An analysis of differential response patterns on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB in struggling adult readers and third-grade children

This study examines the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-IIIB (PPVT-IIIB) performance of 130 adults identified as struggling readers, in comparison to 175 third-grade children. Response patterns to the items on the PPVT-IIIB by these two groups were investigated, focusing on items, semantic categories, and lexical features, including word length, word class, and word frequency. The score distributional properties of the two groups were different, but there were similarities and differences found in different response patterns. Analyses of word length, word class, and word frequency in the two groups?? performance resulted in counterintuitive findings for the adult participants. The struggling adult learners?? vocabulary repertoire might have been shaped by their real-life experiences rather than formal schooling. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Book reviews and notes

CRISIS IN THE CLASSROOM by Charles E. Silberman. New York: Random House, 1970. vii +553 pp. $10.00.

CRISIS IN CHILD MENTAL HEALTH: CHALLENGE FOR THE 1970's, A Report of the Joint Commission on Mental Health of Children. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. 578 pp. $10.00.

AMERICA'S OTHER CHILDREN edited by George Henderson. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. xi + 430 pp. $8.95.

PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED by Paulo Freire. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970. 186 pp. $5.95.

CHILDREN AND CIVIC AWARENESS by Charles F. Andrain. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 1971, vii + 214 pp. $3.95 paperback.

MENTAL RETARDATION: ITS SOCIAL CONTEXT AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES by Bernard Farber. Atlanta, Georgia: Houghton‐Mifflin Co., 1968. 271 pp. $6.95.

KINSHIP AND CLASS: A MIDWESTERN STUDY by Bernard Farber, New York: Basic Book Publishers, 1971. 210 pp. $7.95.

COMMUNITY KINSHIP AND COMPETENCE, Volume 3, Research and Development Program on Preschool Disadvantaged Children, Final Report, Project No. 5‐1181, Contract No. 0E6‐10‐235, Bureau of Research, Office of Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Urbana: Univeristy of Illinois, May 1969. 300 pp.

THE SOCIAL ORDER OF THE SLUM: ETHNICITY AND TERRITORY IN THE INNER CITY by Gerald D. Suttles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. 243 pp. $8.95.

ANY PERSON, ANY STUDY by Eric Ashby. New York: McGraw‐Hill Book Company, 1971. 106 pp. $4.95.     

Exploring Survivor Experiences and Emotions Expressed about Loss and Responsibility Following a Thrombosis Event

We explored the experiences and emotions women expressed about having a blood clot, including revelations about family members' decision to avoid disclosing inherited risk for clotting. We do this through analysis of in-depth life reflection interviews (N = 20) of women who experienced a first venous blood clot between the ages of 18 and 50 years. Selective coding reduced the data to an overarching story associated with thrombosis survivorship and loss across multiple life domains. The themes identified include participant revelations about living in the shadow of genetic susceptibility for thrombosis. Participants manage changes associated with lingering health effects, and daily routines for work and life, adapting their lives to manage coagulability. A second theme reveals the fallout linked to the severity of thrombosis encompassed in haunting psychological scenarios, persistent emotional concerns, and social discrimination. Participants assumed responsibility to disclose inherited risk, with the women expressing empowerment in knowing risks and acknowledging possible genetic testing mistakes. The overarching perspective was one of hope through proactive actions in occupational, recreational, and relational realms. We offer our findings as a theoretical depiction of thrombosis survivor identity and the need for public health and clinical communication to support disclosing family history for clotting.     

Chinese Radical Detection Also Depends on Linguistic Role

This study tests whether the linguistic role of a character in Chinese text affects detection of its constituent radicals. Linguistic role or status of an embedding context (e.g., word) has been shown to affect detection of embedded constituent units (e.g., letters) when reading alphabetic texts. Given significant differences between alphabetic and logographic systems such as English and Chinese, respectively, it is not clear whether the embedding linguistic role has a similar influence on constituent unit detection in Chinese. Findings here reveal that the linguistic role of the embedding context in Chinese contributes significantly to constituent detection. The outcome is consistent with the structural hypothesis, which posits that during reading, the prominence of linguistic units rapidly shifts from items contributing to structure to those that contribute meaning. Of note, the present study shows that this shifting importance of linguistic units applies to logographic as well as alphabetic systems.     

Measuring adult literacy students’ reading skills using the Gray Oral Reading Test

There are not enough reading tests standardized on adults who have very low literacy skills, and therefore tests standardized on children are frequently administered. This study addressed the complexities and problems of using a test normed on children to measure the reading comprehension skills of 193 adults who read at approximately third through fifth grade reading grade equivalency levels. Findings are reported from an analysis of the administration of Form A of the Gray Oral Reading Tests—Fourth Edition (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2001a, b). Results indicated that educators and researchers should be very cautious when interpreting test results of adults who have difficulty reading when children’s norm-referenced tests are administered.