The balance between the preservation of early cognitive functions and serious transformations on these functions shifts across time. Piaget's writings, which favored transformations, are being replaced by writings that emphasize continuities between select cognitive functions of infants and older children. The claim that young infants possess…

Background: The focus of this review is on methods that are currently being used to evaluate the behavioural effects of medication for individuals with intellectual disabilities. First we describe what has been identified as the ideal criteria for conducting clinical trials and how these criteria may be adapted to do less controlled evaluations.…

The 360[degree] evaluation process is a process that gathers feedback from each area of one's work life. Evaluations are done by one's superiors, colleagues, and direct reports. For a teacher, the list of contributors would include parents, coworkers, directors, consultants, board members, and other members of the school community. In other words,…

To date, research has not sufficiently addressed the impact of personnel preparation programs on secondary special educators in relationship to specialized competencies needed to impact students during transition from school to adult life. This study sought to evaluate transition competencies gained by secondary practitioners involved in a…

This article demonstrates the potential of using hierarchical Bayesian methods to relate models and data in the cognitive sciences. This is done using a worked example that considers an existing model of category representation, the Varying Abstraction Model (VAM), which attempts to infer the representations people use from their behavior in…

A primary criterion on which models of cognition are evaluated is their ability to fit empirical data. To understand the reason why a model yields a good or poor fit, it is necessary to determine the data-fitting potential (i.e., flexibility) of the model. In the first part of this article, methods for comparing models and studying their…

Generalized trust features as the most prominent attitudinal element of social capital, and as such the concept is widely used in comparative research. In this article we investigate the cross-cultural equivalence of the three-item scale on generalized trust that is included in the European Social Survey 2002 and 2004 waves. The use of metric…

A methodology is described that teaches science process by combining informal logic and a heuristic for rating factual reliability. This system facilitates student hypothesis formation, testing, and evaluation of results. After problem solving with this scheme, students are asked to examine and evaluate arguments for the underlying principles of…

The Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI) was developed to detect and monitor early signs of autism as they emerge in high-risk infants (all with an older sibling with an autistic spectrum disorder). Here we describe the scale and its development, and provide preliminary data on its reliability. Inter-rater reliability both for total scores…

Shneidman's Psychological Pain Assessment Scale (PPAS; 1999) was administered to 88 psychiatric patients. Both current and worst-ever psychache were significantly higher in those patients judged by a psychiatrist, on the basis of a structured clinical interview, to be at risk of suicide. However, current and worst-ever psychache were not…

College counseling professionals address a wide range of complex student mental health concerns. Among these, accurately identifying client presentations of dissociative identity disorder (DID) can be especially challenging because students with DID sometimes present as if they are experiencing another problem, such as a mood, anxiety, or…

A meta-analysis of the stability of low IQ (IQ less than 80) was performed on IQ tests that have been commonly used--tests that were derived by D. Wechsler (1949, 1955, 1974, 1981, 1991, 1997) and those based on the Binet scales (L. M. Terman, 1960; L. M. Terman & Merrill, 1972). Weighted-mean stability coefficients of 0.77 and 0.78 were found…

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the role of Na[superscript +]/K[superscript +] pump dysfunction in the development of diabetic neuropathy (DN). Nerve excitability techniques, which provide information about membrane potential and axonal ion channel function, were undertaken in 15 patients with established DN and in 10 patients with…

When expectations and stereotypes are activated at retrieval, they spontaneously create distorted and illusory recollections that are consistent with these expectations. Participants studied doctor (physician)-related and lawyer-related statements that were presented by 2 different people. When informed, on a subsequent source memory test, (i.e.,…

It is our belief that the story of how the composition faculty convinced administration to move from a rubric-based assessment model to a more qualitative model is both interesting and beneficial for others facing similar challenges. In the following five articles, Katie discusses how the experience of such assessment affected the faculty, Jeff…