Tests of a principle of reflex modification: Modification of the human eyeblink-reflex is independent of the intensity of the reflex-eliciting stimulus

The human airpuff-elicited reflexive eyeblink, like the startle reflex of rats and pigeons, occurs with either reduced amplitude or latency when a brief auditory stimulus precedes the reflex-eliciting event by an appropriate lead interval. In common with the overt startle reflex of lower animals, the degree of inhibition or latency reduction of an airpuff-elicited eyeblink in human adults proved to be independent of the intensity of the eyeblink-eliciting airpuff. This finding supports the principle that the amount of a given reflex modification effect (whether latency or amplitude reduction) is determined by the parameters and lead time of the modifying stimulus and not by those of the reflex-eliciting event.     

Examining agreement and longitudinal stability among traditional and RTI-based definitions of reading disability using the affected-status agreement statistic

Rates of agreement among alternative definitions of reading disability and their 1- and 2-year stabilities were examined using a new measure of agreement, the affected-status agreement statistic. Participants were 288,114 first through third grade students. Reading measures were Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Oral Reading Fluency and Nonsense Word Fluency, and six levels of severity of poor reading were examined (25th, 20th, 15th, 10th, 5th, and 3rd percentile ranks). Four definitions were compared, including traditional unexpected low achievement and three response-to-intervention-based definitions: low achievement, low growth, and dual discrepancy. Rates of agreement were variable but only poor to moderate overall, with poorest agreement between unexpected low achievement and the other definitions. Longitudinal stability was poor, with poorest stability for the low growth definition. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

A Simulation Study on the Performance of the Simple Difference and Covariance‐Adjusted Scores in Randomized Experimental Designs

Research by Huck and McLean (1975) demonstrated that the covariance‐adjusted score is more powerful than the simple difference score, yet recent reviews indicate researchers are equally likely to use either score type in two‐wave randomized experimental designs. A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to examine the conditions under which the simple difference and covariance‐adjusted scores were more or less powerful to detect treatment effects when relaxing certain assumptions made by Huck and McLean (1975) . Four factors were manipulated in the design including sample size, normality of the pretest and posttest distributions, the correlation between pretest and posttest, and posttest variance. A 5 × 5 × 4 × 3 mostly crossed design was run with 1,000 replications per condition, resulting in 226,000 unique samples. The gain score was nearly as powerful as the covariance‐adjusted score when pretest and posttest variances were equal, and as powerful in fan‐spread growth conditions; thus, under certain circumstances the gain score could be used in two‐wave randomized experimental designs.     

Assessment of Preschool Early Literacy Skills: Linking Children's Educational Needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities

The importance of the preschool period for becoming a skilled reader is highlighted by a significant body of evidence that preschool children's development in the areas of oral language, phonological awareness, and print knowledge is predictive of how well they will learn to read once they are exposed to formal reading instruction in elementary school. Although there are now a number of empirically supported instructional activities for helping children who are at -risk of later reading difficulties acquire these early literacy skills, limitations in instructional time and opportunities in most preschool settings requires the use of valid assessment procedures to ensure that instructional resources are utilized efficiently. In this paper, we discuss the degree to which informal, diagnostic, screening, and progress-monitoring assessments of preschool early literacy skills can inform instructional decisions by considering the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to assessment.     

Supervisee Incompatibility and Its Influence on Triadic Supervision: An Examination of Doctoral Student Supervisors' Perspectives

A qualitative study was conducted to explore supervisors' experiences of supervisee incompatibility in triadic supervision. In‐depth interviews were completed with 9 doctoral student supervisors in a counselor education program, and a whole‐text analysis generated 3 categories. Supervisee incompatibility took a wide variety of forms and negatively affected the content of supervision, including its progress and productivity. It also negatively influenced the process of supervision, including the feedback and support offered by either the supervisor or the supervisees and the general atmosphere of supervision meetings. Implications of the findings for counseling supervision and for further research are also addressed.     

Navigating the Gifted Bubble: Black Adults Reflecting on Their Transition Experiences in NYC Gifted Programs

Through the reflections of 17 Black adults who attended gifted schools in New York City, this qualitative study investigated how they transitioned into and through gifted programs as students. Findings suggest four themes: (a) Many students were referred to gifted programs during their elementary school experience either by their teachers or by their parents; (b) participants expressed having an easy transition into gifted programs in elementary because their schools and gifted programs were racially diverse and provided a welcoming school environment; (c) during middle and high school, participants noted difficulty transitioning through school as gifted students, due to being one of few Black students in their gifted programs, as well as having to attend schools outside of their neighborhood; and (d) despite this, through supportive relationships and community partnerships, they were able to find the space to survive (and thrive) in their programs. Recommendations are provided for educators to support gifted Black students.     

Optimal strictly positive real controllers using direct optimization

In this paper, we consider the H₂-optimal control problem subject to the constraint that the resulting controller be strictly positive real. A direct numerical optimization approach is adopted in conjunction with a controller parametrization that is linear in the unknown parameters. The SPR constraint is easily expressed at each frequency in the form of a linear inequality. The method is applied to a numerical example from the literature and good results are achieved. In particular, the proposed method is particularly adept at determining low order controllers.