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Biomedical subjects

C T Twentyman

Publications and source records attributed to C T Twentyman.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1984

Abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated children's conceptions of moral and social-conventional transgressions.

The effect of child maltreatment on children's social-cognitive development was examined by investigating abused, neglected, and nonmaltreated children's judgments regarding the permissibility of social-conventional and moral transgressions pertaining to physical harm, psychological distress, and the unfair distribution of resources. Abused and neglected children and a control group of nonmaltreated children matched on IQ, age, and social class judged the seriousness, deserved punishment, generalizability, and rule contingency of familiar transgressions for themselves and others. Abused subjects were more likely than neglected subjects to consider psychological distress to be universally wrong for others; neglected subjects were more likely than abused subjects to judge the unfair distribution of resources to be universally wrong for themselves. Abused and control children, but not neglected children, judged all transgressions to deserve more punishment when committed by others than when committed by the self. All children distinguished between morality and social convention and between different types of moral transgressions on all 4 criteria. Furthermore, all children were more egocentric in their judgments for the self than for others. These findings are discussed in relation to research on the effects of child maltreatment and on moral judgment.

Child↗
PubMed1984

A multimodal assessment of behavioral and cognitive deficits in abused and neglected preschoolers.

42 preschool children who had a previous history of physical abuse, serious neglect, or no prior history of child maltreatment participated in a multimodal assessment of cognitive and behavioral functioning. In addition to standardized tests of cognitive ability and behavioral observations in the classrooms, both the parents and teachers rated the children on several measures. Results show that the abused and neglected children had lower scores on all the measures of cognitive functioning when compared to the matched comparison children. The behavioral observation data from the classrooms, however, were more complex. That is, differences among groups depended on the type of behavior observed. Neglected children engaged in the least number of interactions with other children, and the abused children demonstrated the most aggression. Both parents and teachers rated the maltreated children as more aggressive, less mature, and less ready to learn. In summary, differences between abused, neglected, and comparison children were present on a number of measures, indicating that maltreated children display significant cognitive and social deficits.

Aggression↗
PubMed1982

A self-report measure of assertiveness in young adolescents.

Reported a self-report measure of adolescents' assertiveness. Items for this scale were presented to young adolescents (N = 78) and subsequently were subjected to a factor analysis that revealed factors of submissiveness, aggressiveness, and assertiveness. Teacher ratings and behavioral responses during a role-play test also were obtained and provide additional validational evidence in support of the scale. After the validational study, a small assertiveness training program was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of standard treatment procedures with this population. Results indicated that training effects were obtained and that the effects generalized to situations that had not been employed during training.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

Unrealistic expectations of parents who maltreat their children: an educational deficit that pertains to child development.

Forty-one parents estimated when their own child and an "average" child would attain a number of different developmental milestones. These milestones and the accompanying normative data were derived from the Vineland Social Maturity Scale (Doll, 1965). Parents were divided into three groups on the basis of a prior history of child abuse, child neglect, or no previous background of abuse or neglect. Results indicate that both the abuse and neglect groups differed from the comparison group when absolute difference scores from the normative data were analyzed. When directionality of scores were analyzed (i.e., too high or too low expectations for the child), no differences were found among the groups. Implications of an education deficit model of unrealistic parental expectations were discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

The utility of a measure of aggression in differentiating abusing parents from other parents who are experiencing familial disturbance.

Discussed the utility of a measure of aggression using the MMPI (N = 54). Although child abusers significantly differed from a distressed and socioeconomic-status matched group on this scale, a discriminative analysis on the scale failed to adequately differentiate the groups. Results are discussed in terms of the deficiencies in the current method of separating their groups and for constructing measures that are likely to differentiate aggressive from nonaggressive populations.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

Instructed heart rate control. Effects of varying feedback frequency and timing.

Forty subjects participated in an experiment designed to test the effects of different feedback displays on instructed heart rate speeding and slowing. One group of subjects received information about interpulse interval length every beat. This display included specific information about when systole occurred, in addition to information about performance relative to a criterion. Two other groups received similar information about performance, but their displays were not triggered by systole; rather, information about average interpulse interval was presented either every second or every 6 seconds. A fourth group of subjects participated in a perceptual motor task in which no instructions were given to control heart rate. Results indicated that the instructed subjects generated significantly greater heart rate speeding than slowing. Groups receiving feedback produced greater changes when compared to the control group only during the speeding sessions. No differences among feedback groups were present in the slowing task. During speeding, the 1-second group's performance deteriorated dramatically in the second session. The results suggested that, in the context of a feedback task, it is information about the occurrence of systole that facilitates heart rate speeding. Real-time displays are less facilitating of heart rate change and may disrupt speeding performance when information is presented at certain "critical" frequencies. Slowing performance was again shown to be unrelated to information frequency or reinforcement rate.

Biofeedback, Psychology↗
PubMed1979

Instructed heart rate control in a high heart rate population.

Forty college students were selected from a large number of introductory psychology students on the basis of high heart rate during an initial screening session. Subjects were then contacted and participated in two additional sessions during which heart rate, respiration rate, and skin conductance measures were obtained. Each session consisted of a baseline period followed by five trial periods during which subjects attempted to control their heart rate or performed a visual tracking task. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four groups. One group served as a control and monitored a visual feedback display driven by their own heart rate but received no instructions to decrease their heart rate. In contrast, the three heart rate control groups were instructed to decrease heart rate during the trial periods by utilizing a relaxation procedure, proportional biofeedback, or proportional biofeedback plus criterion information. No group differences were present during the baseline periods. During feedback trials, however, all the training groups differed from the control in heart rate but did not differ from each other. It is suggested that feedback displays may not facilitate heart rate reduction beyond the level achieved by instructing subjects to use a general relaxation procedure.

Attention↗
PubMed1979

Three experiments on the effects of information frequency and feedback timing on instructed heart rate speeding.

Three experiments are reported comparing different biofeedback displays in a heart rate speeding task. The first experiment examined the effects of heart rate feedback presented at three frequencies in a fixed-time format. Information was given at 0.5-sec, 2-sec and 8-sec intervals. Results indicated that both the 0.5-sec and 8-sec groups' speeding performances were superior to that of the 2-sec group. The second experiment compared a 1-sec fixed-time group with groups receiving displays in which feedback was presented synchronously with systole. Feedback was synchronized either with every heart beat or every tenth beat. The one-beat group was superior to both the 1-sec and 10-beat groups. Experiment III again presented displays which terminated with every beat or every tenth beat. However, in the previous experiment heart interval information was presented only briefly at the systole ending the sample period. In Experiment III, criterion terminations remained on the feedback screen throughout the subsequent interval. Thus, subjects did not have the additional task of attending to very briefly presented information. Nevertheless, speeding performances of the one-beat group were again superior to that attained by the 10-beat group. In all experiments a relationship between increased respiratory and skin conductance levels and heart rate speeding performances was found, suggesting that heart rate speeding was part of a generalized pattern of arousal. It was concluded that instructed heart rate speeding is highly sensitive to changes both in the frequency of feedback presentation, and to the type of display (fixed-time or heart-time) presented.

Arousal↗
PubMed1978

Modification of problem interation in mother-child dyads by modeling and behavior rehearsal.

Eighteen mother-child dyads who previously had reported difficulties in solving problems were assessed behaviorally in situations in which they attempted to resolve conflicts. Half the dyads then were given two treatment sessions that consisted of modeling and rehearsal designed to improve their skills in resolving problem situations. In the pretest assessment a number of significant correlations between mother and child responses were found. Notably, when mothers blamed or used direct arbitrary power with their children, the children in turn emitted oppositional behaviors, but when the mothers made tentative proposals, their children reciprocated with positive responses. In the posttest assessment, treatment mothers employed the expression of feelings to their children as a conflict resolution strategy significantly more often than did control mothers. There was also a tendency for the treatment children to acquiesce less to their mothers' demands than did control children in the problem situations.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Social skills training for the complex offender: employment seeking skills.

Compared 11 probationers with a history of psychiatric referral to a randomly selected group of unemployed persons from the State Unemployment Office in a number of job interview assessment situations. The probationers were rated as less skillful and also rated themselves as less likely to obtain employment than did the control Ss. After this pretest, the probationers were assigned to one of two treatment groups in which either monetary incentives for job interviews were provided or a skills training program was initiated. Posttest scores indicated that the skills program was most effective in changing behavioral and cognitive responses. These results generalized during the follow-up period; the skills training group obtained employment more frequently than did the incentive group. Implications for training critical skill deficits are discussed in terms of a response acquisition model.

Attitude↗