Biomedical subjects

Joseph M Strayhorn

Publications and source records attributed to Joseph M Strayhorn.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

A randomized trial of individual tutoring for elementary school children with reading and behavior difficulties.

Children in Grades K-5, selected for reading and behavior problems, received individual tutoring in a program which aimed to detail a hierarchy of reading skills, locate the point on the hierarchy at which each child should work, and provide enthusiastic social reinforcement for successes. Children were randomly assigned to higher or lower frequency tutoring (one 45-min. session every 1.6 days vs every 8.3 days). The higher frequency group progressed significantly faster in reading than the lower frequency group. Both groups progressed much faster during the time of the intervention than they had before tutoring. Before tutoring, both groups had progressed at about 0.5 grade per year; during tutoring, the higher frequency group progressed at 1.5 grade per year and the lower frequency group at 1.1 grade per year. The subsets of children with verbal ability scores one or two standard deviations below the population mean, as assessed on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, still progressed at average rates of 1.2 grade per year during tutoring. The amount of work students accomplished on a sounding and blending drill predicted reading progress. The intervention cost an average of 1,156 dollars per student per year.

Child↗

PubMed2002

Self-control: theory and research.

Theory and research on self-control were reviewed. Selected research is summarized along with some conclusions from clinical practice. Self-control difficulties are of central importance for many psychiatric disorders. Self-control is also a crucial, and often missing, ingredient for success in most treatment programs. It is stable enough to be considered an enduring trait or skill, but not immutable. Performance tests provide ingenious methods of measuring it, and they have some advantages over questionnaires. Biological research is under way: the prefrontal cortex is heavily involved; alcohol reduces self-control; serotonin may increase it. Self-control is correlated with, but not identical with, capacity for focused attention. Self-control is subject to "momentum effects": the more it is successfully practiced in a given arena, the easier subsequent practice usually becomes, and vice versa. Like a muscle, it appears to be fatigued in the short run and strengthened in the long run by exercise.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Self-control: toward systematic training programs.

Selected literature is reviewed regarding the question, How may children's self-control skills be developed or improved through training? It is premature to give up on psychosocial methods of training self-control. Self-control is fostered by being in a long-term positive relationship with a dependable person who communicates the value of this goal; working at self-control challenges carefully chosen to be at the correct level of difficulty for present skill; getting many positive models of the successful exercise of self-control; logging in many hours of practice where valued rewards are contingent upon greater and greater exercise of effort; learning that valued rewards can be obtained by effort, and thereby learning to enjoy effort; using fantasy rehearsal; learning compliance skills; learning verbal concepts (including a term for self-control itself) that affect the world view in ways conducive to this skill; learning the art of self-instruction; learning to remove oneself from tempting stimuli, physically and mentally; and learning self-monitoring.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Reduction in children's symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder during individual tutoring as compared with classroom instruction.

Children who display symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in classrooms are reputed to display fewer symptoms in one-on-one interaction. We tested this hypothesis with children who received tutoring for reading and behavior problems. We selected 30 children whose teacher-rated ADHD symptoms fit a pattern consistent with DSM criteria for the diagnosis. Teachers rated the frequency of symptoms in classrooms before and after tutoring. Tutors rated the frequency of the same behaviors during individual tutoring sessions. Children's ADHD symptoms, as well as oppositional symptoms, were significantly lower in the tutoring sessions than in the classrooms. The effect sizes for the difference between behavior in classrooms and in individual tutoring ranged from 0.7 to 2.5 standard deviations. These effect sizes appear as large as those reported for the effect of stimulant medication on ADHD symptoms. All 30 children at preintervention fit the pattern for ADHD using teachers' ratings of classroom behavior; 87% of them did not meet those DSM criteria using tutors' ratings of behavior in individual sessions. The confound of different raters for the two different settings must be resolved by another study with a new design.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗