Four studies analyzing body-rocking in individuals with mental retardation found: (1) rocking chairs are not necessarily preferred and produce higher amplitude rocking; (2) body-rocking characteristics were stable over a 21-month period; (3) when compared with body-rocking college students, persons with mental retardation engage in more…

Three studies analyzed stimulus feedback and the concept of control with three children and two adults having autism. The first study explored feedback from spinning tops, while the second and third emphasized control of various stimuli including spinning tops. Results indicate that autistic individuals' common interest in spinning tops is…

Explores the role of biological causation in the development of behavioral outcomes. Genes and other biological structures constitute complex behavior, but the behavior of complex organisms cannot be derived from the biogenetic units of which it is composed. (SLD)

The facial stereotypies of adults diagnosed as having mental retardation and tardive dyskinesia were examined through a kinematic analysis of videotaped lip and tongue movements. The high degree of movement variability found suggests that low variability of discrete properties of movement kinematics may not be a defining feature of stereotypies.…

Studied leisure behavior patterns over 3 years during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood with data for 954 participants from the Michigan Study of Adolescent Life Transitions. Leisure pattern stability was the most common pathway into young adulthood. Discusses gender differences. (SLD)

Taking a meta-theoretical perspective, this article presents a critical analytical model through which human knowledge, existence, and behaviour can be understood. The article describes the meta-theoretical model and then explains how this model applies to the evolution of seminal family therapy theories.

In this article, the author describes three major temperament categories of infants and toddlers, and why each calls for particular insights and attention. For infants, the temperaments are cautious, fussy, and easygoing. For toddlers, the three most prevalent temperaments are fearful/shy, irritable/active/fussy, and easy. This paper also contains…

We discuss the relationship between sleep, dreams, and memory, proposing that the content of dreams reflects aspects of memory consolidation taking place during the different stages of sleep. Although we acknowledge the likely involvement of various neuromodulators in these phenomena, we focus on the hormone cortisol, which is known to exert…

Attempts to identify the root causes of individual stress have been made for centuries. The result has been the development of a myriad of approaches and explanations as to the cause of stress by psychologists, educators, researchers, and self-help authors. Each approach carries a degree of validity in the context that individuals experience…

This review critically examines the research findings which characterize the cognitive, behavioral, and neuroanatomical features of Williams syndrome (WS). This article analyzes 178 published studies in the WS literature covering the following areas: 1) General intelligence, 2) Language skills, 3) Visuospatial and face processing skills, 4)…

A key feature of autism is restricted repetitive behavior (RRB). Despite the significance of RRBs, little is known about their phenomenology, assessment, and treatment. The Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) is a recently-developed questionnaire that captures the breadth of RRB in autism. To validate the RBS-R in an independent sample, we…

Alice Miller's work provides a theoretical framework to assess the effects of child abuse and its relationship to the development of creativity, hatred, and violence in the novel "Ender's Game." Analysis focuses on the extent to which children are manipulated in order to meet the needs of adults, the presence of behaviors such as the repression of…

Psychopaths represent a significant management challenge in a prison population. A sample of ninety-five male inmates from three medium security prisons was tested using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). Using traditional criteria, 22% of the inmates were classified as psychopaths. Scores on the two factor dimensions of…

The relations of children's (n=214 at Time 1; M age=6 years at Time 1) dispositional sympathy to adult-reported and behavioral measures of effortful control (EC) and impulsivity were examined in a longitudinal study including five assessments, each two years apart. Especially for boys, relatively high levels of EC and growth in EC were related to…

A personalized school is one in which each individual person, whether student or teacher, matters a great deal and has a program that is good for him or her. Today, schools are faced with an equally large transition from arbitrary grouping patterns to personalized learning alternatives. Unfortunately, they are also currently blessed with policy…