Variations in conditioning procedures for the decannulation of tracheostomy dependent children: Clinical and theoretical implications.

Frequently, tracheostomized children become dependent on breathing through a cannula to such an extent that decannulation becomes difficult if not impossible, even in the absence of evident obstructions. A highly successful program, based on learning principles, for dealing with this problem is reviewed. A number of drawbacks to this program are noted such as lengthy hospitalization and prolonged periods of social isolation of the child. Procedural changes in this program are described which were designed to mitigate these drawbacks. Successful results are presented in the use of this improved program with four tracheostomy dependent children. The theoretical basis for the original program is questioned by the results of the current study and is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Displaced aggression in young children.

Young children played a card game in which some Ss associated losses with a child-figure card and winnings with a plain card, while others associated losses with a plain card and winnings with the child-figure card. Following the card game, Ss played a shooting game in which they selected targets from among pairs of figures that varied from the card game figure on a dimension of physical similarity. Both sexes showed a significant tendency to select, as targets, either figures more like or figures less like the card game figure. There were no differences in target choices as a function of conditions. Among Ss who lost to the card game figure, boys and girls differed, boys favoring more like figures and girls favoring less like figures. The Ss also shot the card game figure itself. Boys who lost the most to that figure shot the greatest number of times; those who lost less, the fewest numbers of times; and boys who won from the figure were in between. No differences were found for girls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Institutionalization and the effectiveness of social reinforcement: A three-year follow-up study.

49 familial retarded children who had been tested on a simple 2-part satiation game 3 years earlier were retested on the same game. The children were divided into high and low preinstitutional social deprivation groups, and 2 reinforcement conditions were employed. On the original testing a positive relationship was found between social deprivation experienced and the effectiveness of social reinforcement (p     

Parents and strangers as reinforcing agents for children's performance.

The effectiveness of adults as reinforcing agents on preschool children's performance, as a function of sex of E, sex of S, and type of E (parents or strangers), is investigated. The Es made 1 of 5 standard supportive statements about S's performance in a simple motor task each 30 seconds for 5 minutes after a baseline minute. The base rates were higher when Ss were tested by men than by women. When parents served as Es, both the increments in response and total number of responses were lower than when strangers served as Es. The average rate of response was in general higher for girls than for boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of TV viewing habits and aggressive behavior in children.

Information about TV habits, (a) length of time watched and (b) extent of violence in favorite programs, was obtained from 689 mothers and 522 fathers in individual interviews having to do with the psychosocial antecedents of aggressive behavior in their children. This information was related to ratings of aggressive behavior of 3rd-grade children made by their peers. It was found that there was a significant positive relationship between the violence ratings of favorite programs as reported by both mothers and fathers and aggressive behavior of boys as rated in school. Also there was a significant negative relation between total time watched by boys as reported by mothers and aggressive behavior. The results for fathers' reports in this latter case were in the same direction, although not significant. No consistent relationships were noted between girls' TV habits as reported by either mother or father and aggression as rated in school by the peers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vicarious reinforcement and imitative learning.

The present experiment was designed to study the influence of response-consequences to the model on the imitative learning of aggression. Nursery school children were assigned randomly to 1 of the following groups: aggressive model-rewarded; aggressive model-punished; a control group shown highly expressive but nonaggressive models; and a 2nd control group which had no exposure to models. The children were then tested for the incidence of postexposure imitative and nonimitative aggressive responses. Children who witnessed the aggressive model rewarded showed more imitative aggression and preferred to emulate the successful aggressor than children in the aggressive model-punished group who both failed to reproduce his behavior and rejected him as a model for emulation. Control over aggression was vicariously transmitted to boys by the administration of aversive stimuli to the model, and to girls by the presentation of incompatible prosocial examples of behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A scale for measuring attitudes of social responsibility in children.

"A scale of social attitudes was designed to discriminate children who have, with their peers, a reputation for responsibility as contrasted with children who have little reputation for responsibility. The resulting scale yields a measure which is substantially correlated with other measures of personal and social adjustment." The scale shows a positive trend in mean score with age. Development of the scale is discussed and the items retained after criterion group analysis are presented in a table. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social perception and sociometric choice of children.

"This study was designed to test the generality of the positive relationship between perceived similarity and valuation of others." The results indicate that highest sociometric choices tend to be perceived as more similar to self than are lowest sociometric choices and also more similar to self than they actually are. The proposition is suggested that the positive relationship between perceived similarity and valuation of others is a function of the need to be similar to valued persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluational reactions of bilingual and monolingual children to spoken languages.

Monolingual and bilingual French-Canadian children listened to tape recordings of children's voices, some in English, some in French, and rated each speaker's personality on 15 traits. Differences between the ratings assigned French and English voices by the subgroups were interpreted as indicative of differences in stereotyped reactions to French and English Canadians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reinforcement of agents of action in doll play.

3 groups of preschool children, with 10 children each, participated in 3 sessions of experimental doll play in which either the use of adult or child dolls was consistently reinforced or the reinforcement was random. The adult reinforced group increased their use of adult dolls across the 3 sessions whereas the reinforcement effects on the specific use of child dolls were less clear. The latter finding is discussed in terms of the relationship between the Ss' awareness of a response and its reinforceability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)