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Biomedical subjects

M M Konstantareas

Publications and source records attributed to M M Konstantareas.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1987

Autistic children exposed to simultaneous communication training: a follow-up.

Fourteen originally mute, low-functioning autistic children, exposed to intensive simultaneous communication training, were followed up 1 to 4 years later. Psychometric testing, communication assessment, and teacher and parent interviews were employed. Results showed that at least half of the children who had become verbal by program termination remained verbal at follow-up. Higher-functioning and verbal children performed overall better than their lower-functioning and mute peers. Children exposed longer to the intensive program and those exposed to good schooling after termination fared better at follow-up, as did those whose parents were more involved in their training. Yet teachers and parents employed mainly speech rather than signs to communicate with these children, despite the children's difficulty with speech. Compared to the verbal children, who recalled signs and words equally well, the mute children recalled signs better than words. The findings are discussed for their relevance to choice of communication training with different subgroups of autistic children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Early developmental backgrounds of autistic and mentally retarded children. Future research directions.

A brief account of the main diagnostic distinctions between autism and mental retardation is provided, which serves as the basis for reviewing available evidence on possible commonalities and differences in the developmental backgrounds of these two groups of children. Systematic comparisons in the histories of the two groups have rarely been undertaken, yet they are crucial for understanding the agents and processes uniquely associated with the genesis of each condition. Specific suggestions are made on some fruitful avenues for such comparative research undertakings.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1985

Dominance hierarchies in normal and conduct-disordered children.

Two groups of conduct-disordered children in day treatment and two groups of normal matched controls were observed over eight sessions in a free-play situation. The purpose of the study was to examine whether disturbed children formed dominance hierarchies, and to compare the power relations among disturbed children to those of normal peers. Results indicated that the hospitalized children did form dominance hierarchies, although their hierarchies were not as stable as those of their normal peers. Moreover, an inverse relation was noted between intragroup conflict and the hierarchy's stability. In addition, the pattern of targeting differed between the normal and disturbed youngsters. Conflict among the children in both control groups tended to be concentrated among members of adjacent ranks. The disturbed children, on the other hand, were less discriminating as to their target's rank, exhibited greater intragroup conflict, and lost more frequently in their agonistic encounters.

Agonistic Behavior↗
PubMed1984

Sign language as a communication prosthesis with language-impaired children.

Many language-impaired children rely on telegraphic speech for expression. Functors such as prepositions and pronouns are mostly absent from their utterances. In an experimental analogue to clinical work, 14 3- to 11-year-old children with various levels of language impairment were exposed to drawings portraying a single scene. A meaningful sentence including either a pronoun or a preposition, which the children were not spontaneously using at pretesting, was associated with each drawing. Training the children to use the functors followed one of two approaches. The experimenter either vocalized the functor, or she vocalized and signed it. Results revealed that, for both functor acquisition and functor recall, speech and sign training was superior to speech training. Type of functor trained was also important, with prepositions faring better than pronouns. Reasons for this speech facilitation through signs, and issues related to implementation, are discussed.

Child↗
PubMed1984

Aggressive and prosocial behaviours before and after treatment in conduct-disordered children and in matched controls.

Aggressive and prosocial behaviours and responses to prosocial acts were examined in groups of conduct-disordered and normal children. The observations were repeated following therapeutic intervention. Before treatment, the clinic groups displayed greater levels of peer-directed aggression and responded inappropriately to social overtures. Following intervention, both clinic groups showed improved responsiveness to their peers' social overtures and the older clinic children reduced their aggression while the younger children did not. Independent evaluations of each child's medical file and case disposition revealed that the observational data served as a sensitive index of the status of the two clinic groups.

Aggression↗
PubMed1983

Effectiveness of cognitive mediation and behaviour modification with hospitalized hyperactives.

This study examined the efficacy of behaviour modification and cognitive mediation in treating two groups of hyperactive boys in day treatment. The study marks a departure from other research in two main areas: a) the severity of the children's symptomatology was such that it necessitated their removal from school; b) the interventions employed were intensive and of long duration (10 months), as opposed to the brief, short-term efforts commonly reported. Multiple outcome measures were employed to assess the effectiveness of each of the behavioural treatments. The children were administered a battery of tests shortly after their admission and again prior to discharge, 10 months later. Six main areas, considered relevant to the syndrome of hyperactivity, were tapped. These were: impulsivity, motor activity, sustained attention, self-concept, field-dependence/independence, and an overall hyperactivity rating independently assessed by a clinician. Results indicated that the two groups of children made comparable gains in each of the main areas studied. Moreover, the children of both groups were considered sufficiently improved by their clinical team to be discharged back to the regular school system.

Attention↗
PubMed1978

Condon's multiple-response phenomenon in severely dysfunctional children: an attempt at replication.

The present study was conducted in an attempt to replicate the findings of William Condon on multiple entrainment and dyssynchronous behavioral organization in autistic children. Three autistic and two normal children were filmed while being presented with five discrete auditory stimuli. Microkinesic analyses of the children's motor responses were performed in relation to three hypotheses designed to support the double-response and dyssynchrony effects. No firm evidence of multiple-responding to single sound was found for the autistic or normal children. There was some indication of dyssynchronous, or awkward, response organization for the autistic children, in comparison to the smooth-flowing body movements of the normal children.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1977

Simultaneous communication with autistic and other severely dysfunctional nonverbal children.

Despite its widespread application, the teaching of speech does not appear to be effective with all autistic and other severely dysfunctional, nonverbal children. A body of recent evidence points to the peculiarities in the information processing of these children and to the importance of gestures as aids or alternatives to speech. The present study reports on the use of simultaneous communication (gestures plus speech) with five such children. The fact that four of the five children showed marked gains in their ability to communicate over a 5-week period raises some theoretical and methodological issues pertinent to the treatment of autistic and autistic-like children and to our general understanding of the processes involved in nonverbal communication.

Autistic Disorder↗