Den amerikanske psykologen James W. Pennebaker introducerade på 1980- talet en ny metod där man skulle hantera sina känslor genom att skriva - att ”skriva sig frisk”. Metoden kallas ”Expressive Writing”. Med hjälp av metoden ”Expressive Writing” har jag i en empiristyrd studie fått inblick i psykologistuderandes expressiva material. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att beskriva innehållet i det expressiva materialet och undersöka om det förekommer könsskillnader i texternas innehåll och sättet att skriva. Sju deltagare, tre kvinnor och fyra män, fick i uppgift att på en avskild plats skriva ner sina innersta och djupaste tankar tre dagar i följd. Varje skrivsession varade i 20 minuter. Med hjälp av tematisk analys togs följande teman fram: förändring och existentiella frågor, att jämföra sig med andra, relationer, skuld, kontroll, samhällsfrågor, omsorg, ensamhet. I resultatdelen sammanfattas respektive tema. Teman som bäst belyser det expressiva materialet var förändring och att jämföra sig med andra. Möjliga könsskillnader kan finnas gällande att fatta beslut och på vilket sätt man jämför sig med andra. Samt temana omsorg och samhällsfrågor som enbart männen skrev om.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by atypical development in the domains of social, emotional, language and cognitive functioning in the first few years of life. Research indicates an associated phenomenon of sensory processing abnormalities in the ASD population (Baker, Lane, Angley, & Young, 2008), and specifically auditory domain (Tecchio et al., 2003) which may relate to language deficits (Baranek, David, Poe, Stone & Watson, 2006). This study researched the effect of auditory sensory abnormalities on language in young children with ASD (n = 118), specifically receptive and expressive language and prosody. A specific subdomain of auditory abnormalities, sensory seeking, was found to be predictive of expressive language (β = .30, p=.009), perhaps due to a focus on auditory stimuli to the exclusion of expressive language interaction. There was no significant effect for receptive language (β = .16, p=.16) and prosody (β = -.09, p=.493).

Composition instructors agree writing instruction should focus on helping students become better writers. Pedagogical commonality, however, ends here. Composition instructors disagree about what constitutes good writing, what student should be learning, and how best to approach a composition classroom. I argue that pedagogical diversity among composition instructors is detrimental to the discipline of Rhetoric and Composition, because it has contributed to the public perception that we have no teachable content. Focusing around the removal of and reintegration of rhetoric from American college English departments, I argue composition studies and the rhetorical tradition have historically been viewed as separate disciplines. This project will illustrate that composition studies needs to reconnect to the rhetorical tradition in order formulate a unified practical pedagogical identity. With a unified pedagogical identity, composition studies can finally claim it has a teachable and defendable content: the production of better critical thinking skills.

The First Amendment gives U.S. citizens a Hohfeldian legal immunity that disables Congress from removing citizens’ legal liberty to criticize the government. Any attempt by Congress to remove this liberty would fail, but such an attempt would still wrong citizens. The familiar concept of claim-violation does not fully account for this wrong. Claims name actions that ought not be performed and are violated when those actions are performed. Immunities names actions that cannot be performed. Congress would wrong citizens not by doing something it ought not do but by attempting and failing to do something it cannot do. Using elements of Jean Hampton’s expressive theory of punishment, I analyze Congress’ attempt (and other similar acts) as an expressive act that denies the existence of immunities. Congress’ immunity-“contradiction” would wrong U.S. citizens by denying the value that generates the immunity, by causing damage to the acknowledgement of the citizens’ value, and by threatening the existence of the immunity.

To date, no studies have established the relationship between early communication characteristics for young children with significant disabilities and later language development. This study characterized communication for toddlers (n = 60) fitting this profile and their parents prior to a language intervention utilizing an observational coding scheme and tested whether child and parent communication characteristics were predictive of performance on oral language measures. Language transcripts were coded for child mode and pragmatic function and parent response to the utterance child utterances. Results indicated that children used contact gestures, answering and commenting at the highest rates relative to other communication characteristics. Parents utilized a related response type for 52% of child utterances. Hierarchical regressions revealed that sophisticated gesture usage, word usage, and sophisticated function rate were predictive of expressive oral language performance. Sophisticated gesture usage, sophisticated function rate, and parent MLU were predictive of receptive oral language performance.

We follow the approach of expressive voting and consider that voters with more extreme ideology can enjoy higher utility after voting. However, along with effect of ideology, voters also take the difference of his ideology and candidate¡¦s into account. Given the above assumptions, two candidates choose their ideology before voters decide whether and for whom to vote. Two candidates¡¦ ideology converges to the middle point if voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach is less important than by instrumental voting approach. In the opposite, two candidates¡¦ ideology diverge and the voters with mild ideology refuse to vote in point if voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach is more important. We examine the ANES data of ten U.S. presidential elections from 1972 to 2008. The nested logit model is used to estimate the corresponding coefficients of voters¡¦ utility generated by expressive voting approach and instrumental voting approach. The data supports our conjecture that voters with more extreme ideology are more likely to cast their votes.

Two decades of research suggest that a non-specific style of autobiographical memory retrieval–known as overgeneral memory–may be a cognitive style that increases depression vulnerability. Recent theorizing and empirical evidence suggest the mechanisms underlying overgeneral memory include rumination and avoidance. This study provided a preliminary investigation of the effectiveness of an expressive writing intervention, which has been found to reduce rumination and avoidance, in reducing overgeneral memory, with the ultimate goal of preventing future depressive symptoms among non-depressed college students. Two hundred and seven non-depressed college students completed the expressive writing intervention, in addition to a one-month and six month follow-up assessment. Participants were randomized one of three writing conditions: traditional expressive writing, specific expressive writing, or control writing. Participants in the traditional and specific expressive writing conditions were instructed to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about an emotional event; the specific expressive writing condition contained the additional instruction that participants describe the events in a vivid and detailed manner. Participants in the control condition were instructed to write about a neutral topic (i.e., time management). All groups wrote for 20 minutes on three consecutive days. Study results showed that compared to participants in the control writing condition, participants in the traditional and specific expressive writing conditions demonstrated significantly greater autobiographical memory specificity at the six-month follow-up, but not at the one-month follow-up. Furthermore, the observed increase in autobiographical memory specificity for the expressive writing conditions could not be attributed to change in depressive symptoms over the same time interval. Results revealed that the effect of the traditional expressive writing intervention on increased autobiographical memory specificity was partially mediated by a reduction in avoidance assessed at the one-month follow-up. The hypothesis that rumination would partially mediate the effect of the expressive writing intervention on increased autobiographical memory specificity was not supported. Despite preliminary evidence that an expressive writing intervention compared to a control wiring condition is effective in increasing autobiographical memory specificity over a six-month period for initially non-depressed college students, it remains to be seen if increased autobiographical memory specificity decreases vulnerability to future depressive symptoms. / text

The purpose of this study was to assess the differential effects of grammatical and telegraphic input on word learning and language productivity in children with expressive language delays. Two case studies are presented. In Study 1, the participant received focused stimulation treatment over eight sessions. Type of language input (i.e. telegraphic or grammatical) was alternated across sessions. In Study 2, the participant received focused stimulation treatment over 16 sessions divided into two eight-session phases. Language input was alternated across phases. Participant characteristics limited definitive conclusions regarding word learning. Productive language differences during treatment sessions were observed for both participants. Participant 1, who entered treatment with a larger vocabulary and spontaneous production of some word combinations, demonstrated a higher mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) in more of the sessions under the grammatical condition. Participant 2, who demonstrated severe deficits in speech intelligibility, imitated the clinician more often in the telegraphic sessions. Results support the need for improved systematic study of language input variables in treatment as well as the careful selection of language input protocols based on initial client abilities and treatment outcome goals. / text

Young children with expressive language delay often present with limited vocabulary and reduced length of utterance. In consideration of the relationship between vocabulary and grammar, intervention that targets vocabulary may also result in improved syntax development. This study investigated whether a hybrid approach to verb-focused vocabulary intervention would result in improvements in increased use of target words, increased expressive vocabulary and/or increased sentence length. Four participants, aged two years nine months to three years six months participated in an intervention program that targeted vocabulary, specifically verbs. Number of target verbs, number of different words (NDW) used and mean length of utterance (MLU) were measured in baseline, intervention and post-intervention phases. Results indicated that all participants had increased use of targeted words and increased NDW. The majority of participants also had increased MLU. These findings suggest that verb-focused vocabulary intervention has the potential to have broad effects on the language skills of young children with expressive language delay. Further research is warranted to determine whether similar results would be found in a larger cohort. The study also raises questions around choice of intervention targets and intervention approaches for young children with expressive language delay.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by atypical development in the domains of social, emotional, language and cognitive functioning in the first few years of life. Research indicates an associated phenomenon of sensory processing abnormalities in the ASD population (Baker, Lane, Angley, & Young, 2008), and specifically auditory domain (Tecchio et al., 2003) which may relate to language deficits (Baranek, David, Poe, Stone & Watson, 2006). This study researched the effect of auditory sensory abnormalities on language in young children with ASD (n = 118), specifically receptive and expressive language and prosody. A specific subdomain of auditory abnormalities, sensory seeking, was found to be predictive of expressive language (β = .30, p=.009), perhaps due to a focus on auditory stimuli to the exclusion of expressive language interaction. There was no significant effect for receptive language (β = .16, p=.16) and prosody (β = -.09, p=.493).