Mentoring in a Graduate Counseling Program: Students Helping Students

This article presents a student-to-student mentoring program, which matches current and incoming students to ease the new student's transition to and involvement in graduate school.     

How specific is the shape bias?

Children tend to extend object names on the basis of sameness of shape, rather than size, color, or material-a tendency that has been dubbed the shape bias. Is the shape bias the result of well-learned associations between words and objects? Or does it exist because of a general belief that shape is a good indicator of object category membership? The present three studies addressed this debate by exploring whether the shape bias is specific to naming. In Study 1, 3-year-olds showed the shape bias both when asked to extend a novel name and when asked to select an object of the same kind as a target object. Study 2 found the same shape bias when children were asked to generalize properties relevant to category membership. Study 3 replicated the findings from Study 1 with 2-year-olds. These findings suggest that the shape bias derives from children's beliefs about object kinds and is not the product of associative learning.     

Interstimulus interval determines whether ethanol produces conditioned place preference or aversion in mice

DBA/2J mice were exposed to a distinctive floor stimulus (CS+) and ethanol (2 g/kg) in a place conditioning paradigm. A different floor stimulus (CS?) was presented with saline. Mice injected just before or 30 min before CS exposure (Groups 0, ?30) showed conditioned place preference, whereas mice injected right after exposure to the CS (Group 5) displayed place aversion (Experiment 1). None of the other groups (?120, ?60, 15, 60) showed place conditioning. Handling and saline injection given just before or after CS exposure were unable to produce place conditioning (Experiment 2). However, there was a positive relationship between ethanol concentration (10% vs. 20%) and test performance, suggesting that peritoneal irritation influences place conditioning (Experiment 3). Overall, these findings support the suggestion that intraperitoneal injection of ethanol produces an initial short-duration aversive effect that is followed by a longer lasting positive motivational effect.     

Childhood emotional abuse and disordered eating among undergraduate females: mediating influence of alexithymia and distress

OBJECTIVE: Drawing from stress-vulnerability and trauma theory (e.g., Rorty & Yager, 1996), this paper presents a model of associations among child emotional abuse (CEA), alexithymia, general distress (GD), and disordered eating (DE). This study extended previous research on psychological outcomes of child physical and sexual abuse to explore those of CEA using measures of specific emotionally abusive acts. METHOD: Five hundred and eighty-eight female university students completed self-report surveys consisting of measures of CEA, alexithymia, depression, anxiety, and DE. Structural equation modeling was used to test this conceptual model. RESULTS: Comparison between measurement models suggested that bulimic behavior is a separate construct from restrictive eating behaviors and body dissatisfaction. In the structural model with the best fit, the association between CEA and DE was mediated by alexithymia and GD (i.e., a component of depression and anxiety). Specifically, CEA was associated with alexithymia, which was further related to GD. Then, restrictive eating behaviors and attitudes mediated the relation between GD and bulimic behaviors. By analyzing a second, nested model, this latter pathway was shown to be important. CONCLUSION: While the best-fitting model is only one of many possibilities, these results point to a weak-but significant-complex relation between CEA and DE. They are associated through a series of mediating relations in a multivariate model including alexithymia and GD. The current study supports research suggesting that child emotional abuse can have a negative impact on its survivors. Treatment of those survivors manifesting disordered eating should be holistic, as opposed to targeted towards specific symptoms.     

Developing preservice teachers’ sensitivity and confidence: a service-learning experience at a homeless shelter

ABSTRACT

This article describes how early childhood preservice teachers can develop sensitivity toward and confidence in working with children who are homeless through a service learning project. The 14 weeks intervention provided an opportunity for undergraduate early childhood teacher candidates to gain real-life experience working with among the most vulnerable of all children—those who are homeless. Results of this project suggest that through implementing art integrated literacy activities with children in a homeless shelter, teacher candidates alter their deficit views of homelessness and at the same time develop confidence in their ability to work with homeless children and their families.     

A recursive techniques editor for Prolog

We describe an editor geared to recursive Prolog procedures. It is similar to the structure editors built for many programming languages, except that instead of just ensuring the correctness of the syntax of the procedures built by the editor, the editor also ensures the correct use of recursion. By correct here we mean that the recursive procedure is guaranteed to terminate and to be well-defined. Within these constraints we have tried to ensure that the range of procedures that can be built is as complete as possible.     

Discrete mathematics in deaf education: a survey of teachers' knowledge and use

The study documents what deaf education teachers know about discrete mathematics topics and determines if these topics are present in the mathematics curriculum. Survey data were collected from 290 mathematics teachers at center and public school programs serving a minimum of 120 students with hearing loss, grades K-8 or K-12, in the United States. Findings indicate that deaf education teachers are familiar with many discrete mathematics topics but do not include them in instruction because they consider the concepts too complicated for their students. Also, regardless of familiarity level, deaf education teachers are not familiar with discrete mathematics terminology; nor is their mathematics teaching structured to provide opportunities to apply the real-world-oriented activities used in discrete mathematics instruction. Findings emphasize the need for higher expectations of students with hearing loss, and for reform in mathematics curriculum and instruction within deaf education.