Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy最新文献

The study examined the effect on social and object-related interactions of the introduction of play material into an ability integrated pre-school classroom. Four children, two non-handicapped and two with Down's syndrome (one girl and one boy in each dyad) participated. The study entailed a naturalistic experiment with four phases over a period of six months. In phases A1 and A2 children were observed during free-play in the classroom and their social interactions when physically proximal to each other and object-related play recorded using a coding system developed by Vandell et al. (1980). In phases B1 and B2, following, respectively, A1 and A2, specially designed play material was introduced into the classroom. The introduction of the play material led to a consistently greater proportion of interactions between children centred on objects. Initially (B1) this was correlated with a marked increase in negative social acts though the second (B2) introduction did not affect the occurrence of positive social acts that had developed during A2 in the absence of the material.

It is argued that while specific effects of changing the environment by introducing the play material on social and object-centred play can be observed, wider influence arising from the socialising process going on during the six months of the study are also making themselves felt and cannot readily be captured in a simple reversal design of the kind employed. Though no generalisation to the wider populations is attempted, it was observed that there were no differences in the pattern of change that could be related specifically to the non-handicapped vs Down's syndrome contrast nor to developmental level per se. The implication of this finding for arguments regarding the extent to which children with Down's syndrome can be successfully integrated into pre-school settings is considered.

The clinical procedure of exposure therapy to treat phobias is described and reviewed. The animal analogue, called avoidance response prevention (or simply response prevention or flooding) is also described. The parallel studies of human and animal exposure are compared with emphasis on parameters of response prevention and procedures programmed during response prevention such as distraction, counterconditioning, reinforcement procedures, social facilitation and drug effects. Also, there is commentary on the neuroendocrine effects of exposure and response prevention. Our analyses suggest strong evidence for similar processes occurring during response prevention among both people and laboratory animals. Such a conclusion leads to generalizations being made concerning the most effective way to treat people with phobias. Nevertheless, many lacunae exist in the nearly parallel bodies of literature.

Despite the significant advances of the past 20 years, serious questions have been raised about the value of alcoholism treatment outcome research due to the purported invalidity of alcoholics' self-report data for which biological measures of alcohol consumption have been suggested as a solution. The literature does not support widespread skepticism of alcoholics' self-reports or the existence of a systematic underreporting bias except when alcoholics have a positive blood alcohol level. Available evidence shows good reliability and validity for reports of hospital/jail stays and frequency of drinking/abstinence; good reliability and modest agreement with collateral informants for measures of problem severity and alcohol dependence symptoms. For amount consumed, reliability is good for outpatient but not for inpatient or residential alcoholics and validity in the form of agreement with collateral reports is not good except in problem drinkers at followup. Unfortunately, currently available biological markers do not solve the problems of measuring alcohol consumption in outcome studies. Markers correlate only modestly with self-reported consumption, are affected by factors other than alcohol consumption, show large individual differences in response to variations in alcohol intake, have an overly long half-life in certain cases, provide a specific but not very sensitive indicator of poor outcome, and may present compliance problems especially among chronic alcoholics. Nonetheless, markers can be used as part of a convergent validity approach and as a measure of negative alcohol-related health consequences. Suggestions for current practices in the field and for future research directions are provided.

The alcohol field and the field of behavioral research and therapy both developed over the past two decades to become major domains of scientific and clinical activity. While this concurrent development was coincidental, a result of the alcohol constituency's successful lobbying for an alcohol field. In several areas the findings of scienfic research have conflicted with conventional wisdom. The conflicts involving behavioral research have been especially severe, however, because the behavioral findings represent not just an academic but also a practical threat to the dominance of conventional wisdom. Behavioral researchers have an obligation to continue contributing to the prevention and remediation of alcohol problems, even when those efforts are viewed disfavorably by defenders of conventional wisdom.

It is the thesis of this paper that recent developments in the history and philosophy of science, in learning psychology, in developmental psychology, and in behavior therapy point to developmental interactionism as an integrative approach to behavioral ontogeny that maintains a role for conditioning and learning (as events) in behavior therapy. Earlier approaches to the ontogeny of behavior — environmentalism and heredity×environment interactionism — are overviewed. Developmental interactionism is presented as a relatively recent outgrowth of several confluent movements, including heredity×environment interactionism, the integrated-field perspective, evolutional thinking, Schneirla's comparative-developmental psychology, behavioral embryology, life-span developmental psychology, retreats from reductionism, and the system approach. Developmental interactionism is a thoroughgoing developmental perspective that treats development as an interactive or transactive process in which organism and environment are both active participants. The final section addresses issues in behavior therapy from the standpoint of this new view of behavioral ontogeny. Noted are signs of the beginnings of a unified clinical behavioral science.

The purpose of the present paper is to review the existing literature on the relationship between parental depressive mood state and child functioning. Three samples (clinically depressed parents, clinic-referred children, and non-problem parents and children) and four types of child behavior (externalizing problems, internalizing problems, prosocial, and cognitive) were examined. In 55% of the measures examined across 34 studies, there was a negative relationship between parental depressive state and child functioning. This negative relationship occurred more often in clinically depressed parents than in the other two samples, particularly when externalizing and internalizing problems were examined. The relationship between the two variables is discussed with special reference to causal inferences, the need for within-family research, and the need to identify factors which place children at-risk or, alternately, buffer them from the deleterious influence of parental depressive mood states.

Treatment research in the alcoholism field has thus far had relatively little impact on public policy and professional practices. U.S. alcoholism treatment programming does not reflect advances in knowledge with regard to the effectiveness of specific approaches, treatment length and setting, or matching of clients with treatments. Four characteristics of decision-making are considered as possible causes: inertia, ignorance, selective inattention, and incentives. Four corresponding characteristics of the behavior of researchers are also discussed: failure to use effective attitude change procedures, failure to disseminate research findings, intolerance for disconfirming data, and failure to address the needs of decision-makers. Any program of research should include a specific plan to disseminate and to promote utilization of findings. Six strategies for increasing utilization are suggested: setting clear goals, choosing optimal dissemination routes, tailoring communications to the audience, providing implementation support, following up on initial communications, and teaching utilization skills. Research on the effectiveness of such utilization strategies is needed.

Contemporary political realities are addressed in terms of implications for future research in behavioral approaches to alcohol problems. Increased funding trends for addiction research and recommendations for establishing a National Institute on Addiction are reviewed. Evaluation of treatment effectiveness will become the criterion for future program funding rather than treatment philosophy or traditional beliefs about alcoholism. Cost-effective considerations will promote the need for early intervention and minimal intervention programs. Turning to the topic of controlled drinking, controversy over the use of this term (or related terms such as “responsible drinking”) is discussed. It is recommended that we replace these terms with the more acceptable label of moderation training. Use of moderation training as a secondary prevention approach with high-risk drinkers is outlined, along with criteria for selecting treatment goals of moderation or abstinence.