Review of Compensatory Education in the Preschool.

Reviews the book, Compensatory Education in the Preschool by Mary J. Wright (No Year Specified). Compensatory education has been tried and it apparently has succeeded. This reversal of Jensen's 1969 conclusion has very significant implications for education in the 1980s. Wright's long-awaited publication of her program and the research supporting it should prove to be both a useful guide for those involved in implementing such programs or in educating teachers of the young, and an addition to the literature on evaluation of compensatory education. Her book is really two separate books--one an excellent guide to the operation of an effective program for three- and four-year-old children (both "disadvantaged" and "advantaged")--the other, a detailed report of evaluation research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychoeducational assessment of preschool children.

Reviews the book, The psychoeducational assessment of preschool children edited by Kathleen D. Paget and Bruce A. Bracken (1983). This is is a multidisciplinary text that covers a wide variety of components of preschool assessment. As indicated in the preface, the intent of the editors was to provide a comprehensive book that would reflect the diversity of professions involved with assessment of preschoolers. To achieve this purpose, Paget and Bracken compiled a text that is comprehensive in both breadth and depth. The ambitious range of topics includes history of preschool assessment, legal issues, and the assessment of special preschool groups, such as the mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, gifted, creative, and culturally different. In addition, the assessment of a wide variety of domains of functioning such as cognitive, perceptual-motor, fine and gross motor, and social-emotional, are addressed. The editors intended for the book to be used by advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as by current practitioners in such diverse areas of practice as psychology, education, social work, and medicine. We concur that the text offers new information for established practitioners and provides extensive background for those new to the field of assessment of preschool children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Language development in the preschool years.

Reviews the book, Language development in the preschool years by Gordon Wells (1985). This is the second report of a massive study of child language that has come to be known as "the Bristol study." It was carried out on local children by members of the University of Bristol. It is the best longitudinal study of its type that I have seen. Educators will find the book useful. Many people are worried about the "permissible" limits of variability: when a child is to be treated as normal and when professional intervention is required. The book gives no precise rules, but it can help to inform judgement. Taking one thing with another, the book is replete with useful information that the student of child language will not want to be without. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Handbook of psychopathy.

Reviews the book, Handbook of psychopathy edited by Christopher J. Patrick (2007). This book aims to address these new developments. The book includes 31 chapters from leading researchers in the field. Chapters are organised into six sections, although the final one consists solely of a summary commentary by Patrick. Overall, this book provides a comprehensive review of the divergent research areas that have surfaced in the decades following the advent of the PCL-R and, as such, it promises to be an important reference for years to come. Some chapters are well suited for graduate courses in psychology (e.g., those reviewing theoretical perspectives and applied topics), criminology (e.g., Farrington's chapter), psychiatry (e.g., Minzenberg and Siever's chapter), and neuroscience (i.e., those reviewing neurobiological findings), and some will undoubtedly serve as important starting points for future research (e.g., chapters on etiological mechanisms), both in terms of delineating potentially fruitful lines of enquiry and important methodological limitations to overcome. However, this text is primarily of academic interest, with chapters mainly authored by researchers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says.

Reviews the book, Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says edited by Jonathan A. Plucker and Carolyn M. Callahan (see record 2008-01728-000). Over the years, gifted education has received substantial criticism in and beyond the research literature (e.g., Grant, 2002; Sapon-Shevin, 1993). Criticisms have fallen into several camps. One group of critics describes gifted education as elitist and suggests that there should not be special programs for high-achieving students. Others criticize how giftedness is defined and more frequently how gifted students are identified, and even suggest that gifted education is responsible for maintaining the achievement gap. Some critics comment on the programming choices available for students who are identified, and others criticize the field of gifted education for making decisions based on fads and myths rather than empirical evidence. This context provides a backdrop for the publication of Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says. In this book, the authors have attempted to bring together research that addresses almost all of the aforementioned issues. Their goal is aptly stated in the book’s introduction: “Despite a century of research on giftedness, the enthusiasm and rhetoric surrounding...services offered to gifted students often exceeds the level of available empirical support—or even contradicts the available evidence” (Plucker & Callahan, 2008b, pp. 1). The editors go on to state that their goal is to be inclusive, but brief. Thus, they included chapters across several domains—conceptual and foundational issues, curriculum, cognition, affect, programming, issues related to teacher and parents, and special populations—that are synopses rather than comprehensive reviews of the empirical literature in the field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The education of the patient with cardiac disease in the twenty-first century.

Reviews the book, The education of the patient with cardiac disease in the twenty-first century edited by N. K. Wenger (1986). Patient education, with particular emphasis on cardiac disease, is the theme of this work. The book is encyclopedic and contains in a single volume the current state of the art, as well as the near-future of patient education. Physicians and psychologists will find this book to be a helpful tool in educating medical students in how to communicate and relate to their patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Laboratory Instrumentation in Psychology.

Reviews the book "Laboratory instrumentation in psychology," by William W. Grings (see record 1955-01753-000). It has been Grings's purpose to provide in convenient form a discussion of the basic characteristics of representative stimulating and recording systems, principally for use with human subjects. It is explicitly stated that the book is intended to be an introduction rather than an ultimate guide to research. The primary effort is to suggest by illustration the types of question that must be asked when apparatus is adopted to extend measurement and control. Altogether, the usefulness of the book far outweighs its limitations, and the advanced student or the teacher in laboratory courses will find it of considerable help in surveying the technical tools of the trade. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Culture and Psychopathology.

Reviews the book, Culture and Psychopathology, edited by Ihsan Al-Issa (1982). This book consists of 16 chapters on different aspects and issues of the study of psychopathology cross-culturally by a number of different authors, many of them well-known authorities in the field. Topics covered include methodology in cross-cultural psychopathology, social class and affective disorders, culture-bound syndromes, personality abnormalities, alcohol abuse, sexual deviation, psychosomatics, and pain. The book will serve as a good reference both for those interested in the findings of the research on the influence of culture on psychopathology and for those concerned with the issues and problems of research in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Methods of research.

Reviews the book, Methods of Research (see record 1955-00057-000). The book is a lengthy volume addressed to "field workers, graduate students and members of the senior division of the undergraduate college who would evaluate the quality of conclusions, either as producers or consumers of research." The book has a number of collateral values which make it a useful reference work, including extensive bibliographies. The reviewer notes, though, that the work carries implications which will trouble many readers. It implies the primacy of data collection and treatment over the process of reflection from whence come the theories and hypotheses which direct the choice of data to be collected. It carries implications that all kinds of data collection are equally respectable, from an intellectual point of view, as indeed they are where only procedural questions arise. It implies that the student can be trained to "evaluate the quality of conclusions" on the basis of acquaintanceship and reference knowledge, i.e., knowledge of where to go in order to acquire the competency which will make one capable of asking the significant questions in the evaluation of the quality of conclusions. All of this seems to the reviewer to be likely to produce bystanders rather than participants in scientific work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cross-cultural research methods in psychology.

Reviews the book, Cross-cultural research methods in psychology edited by David Matsumoto and Fons J. R. Van de Vijver (see record 2010-22491-000). The purpose of this book is to further the potential of cross-cultural psychology by helping researchers to understand the unique difficulties inherent in the field and the current methodologies used to advance quality research. Matsumoto and van de Vijver have compiled a comprehensive yet simply organized volume that speaks to the theoretical and analytic issues met by graduate students and advanced researchers alike. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Reassessing psychotherapy research.

Reviews the book, Reassessing psychotherapy research edited by Robert L. Russell (see record 1994-98237-000). This book, with its international representation of contributors, attempts to address central issues in contemporary ("fourth generation") psychotherapy research. The main tenet is that much dominant psychotherapy research has focused on outcome, curative factors, and scientific rigor and overlooked the richness of therapeutic process. This book does as the title suggests: addresses content and process issues, balanced with methodological sophistication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Panic: Psychological perspectives.

Reviews the book, Panic: Psychological perspectives edited by S. Rachman and Jack D. Maser (see record 1988-97293-000). This volume's forerunner (1985) was the excellent compilation Anxiety and the Anxiety Disorders, edited by Tuma and Maser, which contained facts and theories from all standpoints. The current volume exemplifies the workings of history's pendulum. Although the 1985 volume enabled "psychological and cognitive investigators to present their points of view in many areas of anxiety research, the topic of panic was still dominated by biological studies." The editors have done much the rational reader would look forward to: develop an area at the cutting edge of science, demand thoughtful reviews, expose the reviews to the hurly burly of a meeting, and finally publish the revised papers. Rachman and Maser have produced a useful volume that exceeds most multiauthored edited publications. However, it could have been even better if it had included more directly critical reviews from those who consider the data analyses and theories presented often weak or tendentious and sometimes just beside the point. The advice to the reader interested in this area is to read this book, but recognize its partiality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Assessment: Assessment in special and remedial education (4th ed.).

Reviews the book, Assessment: Assessment in special and remedial education (4th ed.) by J. Salvia and J. E. Ysseldyke (1988). I was pleased to have been invited to review Salvia and Ysseldyke's book for Professional School Psychology because I have used each of its earlier editions as a required text. For approximately 5 years, I taught an undergraduate course entitled, Survey of Individual Tests, in which the Salvia and Ysseldyke book was my text of choice. I selected the book over several current and dated competitors because it provided coverage of both psychometric issues and available instrumentation within several assessment domains. Its coverage was more appropriate for lower division undergraduates than a book such as Anastasi's (1988) Psychological Testing. During that 5-year period, I became intimately familiar with the content of the text and learned its strengths and weaknesses. Upon receiving the review copy of the Fourth Edition I was anxious to discover the degree to which this edition had changed from its earlier editions. This review critiques the current text's attributes and shortcomings and explores the depth of revision that was incorporated into the newest edition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Cambridge handbook of creativity.

Reviews the book, The Cambridge handbook of creativity edited by James C. Kaufman and Robert J. Sternberg (see record 2010-21837-000). Over a decade has passed since Sternberg edited the Handbook of Creativity for Cambridge University Press. In the intervening years, Kaufman and Sternberg tell us that more than 10,000 publications have been devoted to the topic of creativity. Creativity has become a valued resource. And yet, as Kaufman and Sternberg point out in this volume, even after six decades of research, definitions of creativity remain elusive. Creativity research continues to be the subject of much debate. Still, the chapters in this volume demonstrate that progress is being made with an increasing convergence of components, contexts, and complexity. The handbook is informative for students and newcomers to the field, as well as for those looking for up-to-date reviews of major theories and applications of creativity research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Interviewing in social research.

Reviews the book "Interviewing in social research" by H. H. Hyman, with W. J. Cobb, J. J. Feldman, C. W. Hard and C. H. Stember (1954). The book reports a series of studies by the National Opinion Research Center. The book is not, as the name implies, a treatise on interviewing methods, but is a series of investigations into the the nature and sources of bias in the interview. The focus of the research is the interviewing survey research, although it is obvious that many of the findings can be generalized to other types of interviews, not only in social science research but wherever the interview is used as a means of collecting information. It is by far the most comprehensive and best documented book in the field. In addition to the original research contributions, the authors have done an exhaustive job in reviewing previous research in the area. This reviewer considers the book a major contribution to social science measurement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review Contemporary Theory in Research in Visual Perception.

Reviews the book, Contemporary Theory in Research in Visual Perception by Ralph Norman Haber (ed.) (1968). In organizing the book, Haber had in mind the idea that perception represents a continuum along the classical problems on sensation and memory. The book has seven major sections. Each section is composed of a number of articles taken from the literature during the last few years. Haber has tried to be up-to-date and, as a result, has eliminated many classical studies. The aim of the book, to give a review of perception using articles and to limit the scope to a specific type of perceptual work or to emphasize a particular type of perceptual work, is an interesting idea. It does limit the experience which a student may have in learning perception, who might at some later date wish to deal with perception in the laboratory, or rather, to become a psychologist working in the laboratory in perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Stress inoculation training.

Reviews the book Stress Inoculation Training (1985) by D. Meichenbaum. This relatively brief book provides a worthwhile and practical overview of stress inoculation training (SIT). The book is organized into seven chapters. In the first chapter, the conceptual basis of stress inoculation is presented and the transactional nature of stress is described. Chapter 2 presents clinical guidelines for stress management programs. Meichenbaum contends that mental health professionals often intervene without an adequate understanding of the client's problem and the process of change. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the SIT process. This includes three phases: (a) conceptualization, (b) skills acquisition and rehearsal, (c) application and follow-through. A summary of populations with which SIT has been used is also presented. Chapter 4 details the conceptualization phase of SIT. This phase focuses on establishing a collaborative relationship with the client, determining the nature of the client's problem, and helping the client to understand the nature and effects of stress. Chapter 5 focuses on the skill acquisition and rehearsal phase of SIT. The coping skills that are trained during this phase should appear to be a natural outgrowth of the reconceptualization process. Chapter 6 describes the application and follow-through phase of SIT. The goal of this phase is to help clients implement coping responses outside of the training sessions. In the last chapter, applications of SIT to varied populations are described and discussed. This book does not contain an in-depth critical review of SIT research. However, this book does provide an excellent overview of clinical, practical issues, and guidelines related to SIT training. It contains a variety of implementation tactics not found in other publications on SIT. In general, the book sets forth an excellent state-of-the-art presentation of SIT implementation issues and guidelines for use of SIT in professional practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Principles of industrial psychology.

Reviews the book, Principles of Industrial Psychology (see record 1955-01700-000). Although "the book is designed as an introductory survey of the entire field of industrial psychology," the reviewer notes that the authors omit many topics. The book presents in substantial fashion those aspects of industrial psychology as the authors perceive it to be. The style of presentation is characterized by critically evaluating research studies reported in the literature and emphasizing the necessary statistical concepts and techniques related to selection of employees. The heavy statistical involvement may make this book a little too difficult for the typical undergraduate student who is not a psychology or statistics major. The reviewer concludes that Principles of Industrial Psychology is an interesting book for a sophisticated audience. It may be misunderstood by typical undergraduates and it may not be too appealing to the man in industry who wishes to apply some principles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychology: The adaptive mind.

Reviews the book, Psychology: The adaptive mind by James S. Nairne, Martin S. Smith, and D. Stephen Lindsay (2001). This book contains references to Canadian researchers past and present and to Canadian websites, pictures of Canadian researchers, references to Canadian incidents (the Swissair flight crash off the coast of Nova Scotia opens the text), citations to the Canadian Psychological Association as well as to Canadian funding agencies (e.g., SSHRC, NSERC), and mentions of Canadian institutions. The reviewer was impressed by the fact that the authors accomplish their Canadian task without compromising any of the classic topics and studies in the field. The authors' writing style is accessible and easy to follow. The 16 chapters are well organized and thorough. The examples are relevant and of interest to undergraduate students. This text, while not addressing the issue directly, does note that women have been overlooked in historical treatments of psychology and makes a point of including the influence of women pioneers in psychology. A second concerns the overreliance on undergraduate students as research participants representing the adult population. The reviewer find this text to rank among the best when considering Introductory Psychology textbooks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Psychotherapy and Personality Change.

Reviews the book "Psychotherapy and personality change," edited by Rosalind F. Dymond (see record 1955-04163-000). This is a truly impressive book, if one holds any brief for the value of objective research where psychotherapy is concerned. It is still much too early to hope that discussions of psychotherapy can be aimed at concrete problems involving specific principles. This progress report from the Counseling Center of the University of Chicago should convince anyone that objective research on psychotherapy is possible and may, eventually, pay off with concrete results. It should also convince the fainthearted that research on psychotherapy with real patients who have real problems might best be left to those who have great courage, considerable dedication, and the foresight to equip themselves in advance with a large grant from a foundation. This book is another testimonial to the fact that psychotherapy is rapidly becoming a legitimate field of scientific research as well as an applied art. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)