Pathway to efficacy: Recognizing cognitive behavioral therapy as an underlying theory for adventure therapy

This paper examines information on the histories, definitions, and components of adventure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy to determine if cognitive behavioral therapy provides a theoretical basis upon which the efficacy of adventure therapy can be judged. It is found that adventure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy share aspects including transformation of distorted thinking patterns, a focus on current and future functioning, consideration of the interrelationship between the counselor and the client, and understanding the use of stress as a part of the change process. By recognizing cognitive behavioral therapy as the empirically sound, underlying theory for adventure therapy researchers will be able to determine the effective components of therapy in the outdoors.     

Pathway to efficacy: Recognizing cognitive behavioral therapy as an underlying theory for adventure therapy

Abstract

This paper examines information on the histories, definitions, and components of adventure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy to determine if cognitive behavioral therapy provides a theoretical basis upon which the efficacy of adventure therapy can be judged. It is found that adventure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy share aspects including transformation of distorted thinking patterns, a focus on current and future functioning, consideration of the interrelationship between the counselor and the client, and understanding the use of stress as a part of the change process. By recognizing cognitive behavioral therapy as the empirically sound, underlying theory for adventure therapy researchers will be able to determine the effective components of therapy in the outdoors.     

孤独症儿童及其矫治方法的调查研究

通过对孤独症儿童的家长和孤独症治疗机构的调查,初步了解了孤独症儿童的基本情况以及各种矫治方法的应用。得出的结论如下:(1)被调查的21名孤独症儿童一般都在发现异常后及时诊断,都能够在家庭或治疗训练机构进行训练。(2)越是晚出生的孤独症孩子,其得到治疗的机会就越多,其预后状况越是乐观。(3)家长一般根据朋友推荐、医生或权威人士推荐、网上获悉来选择治疗训练机构。(4)治疗机构最常用的方法是感觉统合训练,而家庭最常用的方法是游戏疗法;治疗机构中最有效的方法被认为是行为治疗,而家庭中最有效的方法被认为是游戏疗法;治疗机构中最无效的方法被认为是药物治疗,家庭中最无效的方法被认为是感觉统合治疗。(5)每个治疗机构都有自己的训练方法、治疗机构都比较认可自己机构的训练方法。但是关键在于能否真正针对每个孩子的特殊情况来做,对孤独症儿童的训练将是终身性的。     

Interrelations between self‐efficacy and learning approaches: a developmental approach

Two major theoretical frameworks in educational psychology, namely student approaches to learning (SAL) and self‐efficacy have been used extensively to explain and predict students’ learning and academic achievement. There is a substantial body of research studies, for example, that documents the positive interrelations between individuals’ self‐efficacy beliefs and their approaches to learning. In particular, evidence ascertained from structural equation analyses suggests both a positive sense of academic self‐efficacy and deep learning approach combined to influence students’ academic achievement. More recently, albeit limited, research has focused on the study of developmental changes of these two constructs over time. As a contribution to this approach, we used latent growth curve modelling (LGM) to explore the initial states and trajectories of self‐efficacy and the two major learning approaches – surface and deep – over a two‐year period. Furthermore, we regressed both gender and academic experience as possible external correlates that could account for the change in the two theoretical frameworks. Two hundred and fifty‐two (116 females, 136 males) university students were administered Likert‐scale inventories on three occasions. SPSS AMOS showed a few major findings – notably, for example, the negative impact of academic experience on the change in self‐efficacy and the positive impact of academic experience on the initial states of self‐efficacy and surface learning approach.     

Understanding student behavioral engagement: Importance of student interaction with peers and teachers

Recent theoretical conceptualizations of student engagement have raised questions about how to measure student engagement and how engagement varies not only across schools, but also within school and within classrooms. The authors build on existing research on student behavioral engagement and extend this research to emphasize a continuum of disengagement, active engagement, and passive engagement. They review common approaches to measuring engagement and highlight areas where new theoretical conceptualizations of engagement require new approaches to measurement. The authors analyze how student behavioral engagement changed depending on the context and demonstrate the need of a finer scale of engagement. They find there was not a uniform association of higher behavioral engagement and student interaction with peers, but it was the interaction with other students and the teacher that was predictive of increased engagement. Their work suggests that disaggregating behavioral engagement into disengagement, active engagement, and passive engagement has important research and conceptual implications.     

Test Anxiety Interventions for Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Treatment Studies from 2000–2010

High‐stakes tests have played an increasingly important role in how student achievement and school effectiveness are measured. Test anxiety has risen with the use of tests in educational decision making. Students with high test anxiety perform poorly on tests when compared to students with low test anxiety. School psychologists can play an important role as experts both in tests and measurement and mental health in providing consultation and treatment for students with test anxiety. This article describes the results of a systematic literature review of the last 10 years of test‐anxiety interventions. Results indicate that there are few studies that have examined test‐anxiety interventions with elementary and secondary school students. However, techniques including biofeedback, behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, priming competency, and mixed approaches have demonstrated promising results. Suggestions are made for school psychologists for the delivery of evidenced‐based test anxiety interventions.     

PTSD symptom cluster profiles of youth who have experienced sexual or physical abuse

The research examined whether youth (6–17 years old) who were referred for treatment due to sexual, physical, or both types of abuse presented with distinct profiles of PTSD DSM-IV-TR symptom clusters. When examining data for the 749 youth participants, five PTSD symptom cluster profiles were identified with each profile representing approximately 20% of the youth. The five profiles were also differentiated with respect to being referred for physical or sexual abuse, age, parental ratings of internalizing symptoms, and self-reported depression. The youth referred for treatment in the aftermath of child sexual, physical, or both sexual and physical abuse presented with different profiles of PTSD symptom clusters thereby suggesting a need for individualized tailoring of evidenced-based treatments. Two cognitive behavioral approaches, designed for traumatized children and either their nonoffending or offending parents, were described for treating youth with the distinct PTSD profiles.     

国内青少年社交焦虑研究进展

在青少年社交焦虑的人口学特点上,国内研究结果存在矛盾;在影响青少年社交焦虑的因素上,研究发现不但消极的家庭教养方式、留守经历与社交焦虑关系密切,而且个体的社交技能、应对方式、人格特征、自我效能感和自尊等个体因素也对社交焦虑有重要影响。国内干预社交焦虑的常用方法主要有认知行为疗法、箱庭疗法、体育疗法、音乐疗法、综合性团体干预等。目前国内对不同疗法干预青少年社交焦虑效果的比较性研究还较缺乏,对留守儿童等特定群体社交焦虑的干预研究及社交焦虑的生理基础研究还有待深入。     

A comparison of workshop training versus intensive,experiential training for improving behavior support skills in early educators

Effective behavior support is an important component of high-quality and nurturing early childhood classroom settings. At present, there are few studies that investigate the best way to train and support teachers in these strategies. The present study compared two different training approaches: (1) a workshop that included a one-day classroom-based training that introduced effective preventative and behavior support strategies followed by school year behavioral consultation support; or (2) an intensive condition that included the one-day workshop plus four days of experiential learning and practice in a preschool classroom followed by school year behavioral consultation support. Eighty-eight teachers/aides were randomly assigned to one of the two training conditions, and training occurred in August before the commencement of the school year. Results indicated that on observations of effective behavioral management and instructional learning formats, teachers in the intensive condition were improved proximally, with effects waning over time. For measures of teacher use of praise, the intensive group maintained the improved rate throughout the school year relative to the workshop group. Rates of commands and observations of classroom productivity were not different between groups. Teachers were satisfied with both approaches to training.     

Group treatments for women sexually abused as children: a review of the literature and recommendations for future outcome research

OBJECTIVE: Adults with a history of sexual abuse often suffer many long-term consequences. It is important that therapists be able to provide effective treatment to address the host of issues that are presented in therapy by adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). In order to provide the best possible treatment, therapists should know which treatments are most effective. METHOD: This paper provides a critique of the outcome research of 13 studies (six uncontrolled and seven controlled) on the treatment of adults who suffered childhood sexual abuse and discusses specific methodological strategies that can enhance the quality of such research in the future. RESULTS: Although many of the studies contain methodological limitations, the results generally indicate that group treatment helps reduce symptomatology in the short-term and at follow-up. CONCLUSION: Although outcome research has not been published on specific individual or conjoint treatment approaches for adult survivors of CSA, several outcome studies have found group treatment to be effective in the recovery of female CSA survivors.     

Predicting Individual Variation in Language From Infant Speech Perception Measures

There are increasing reports that individual variation in behavioral and neurophysiological measures of infant speech processing predicts later language outcomes, and specifically concurrent or subsequent vocabulary size. If such findings are held up under scrutiny, they could both illuminate theoretical models of language development and contribute to the prediction of communicative disorders. A qualitative, systematic review of this emergent literature illustrated the variety of approaches that have been used and highlighted some conceptual problems regarding the measurements. A quantitative analysis of the same data established that the bivariate relation was significant, with correlations of similar strength to those found for well‐established nonlinguistic predictors of language. Further exploration of infant speech perception predictors, particularly from a methodological perspective, is recommended.     

Infant approach behavior as related to attachment.

The chief purpose of this study was to identify characteristics that distinguish approach as an attachment behavior from approach serving other behavioral systems. Locomotor approaches of 16 male and 10 female white middle-class infants to an attachment figure (the mother) and to a nonattachment figure (the visitor-observer) were examined under naturalistic conditions at home. Observations were made during 4-hour home visits at 3-week intervals; those from 26 to 54 weeks were used. When approach was examined in a free-choice situation and without regard to behavioral context, infants approached the mother proportionally (though slightly) more often than the visitor (p less than .05). In 2 behavioral contexts, however, spontaneous infant approaches were sharply differential to the mother; approaches accompanied by crying and approaches terminating in a pickup appeal were directed almost exclusively to the mother (p less than .0001 for both). Touching upon completion of the approach was not differential, except in the context of a pickup appeal. Object-oriented approaches were more often directed to the visitor than to the mother (p less than .002) and may be either exploratory or affiliative. It is suggested that neither approach nor touching can be assumed to serve the attachment system without consideration of context- both environmental and behavioral.     

人性观与心理咨询策略

探讨人性的本质有助于心理学家更好地了解人、关心人。在心理咨询和治疗中，人性观是一切方法和技术的理论基础，不同学派有其不同的人性观假设。在进行心理咨询时，应充分考虑到咨询师自己的人性观和来访者的人性观背景，在确立咨询态度时，注意自己的基本假设。     

从美国学习障碍定义演变的角度探索其理论分析框架

该文在分析美国不同时期学习障碍定义的内容、特点及构成要素的基础上 ,探索出学习障碍的理论分析框架 :学习障碍主要表现为学业成就、语言的理解与运用、学业 -潜能差异、认知心理过程等方面的困难或障碍 ,并包括排它性条款及神经病理学特征等要素 ;对学习障碍的认识从单一学科逐步向多学科模式发展、从重视深层的神经病理特征向重视外部学业领域行为特征过渡 ,其鉴定以外部行为特征为主 ,并据此对内部心理、神经病理特征进行推测。     

Matching teaching to learners: A review of a decade of research

Thirty-five studies relating to D. E. Hunt's notion of matching environments to learners were reviewed. The studies were grouped according to their outcome measures into affective, behavioral, and achievement outcomes. Empirical support for the matching principle was found for all three outcomes, but varied from strong support for affective and behavioral criteria to moderate support for achievement. The article discusses these differences, and advocates that future research studies give greater attention to the conceptualization and measurement of teaching environments. It concludes that there is empirical validation for the matching principle, and that matching is a meaningful way of describing the process of adapting instructional approaches to student differences.     

Enhancing Mathematical Problem Solving for Secondary Students with or at Risk of Learning Disabilities: A Literature Review

Requirements for reasoning, explaining, and generalizing mathematical concepts increase as students advance through the educational system; hence, improving overall mathematical proficiency is critical. Mathematical proficiency requires students to interpret quantities and their corresponding relationships during problem‐solving tasks as well as generalizing to different contexts; both requirements are particularly challenging for many students with learning disabilities. An in‐depth review of research was completed to (1) demonstrate how interventions targeting mathematical problem solving are categorized into heuristic, semantic, or authentic approaches; (2) explore the degree to which generalization is presented in each approach; and (3) determine the efficacy of each intervention approach. Experimental studies (n = 17) demonstrating the effects of interventions designed to enhance mathematical problem solving for secondary students with or at risk of learning disabilities were analyzed. Findings indicate that the efficacy of the three intervention approaches varies, and that the real‐world connections differ. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Efficacy of Cognitive‐Behavioral therapy in the treatment of children with adhd,with and without aggressiveness

The objectives of this study were twofold: to show the efficacy of a cognitive‐behavioral self‐control therapy on children with ADHD and to determine whether the combination of training in self‐control with training in anger management has better outcomes on two subgroups of hyperactive children, aggressive and nonaggressive. Thirty‐two children with ADHD, 16 aggressive and 16 nonaggressive, participated in the research. We applied a cognitive‐behavioral self‐control training, which included self‐instructional training via modeling and behavioral contingencies, to 16 of the 32 hyperactive children. The other 16 hyperactive children were taught the same program, but combined with anger management training. The interventions were carried out by two therapists each taking care of four groups, one of each in the following conditions: hyperactive with the cognitive‐behavioral self‐control therapy, hyperactive with the combined treatment, hyperactive‐aggressive with the cognitive‐behavioral self‐control therapy, and hyperactive‐aggressive with the combined treatment. The results indicated important improvements on several measures in all treated groups. Furthermore the improvements of children with aggressiveness were slightly better, according to the parents, with the combined treatment than without it. The data provide support for including anger management training in the cognitive‐behavioral interventions for hyperactive‐aggressive students. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Is treatment too late: what ten years of evaluative research tell us

Since 1974, the U.S. federal government has funded four major multiyear evaluation studies to determine the relative effectiveness of different approaches to the treatment of child abuse and neglect. A total of 89 different demonstration treatment programs were studied, and data on 3,253 families experiencing difficulties with abuse and neglect were gathered. Collectively, the studies document treatment approaches which improve clients' functioning (notably lay counseling and various group services including Parents Anonymous, group therapy, and parent evaluation) and suggest greater success with clients experiencing difficulty with sexual abuse than other forms of maltreatment. However, overall the studies show that one-third or more of the parents served by these intensive demonstration efforts maltreated their children while in treatment, and over one-half of the families served continued to be judged likely to mistreat their children following termination.