project, assistants rated the feedback from nurses as being accurate and said that they would appreciate receiving feedback in the future. However, both most subjects indicated a preference for oral instead of written and oral feedback from nurses.

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished