Critical Review of Play Therapy Assessments.

As part of the creative modalities, play therapy offers a therapeutic mode for diagnosis, assessment, and treatment interventions. The purpose of this paper is to critically review three play therapy interventions: The Developmental Play Assessment, the Marschak Interaction Method, and the Family Systems Test. A brief introduction to each assessment will be presented. Additionally, validity and reliability data will be addressed. The overall evaluation will include the assessments desirable as well as undesirable features, which is of critical importance to play therapists and those therapists using play as a method of diagnosis and assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Play therapy and psychopharmacology: What the play therapist needs to know": Correction.

Reports an error in "Play therapy and psychopharmacology: What the play therapist needs to know" by Daniel S. Sweeney and Ross J. Tatum (International Journal of Play Therapy, 1995, Vol 4[2], 41-57). The table "Childhood DSM-IV Diagnoses and Psychotropic Medications That May Be Indicated" on pages 46-47 contained three (3) errors. A corrected copy of the table is included with the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1997-05134-004.) Provides a basic overview of pediatric psychopharmacology and examines specific related considerations for the play therapist. The article also addresses some medication considerations specific to the treatment modality of play therapy. It is argued that possession of even a cursory knowledge about child psychopharmacology places the play therapist in a better position to provide quality treatment. A list of childhood Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV) diagnoses and psychotropic medications that may be indicated is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Learning Disabilities and Psychic Conflict: A Psychoanalytic Casebook.

Review of book: Learning Disabilities and Psychic Conflict: A Psychoanalytic Casebook by Arden Aibel Rothstein and Jules Glenn, Madison, NJ: International Universities Press, 1999, 504 pp. Reviewed by Lucy M. Zabarenko. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Review of Reading disabilities: The interaction of reading, language, and neuropsychological deficits": Comment on book review.

The book review by M. L. Simner and S. J. Lupker entitled Reading disabilities: The interaction of reading, language, and neuropsychological deficits (see record 2007-03865-001) by Donald G. Doehring, Ronald L. Trites, P. G. Patel, and Christina A. M. Fiedorowicz was generally characterized by a lack of appreciation of the complexities involved in reading disabilities research. The review reflected a poor understanding of the theoretical framework, and many comments were simply a reiteration of problematic areas the authors themselves discussed in the book. Further, the reviewers misinterpreted several issues. The main focus of the book was to present a review of the literature with respect to the development of the subgroup concept in reading disabilities, and specifically to present the data for three subtypes defined by Doehring and his colleagues. Another issue the reviewers address as a major concern is the validity of the subtypes. The last main issue of concern expressed by the reviewers involves the usefulness of subtyping as a means of understanding reading disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Parental licensure": Rejoinder.

Responds to comments by R. E. Redding (see record 2002-08415-038) and by the American Association of Spinal Cord Injury Psychologists and Social Workers et al (see record 2002-08415-039) on the present author's original article (see American Psychologist, 2001, Vol 56, 885-894) which advocated parental licensing, a process requiring prospective parents to meet legislatively defined criteria before they could conceive or adopt children. Redding argued the unconstitutionality of this proposal, and the American Association of Spinal Cord Injury Psychologists and Social Workers et al took issue with Lykken's statement that persons "incapacitated by physical or mental disorder" be required to submit to a special dispensation by the family court to be licensed. The author responds that other legal scholars support the proposal of parental licensure, while they note that under the current judiciary, such measures would confront many obstacles. The author also explains his use of "incapacitated" with reference to the disabled with the intent to reflect the inability to perform basic and necessary parental functions as a consequence of mental or physical disease. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Psychotherapy" Versus "Treatment".

Presents a comment on "Psychological treatments" (see record 2004-21168-001) by D. H. Barlow. Barlow proposed that we distinguish between the terms "treatment" and "psychotherapy." The author believes that not only is the distinction unnecessary, but that its implications could have negative consequences for the field of clinical psychology. It is the proposed distinguishing feature that treatments are "specifically tailored to the pathological process that is causing the impairment and distress" that is most problematic. Clinical psychology does not need a distinction that further exacerbates the split between researchers and practitioners. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Learning disabilities and brain function: A neuropsychological approach (2nd edition).

Reviews the book, Learning disabilities and brain function: A neuropsychological approach (2nd edition) by William H. Gaddes (1985). No clinician/researcher has expended more effort over a longer period of time to effect a melding of neuropsychology and educational practice than has William Gaddes. His efforts in this area have been prodigious and insightful; his published work, highly influential. Thus, it is with eager anticipation that one approaches the second edition of his most important work, Learning disabilities and brain function: A neuropsychological approach. On many counts, this anticipation is richly rewarded by the many fine features of the work, including its breadth of coverage, its presentation of research findings from many disciplines, and its clinical savvy. Gaddes has attempted to provide a very complete and articulated view of a neuropsychological approach to learning disabilities. Drawing on research in the basic neurosciences, basic and applied psychology and education, and a wealth of personal clinical experience with brain-impaired youngsters, Gaddes does not shrink from forging quite explicit links between normal and altered brain function on the one hand and learning on the other. This constitutes both the strength and the weakness of this work: Its strength lies in the wealth of information and provocative insights provided; its weakness, in the sometimes rather concrete fashion in which brain/behaviour relationships and their remedial implications are stated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of "Social Cognition: The Ontario Symposium."

Reviews the book, Social Cognition: The Ontario Symposium edited by E. Tory Higgins, C. Peter Herman and Mark P. Zanna (1981). This volume presents the papers from the first Ontario Symposium on Personality and Social Psychology which was held at the University of Western Ontario in 1978. The first five chapters deal with cognitive organization. Chapter 3 provides a broad overview of schemas and their functions and liabilities which is particularly good for the reader who is fairly naive to cognitive psychology. Chapter 2 overlaps with it quite a bit, but is narrower in scope - focusing only on the issue of the relationship of information relevance and congruence to schema memory. Chapter I presents a review of the literature and a series of experiments on cognitive clustering. Chapters 4 and 5 are more conceptual in nature, dealing with respectively, the manner in which schemas govern the encoding and retention of social information and a storage bin model of category accesibility. The second part of the book, chapters 6-11, focuses on specific aspects of cognitive mechanisms, processes and biases. Some of the chapters, such as those on the use of confirmatory strategies in interpersonal hypothesis testing, self-centered biases, and nonverbal behaviour in impression management, are summaries of the authors' own line of research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The science of learning disabilities.

Reviews the book, The science of learning disabilities, by K. A. Kavale and S. R. Forness (1985). Kavale and Forness assert that the field of learning disabilities has become a pseudoscience. They state that the purpose of their book is to demonstrate how the field of learning disabilities strayed from its scientific course and suggest how it can regain its scientific status. To accomplish their goals, the authors emphasize the importance of scientific inquiry, the history of the learning disabilities field, and possible solutions to the problems they depict as currently being characteristic of the field. The field of learning disabilities, they assert, strayed from the scientific method by emphasizing empirical associations per se without the proper formulation of theories regarding learning disabilities. The authors fulfill their stated goals of describing how many in the learning disabilities field drifted away from the scientific method and by outlining how the field can regain its scientific status. The review of the history of the learning disabilities field is comprehensive and informative. This book is written in a scholarly, unemotional style. Although its exploration of the scientific method, that forms the basis of the authors' arguments, is simple and consistent with that provided in most introductory texts in the sciences, the authors' discussions of research findings are, at times, complex. Readers who are not familiar with meta-analytical techniques are encouraged to obtain some familiarity with these before reading this book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environmental Toxicants and Developmental Disabilities: A Challenge for Psychologists.

Developmental, learning, and behavioral disabilities are a significant public health problem. Environmental chemicals can interfere with brain development during critical periods, thereby impacting sensory, motor, and cognitive function. Because regulation in the United States is based on limited testing protocols and essentially requires proof of harm rather than proof of lack of harm, some undefined fraction of these disabilities may reflect adverse impacts of this "vast toxicological experiment" (H. L. Needleman, as quoted in B. Weiss & P. J. Landrigan, 2000, p. 373). Yet the hazards of environmental pollutants are inherently preventable. Psychologists can help prevent developmental disabilities by mobilizing and affecting public policy, educating and informing consumers, contributing to interdisciplinary research efforts, and taking action within their own homes and communities to reduce the toxic threat to children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Learning disabilities and brain function: A neuropsychological approach (rev. ed.).

Reviews the book, Learning disabilities and brain function: A neuropsychological approach (rev. ed.), by William H. Gaddes (1985). The neurological substrata of intellectual functioning have long been a topic of interest to psychologists; but with the development of the learning disabilities classification and the interest in the brain, learning behavior relationships have expanded to include the entire educational community. This book, like the first edition, has been designed to draw together the neuropsychologist, the school psychologist, and teacher in common cause. In doing so, it helps to bridge a traditional interdisciplinary communications gap. There is a need for neuropsychological training of school psychologists. This book helps to bring this knowledge to bear directly on practice in the field of learning disabilities. Advantages of the second edition over the first are the inclusion of discussions of new techniques (i.e., new brain scanning devices and methods, new applications of dichotic listening) and expanded examples of case studies. The reviewers feel that Gaddes has provided an updated, thorough treatment of the role of neuropsychology in the diagnosis and remediation of the learning-disabled child. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instantiated features and the use of "rules."

Classification "rules" in expert and everyday discourse are usually deficient by formal standards, lacking explicit decision procedures and precise terms. The authors argue that a central function of such weak rules is to focus on perceptual learning rather than to provide definitions. In 5 experiments, transfer following learning of family resemblance categories was influenced more by familiar-appearing features than by novel-appearing features equally acceptable under the rule. This occurred both when rules were induced and when rules were given at the beginning of instruction. To model this and other phenomena in categorization, features must be represented on 2 levels: informational and instantiated. These 2 feature levels are crucial to provide broad generalization while reflecting the known peculiarities of a complex world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An impairment model of learning disability diagnosis.

This review of the literature and available evidence attempts to clarify the debate surrounding the learning disability (LD) diagnosis by offering a diagnostic model based on the principles of academic and functional impairment. The authors briefly review the strengths and weaknesses of current LD diagnostic approaches. Next, they propose a method for diagnosing LD that presumes core symptoms of below average academic achievement and associated impairment in other domains of functioning, including behavior and emotion, interpersonal relations, and self-care and fulfillment, which is modeled on the successful decades old approach to mental retardation diagnosis. The authors contend that this approach may help ameliorate the diagnostic problems plaguing the LD field. Finally, they present a rationale for future research efforts aimed at determining a level of low achievement that is associated with functional impairment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Neuropsychology of alcoholism: Implications for diagnosis and treatment.

Reviews the book, Neuropsychology of alcoholism: Implications for diagnosis and treatment edited by Oscar A. Parsons, Nelson Butters, and Peter E. Nathan (see record 1987-98184-000). This book is an important work because it organizes empirical findings and presents theoretical and research issues in the rapidly expanding area of neuropsychological evaluation and recovery in alcoholic populations. This up-to-date, comprehensive overview includes chapters written by internationally recognized experts in the areas of structural changes in the brain accompanying alcohol abuse, neuropsychological deficits associated with alcoholism, recovery of functions with continued abstinence, and remediation efforts with alcoholics. The book is divided into four sections: Changes in Brain Structure and Function in Alcoholics, Neuropsychological Consequences of Alcohol Abuse, Recovery and Remediation of Neuropsychological Functions, and Implications for Treatment and Future Research Directions. Overall, this is an excellent reference book and is thought-provoking in its presentation of research ideas. This is an important work every researcher in this area should examine. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Dissociation: Clinical and theoretical perspectives.

Reviews the book, Dissociation: Clinical and theoretical perspectives by Steven Jay Lynn and Judith W. Rhue (see record 1994-98908-000). In this book, the editors' stated purpose was to provide "a book that would be at once authoritative and provide virtually comprehensive coverage of important aspects of the topic," and they have largely achieved their goal. Because Dissociation is so comprehensive, there is in essence "something for everyone"; in turn, there may be sections of the book which are of less relevance to many readers. For example, clinicians who are primarily concerned about issues of diagnosis and treatment may find the discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of hypnosis and dissociation less than helpful. The sections on diagnosis and treatment, in turn, are of an overview nature; a clinician who is interested in more detailed discussions of these issues will have to go to the original sources. Nevertheless, this book might well be recommended as required reading for clinicians and researchers alike because of its very broad scope. The various authors address important questions which clinicians and researchers should consider. Dissociation makes clear that the concept of dissociation is one of the most complicated and misunderstood concepts in psychology. The history of the concept itself is reviewed at length in the book. Nevertheless, Lynn and Rhue have provided a resource in which a wide variety of perspectives of both a clinical and research nature are presented in a comprehensive yet accessible manner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special series.

Provides an introduction to the special series on learning disabilities (LDs) in children. Despite an extensive literature on this topic, questions and controversy remain about the etiologies, definitions, subtyping, assessment, remediation, and prognosis of LDs. This special series addresses the current status of research on several important topics related to LDs. Some of the topics discussed include selective deficits in basic psychological processes, the role of socioemotional disturbance, reading disability, genetics, early detection, remedial instructional frameworks, and long-term prognosis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Efficacy of Play Therapy With Children: A Meta-Analytic Review of Treatment Outcomes.

The efficacy of psychological interventions for children has long been debated among mental health professionals; however, only recently has this issue received national attention, with the U.S. Public Health Service (2000) emphasizing the critical need for early intervention and empirically validated treatments tailored to children's maturational needs. Play therapy is a developmentally responsive intervention widely used by child therapists but often criticized for lacking an adequate research base to support its growing practice. A meta-analysis of 93 controlled outcome studies (published 1953-2000) was conducted to assess the overall efficacy of play therapy and to determine factors that might impact its effectiveness. The overall treatment effect for play therapy interventions was 0.80 standard deviations. Further analysis revealed that effects were more positive for humanistic than for nonhumanistic treatments and that using parents in play therapy produced the largest effects. Play therapy appeared equally effective across age, gender, and presenting issue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Review of The parent-child connection": Erratum.

Reports an error in "Review of The parent-child connection" by Charlotte Johnston (Canadian Psychology Psychologie Canadienne, 1989[Oct], Vol 30[4], 697-698). Arnold Rincover's affiliation with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education was incorrectly given as Associate Professor. He has been an Extramural Instructor at O.I.S.E. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2007-09101-001.) Reviews the book, The parent-child connection by Arnold Rincover (1988). The Parent-Child Connection is a well written book that offers valuable advice to help parents of young children evaluate and understand their children's behaviour. It also offers useful suggestions on managing child behaviour, although these parenting tips are most likely to be useful to those parents who least need them (i.e., those with numerous personal and social resources, whose children are presenting only minor behavioural difficulties). The two general themes of the book, child behaviour as communication and developmental norms as guidelines for deciding if behaviour is problematic, are well-suited to the purposes of a parent reference book. They offer an appropriate framework for discussing specific child behaviours and helping parents to determine if these behaviours are problematic in their children. This book is a welcome addition to the list of available parenting books, and may prove particularly useful for younger parents in need of accurate and understandable information about normal child development and behaviour. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Metacognition, cognition, and human performance.

Reviews the book, Metacognition, cognition, and human performance edited by D. L. Forrest-Pressley, G. E. MacKinnon, and T. Gary Waller (1985). This collection is the second of two volumes devoted to metacognition, cognition, and human performance. In volume 1 emphasis was placed on basic theoretical issues in metacognition; volume 2 deals with the application of metacognitive principles to the fields of education and clinical remediation. Overall, I found the volume quite informative and indeed enjoyable. All contributions were of excellent quality, and presented active engaging research in the field, with the authors borrowing extensively from their own and their students' work. The research reported is permeated by vitality, ingenuity of methodology, and, to varying degrees, good linkages to other areas such as developmental, social, and cognitive psychology, social learning theory, and educational theory. This reviewer, however, was disappointed by the obvious omission of Piagetian theory from the theoretical conceptualizations of the various sub-areas of metacognition offered here. A second concern I had was with the relative lack of cohesiveness in the volume, with the inevitable repetitions across chapters. Although the editors' preface provides a summary of each chapter, it does not attempt to integrate the volume. Thus we end up with a collection of papers in the field but know little about how they fit in the overall scheme of things metacognitive. The volume will certainly be of value to basic researchers in cognitive, social, and developmental psychology. It would also be of particular relevance to child clinical psychologists, special educators, and teachers for the wealth of ideas it provides for implementation not only with LD but also with socio-affectively disturbed, mentally retarded, and culturally disadvantaged children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)