A Comparison of Professional Accreditation Standards in Marriage and Family Counseling and Therapy

This article is a summary and comparison of accreditation standards in marriage and family counseling and therapy by two accreditation bodies.     

Designing the Physical Aspects of On-Campus Counselor Education Clinics

A state-of-the-art on-campus counselor education clinic is described. Recommendations are offered to other counselor educators undertaking the design of similar clinics.     

Preparing Native American Counselors for the Chemically Dependent Native American

This article describes a one-year counselor training project conducted by the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and the University of Minnesota, Duluth. In the past three years, this program has graduated more than 60 participants, most of whom are now employed as counselors of alcoholics. Factors contributing to the effectiveness of the program are presented, four different classes are described in terms of integrating personal development with specific course content, and program outcome data regarding completion and employment are presented. It is our contention that the key to a successful Native American counseling program is involvement in, and control by, local tribal government and community members.     

Bridging the Gap Between Counselor Educators and the Administrators of Programs for the Elderly

This article compares the results of a nationwide survey of gerontological counseling experts and a sample of executive directors of Area Agencies on Aging identifying, confirming, and rank ordering the goals and roles of gerontological counselors. The data indicate that a wide gap exists between gerontological counselor educators and administrators of social service programs for the elderly in the priority they ascribe to the goals and roles of counselors of older persons. Social service program administrators, however, indicate that counseling can be readily incorporated into the aging services network as it presently exists.     

Training of poor readers' phonological decoding skills: Evidence for syllable-bound processing

A flash card computer program designed to increase decoding speed in reading was evaluated with a sample of 55 eight- to twelve-year-old Dutch poor readers by using a pretest-training-posttest control group design. The reading level of the poor readers was comparable to the reading level of normal readers in grade two. After 8 weeks of practicing (twice a week) for 30 minutes per session, children in the training group showed substantial improvements in decoding speed not only on pseudowords directly practiced during the training, but also in untrained pseudowords and in existing words. The no-training control group did not improve in decoding speed from pre- to posttest. The results, furthermore, indicate that syllable-bound processes play a role in phonological decoding in Dutch, and that the flash card method used in this study stimulates poor readers to decode letter strings into syllabic units, which leads to an increase in decoding speed. The role of the syllable in phonological decoding and the potential of a specific flash card technique as a means to improve decoding skills of poor readers are discussed.     

EFFECTS OF INCORPORATING HUMOR IN TEST ITEMS

Two matched forms of a 50 item multiple-choice grammar test were developed. Twenty items designed to be humorous were included in one form. Test forms were randomly assigned to 126 eighth graders who received the test plus alternate forms of a questionnaire. Inclusion of humorous items did not affect grammar scores on matched humorous/nonhumorous items nor on common post-treatment items, nor did inclusion affect results of anxiety measures. Students favored inclusion of humor on tests, judged effects of humor positively, and estimated humorous items to be easier. Humor did not lower performance but was sought by the students. Potential for more valid and humane measurement is discussed.