Performance on the Bender under hypnotic age regression.

10 female Ss with a mean age of 20 were administered the Bender Motor Gestalt Test under each of 4 conditions: awake, awake and pretending to be 4 years old, hypnotized and pretending to be 4 years old, hypnotized and regressed to 4 years old. The mean maturational levels, in years, obtained were 11.2, 9.9, 7.8, and 7.3, respectively. 18 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family characteristics and school achievements of Type A children.

Examined the familial characteristics of Type A (coronary prone) children and the consequences of Type A behaviors for children's classroom achievements. A maximum of 156 boys and 190 girls in Grades 1–8 participated. Results show that Type A children were not more likely to have families with a history of cardiovascular-related diseases. Young Type A boys had Type A mothers and fathers. Competitive boys and girls and Type A girls had higher achievement test scores and grades than noncompetitive children and Type B (noncoronary prone) girls, respectively. Thus, the competitive aspect of Type A led to important early achievements, perhaps because caregivers and teachers responded to Type A behaviors of children by encouraging them to continue to strive to achieve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

WISC, Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, and Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test performance of Spanish-American kindergarten and first-grade school children.

Tested 84 kindergarten and 1st grade anglo-americans, spanish-american "monolinguals," and spanish-american "bilinguals," matched on school achievement, with the wisc, illinois test of psycholinguistic abilities, and bender visual motor gestalt test. Specific cognitive deficits which might account for the poor school performance of spanish-american schoolchildren were examined. Expected global differences were found, but in 10 of 18 subtests there were no group differences. Results suggest that spanish-american children are deficient on the input side of communicative skills, especially in understanding sentences and pictures. Bilingualism per se did not appear to be as important a variable as is commonly assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age effects and revised scoring of the Canter BIP for identifying children with cerebral dysfunction.

Performed an item analysis of the Canter Background Interference Procedure (BIP), a test for brain damage, to select items and weight them to maximize the efficiency of discriminating children with cerebral dysfunction from those with no dysfunction. Attempts to improve discrimination of these 2 groups of Ss on the BIP were successful only after age differences were considered, especially between 10- and 11-yr-old children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal study of bronchial hyperreactivity using the carbachol test with school children

STUDY DESIGN: Bronchial hyperresponsiveness of 476 schoolchildren (10.8 +/- 2.3 years) was studied three times at 12 months' intervals. The cumulative dose of 400 micrograms carbachol was applied in 50 + 50 + 100 + 200 micrograms steps. A fall of FEV1 of at least 15% was regarded as positive reaction. The test was save, as no severe obstruction was observed, only three children withdrew because of unpleasant cough. RESULTS: Reactivity was observed in 19.1, 10.0, and 5.2% of children at the occasion of the first, second and third test (sensitivity/specificity for prevalence of physician diagnosed asthma: 70/83, 35/91, and 24/96%, respectively). Reactivity was age dependent (7-11 years: 35%, 12-16 years: 18%), not influenced by sex, and the relative risk to be reactive was 1.9 in children 2-3 weeks after a respiratory tract infection. CONCLUSION: For epidemiological purposes carbachol provocation test--like other unspecific bronchial provocation tests--is inappropriate as a single test to classify individuals as asthmatics.     

Bias in prediction: A test of three models with elementary school children.

Studied 2 competing conceptualizations of test bias in educational settings and compared each to the traditional regression model. The bias model proposed by T. A. Cleary and that proposed by R. L. Thorndike (see record 1971-31520-001) were each employed, along with the traditional regression model, on data obtained from 95 male and 101 5th graders to determine the extent of sex bias in selection resulting from each of the 3 models. Results show that the Cleary procedure produced substantial bias in both selection and accuracy of selection in favor of the female subgroup. The traditional prediction model resulted in pronounced selection bias in favor of the male subgroup and a slight bias in accuracy of selection in favor of the same subgroup. The Thorndike procedure, by definition, results in no selection bias but did produce slight bias in the accuracy of selection favoring the female subgroup. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychophysiological characteristics and school performance of children in open and traditional classrooms.

98 children in 3 open and 3 traditional 1st-grade classrooms were observed and tested on physiological and performance measures (e.g., Star and Pyramid Mazes) at the beginning and end of their 1st yr of school. Skin conductance level and mean pulse rate were used to categorize subgroups as either high or low in physiological arousal level. It was predicted that the greater amount of external stimulation in an open classroom would provide a more suitable learning environment for low-arousal Ss in that their needs for stimulation would be satisfied and their behavioral manifestations of an arousal deficit would be reduced; the opposite was expected for high-arousal Ss. ANOVAs revealed that performance (e.g., visual discrimination scores) of high-arousal Ss in open classrooms decreased over time in contrast to all other S subgroups. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dietary and life-style characteristics and physical condition of school children

Dietary and life-style characteristics and the presence of 13 subjective symptoms were surveyed by a questionnaire in 2869 school children, 9 and 11 years old, in urban and rural districts in Kyoto Prefecture. 1. School children in the urban districts consumed a greater variety of foods than those in the rural districts, with the 9 years old having a greater variety than the 11 years old. 2. There appeared to be no difference in the number of subjective symptoms between the two districts. The 11 years old children complained of more subjective symptoms than the 9 years old. 3. Children consuming less varieties of foods or with undesirable dietary and life-style characteristics generally complained of many subjective symptoms. The obese children seemed to take juice, instant-foods, meats, foods cooked with oil more frequently than the non-obese children. From these results, the need for desirable dietary and life-style characteristics for maintaining school children in the good physical condition is apparent.     

Improving the lives of millions of school children.

R. Fulghum (1993) contended that all he really needed to know, he learned in kindergarten. This finding does not generalize to predoctoral-postdoctoral education and school-based action researchers. After 20 years, the author's current aspiration is to collaborate with others to disseminate research-based social and emotional learning programs that improve the lives of millions of school children. High-quality graduate and postdoctoral training inspired this commitment. However, realistically speaking, ongoing early- and midcareer training are needed to achieve it. This author describes 2 sets of advanced learning experiences that strongly affected his current activities. He draws implications from these experiences to encourage more support for the early- and midcareer training of school-based action researchers. The address also highlights several priorities that midcareer scientists should address to advance the positive impact that psychology has on the lives of children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of the Bender Gestalt test for both Black and White brain-damaged patients using two scoring systems.

Tested for cultural bias in the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test. Ss were 72 Black and White hospitalized male patients, diagnosed as either brain damaged or psychiatric, and individually matched by diagnosis, age (15-55 yrs), education, and IQ. Bender protocols were scored by the systems of both G. R. Pascal and B. J. Suttell (1951) and J. D. Hain (1963). Data were analyzed both with and without epileptic Ss. No race effect appeared except for the Pascal-Suttell system with nonepileptic Ss, for which Blacks scored significantly better than Whites. Neither system successfully discriminated organic from nonorganic Ss, either with or without epileptic Ss. It is suggested that these scoring techniques are of little or no value in diagnosing borderline cases. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of grade retention on the social development of elementary school children.

When children do not exhibit certain minimum academic competencies, they are retained in grade. Despite the pervasiveness of this school practice, little is known about the effects of grade retention on children's social development. The present study explored the hypotheses that peer discrimination may be one factor contributing to the negative effects of grade retention reported in the previous literature. Specifically, it was expected that retained children would (a) receive unfavorable peer attributions, (b) be assigned lower social status, (c) be the targets of peer discrimination, and (d) have lower expectations for themselves and for school. Evidence for peer discrimination against retained children was found, but effects were moderated by the age, gender, relative physical size, and retention status of the rater. Contrary to prediction, retained children had higher self-esteem than did nonretained children. These and other findings were discussed in terms of school and peer influence on social development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Voice identification by nursery school children.

Assessed identification of familiar individuals in 36 nursery school children who completed tests involving the naming of faces and tape-recorded voices, voice-face matching, and backward voice naming. Face naming was vastly superior to all 3 tasks involving voice identification, demonstrating that speaker identification is much more difficult than face identification for young children. Identification by voice naming and voice-face matching did not differ significantly. Accuracy of naming backward voices averaged 73% of that attained with normal voices, indicating that inability to decode linguistic messages does not preclude accurate processing of paralinguistic information by children. Voice identification scores varied widely among all Ss but did not differ significantly between boys and girls. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal space in nursery school children.

Examined personal space in 34 nursery school children by 2 methods. In one, unobtrusive observations of actual interpersonal distance choices in 4 different social situations were made. In the other, the same Ss chose interpersonal distances in 4 similar social situations represented symbolically by drawings. Results demonstrate that Ss already show regular variations in personal space based on acquaintance (acquaintances closer than strangers), sex (boys greater than girls), and social context (informal greater than formal). Three interactions were also significant. Projective and naturalistic observation measurement methods produced similar results, contrary to the conclusions of recent reviews. Conceptually, however, there may be 2 types of personal space—perceived and objective interpersonal distance. (French summary) (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance of college students on a mechanical knowledge test.

For a group of 112 male college students, scores on the SRA Mechanical Aptitude Test, the Revised Minnesota Paper Form Board and (for a subgroup of 50 Ss), on the Location, Blocks, and Pursuit subtests of the MacQuarrie Test for Mechanical Ability, were intercorrelated. These intercorrelations, as well as the mean scores for the Ss, are reported. The students scored significantly above the mean of male trainees on the Shop Arithmetic subtest of the SRA, and below the mean on the Space Relations subtest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test-anxiety and blame-assignment in grade school children.

"… an attempt was made to measure the relationship between test-anxiety in elementary school children and the propensity for self-blame assignment in regard to the experience of failure in a test situation… . The general hypothesis… was that in a failure situation, high test-anxious S's assign blame for a failure to themselves to a greater extent than do non-test-anxious S's… . The overall results… tend to support the hypothesis, but with qualifications that… change the perspective… of test-anxiety and blame assignment." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responses of phenylketonuric children on a continuous performance test.

Administered a task which required continuous attending to 11 phenylketonuric children and 11 nonphenylketonuric controls (matched for age, IQ, sex, and race). The phenylketonuric Ss made significantly fewer correct responses and more late responses than their matched controls. The performance of the phenylketonuric Ss also changed significantly over the sequence of stimulus presentations, with fewer correct responses toward the end. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)